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[b][u][center]Heaven Damned 5

Cruelty

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

“Are you still trying to pick which one has to go?” Caine asked, leaning on the fence. “It’s going to take you all day if you keep thinking about it. Just pick one.”

“I know, I know, but…”

“Too many memories?”

“How did you know?”

“We’re twins. I know you better than you know yourself, ‘little’ brother.”

“Hey, we came out at the same time.”

“Heh, that’s not what mom tells me.”

Abel gave him a playful shove, and Caine shoved him back, just a little bit harder. The pair of black and white cats chuckled to themselves as Abel turned back to his flock of sheep and Caine went back to filling their troughs with water.

The pair of cats did this every day. Caine tended to the crops that grew on the far side of the family land, and Abel looked after the sheep that they used for food and clothing. The other children of Adam and Eve had spread further from the little valley that the four of them occupied, slowly building up other lands and melding with creatures that were rumored to live in the far lands, but for the four of them, this was home.

Caine leaned against the fence as he emptied his bucket into the trough, looking to the sky. He remembered the stories that their mother and father had told them of an ancient garden and a beautiful tree, of a land where they had lived in plenty for a time, though under prices that the older felines were never quite willing to divulge. He sometimes wondered just what they had gone through and what they had paid for that land of plenty, but when he saw the shadows that covered their muzzles and eyes, he knew better than to ask.

He turned back to his brother. Dressed in a ragged brown robe, his twin brother wandered between the various sheep that he had raised from birth. The shepherd had worked the flocks since he had been old enough to carry a proper crook, and Adam had been more than willing to take on the help when Abel had the strength to keep track of all the animals. Half the flock had been born after him, and those that had been born before him hadn’t that many years on the other cat.

And with the impending sacrifice…

Caine shook his head. He was just glad that he didn’t have to deal with the same decisions as his brother. His sacrifice had already been picked out. Tilling the land as he did, Caine didn’t have the same attachment to what he grew. It was more key to their diet, and more of what kept them alive during some of the leaner months, but it was harder to have love for plants than it was to have love for living beings.

“It’s going to be fine,” he said.

“How do you know?” Abel asked. “I mean, I know it will be – mom and dad wouldn’t be telling us to make this sacrifice if it was bad – but how do you know?”

“Because it’s you.”

“Oh? Do you think God will like me?”

“You’re impossible to dislike, Abel. I mean, you’re the sweetest man in the valley. The only reason mom hasn’t married you off to someone is because she can’t find anyone here.”

Abel’s smile was as bright and gentle as one could imagine, and it was enough to make Caine smile back.

“You’re right.” Abel nodded. “It’ll be alright. God asks for a sacrifice, we give him one. He’ll love us.”

[i]He’ll love you, at least,[/i] Caine thought. [i]And that’s enough, isn’t it?[/i]

Everyone loved Abel. Their mother and father gave them both quite a bit of affection, of course, but there was a certain truth that Abel got a little bit more. Despite being twins, Abel was the younger of the two of them by a few minutes, and that meant that he got a little more special treatment. A few more bits of meat at the table, some slightly finer bits of cloth when they had it, the color dyes applied to his robes –

But that was fine. Really, it was fine.

Caine worked hard, and he knew that his work kept the food on the table during the long winter months. Some of the meat did, too, but the root vegetables that he grew lasted long through the winter, and so did most of the other greens that he grew. They lived through the winters because of him, and he took what praise he could get during those times as a result.

He didn’t need the extra stuff. He really didn’t. And Abel’s smile when he got those treats was…

Well, it was worth it.

Abel knelt by one of the lambs, and Caine deliberately forced himself not to watch. If his brother thought that he was getting judged, he’d second-guess himself and they’d be there all day.

Instead, he looked out towards the horizon again, wondering what was out there past the valley that they’d taken for their own. Some of their other siblings had left long ago, heading off to the wilds, and others had spread out towards the rumored cities that had started forming in the lands that only stories told about. Traders occasionally visited their valley from such far-off places, so he knew that they existed, but what they were like escaped him. Their mother and father had never traveled far from the old garden that they mentioned, so they were no help in expanding his horizons, but that didn’t mean that his curiosity wasn’t there.

He leaned back against the fence as his eyes followed the great river to the gap in the valley, towards the great emptiness that promised adventure and possibilities beyond imagination. His tail twitched back and forth behind him, flicking against the wooden slats on the fence, and he sighed.

“Do you think…the rumors are true?” he asked.

“What rumors?”

“The ones about the monsters.”

“Oh, no way. God takes care of those,” Abel said.

“Yeah…That’s what they say, at least.”

“Oh, he does. He told mom and dad, remember? I have all the faith in him. We’ll never have to deal with that.”

Caine wasn’t so sure. The few times that he had gone to the edge of the valley to treat with some of the traders privately for special seeds, he’d seen shadows on the edge of their land. Things that moved in fire and darkness, things that rode the winds and moved with speed impossible for cat-kind. They were not necessarily the great monsters that he remembered God talking to their mother and father about, but they were…something else.

And something powerful, too. There had been one time that a merchant had come under attack by other, more desperate people, and would have died were it not for his companion. A creature of red skin and ragged wings had leaped forth, tearing the attackers to meaty shreds in little more than a few seconds. Blood and flesh alike had fallen to the ground, and the strange creature had disappeared as soon as it had appeared. The trader had given him a clear, if silent, command to keep his mouth shut about it, too.

Ever since, he’d considered the monsters, and he’d wondered just what God would do with such things. Certainly, the taller cat never seemed that bothered about what they did in the valley, nor did he seem to do much to help them during the harder times. And the many sacrifices –

Caine stopped that thought in its tracks. He knew better than to doubt that God had power. They had seen it before. The great tiger regularly brought gifts with him, though his moods were…odd. Quite often kind and generous, but if there were any mistakes at the dinner table or any departure from how he wanted the land tended, there was always a fearful glint in his eyes, something that almost looked like the monsters themselves.

“Caine?”

“Hmm?” He blinked, looking back. “What – oh, you picked one?”

“Yeah. I think…I think she’ll be okay.”

One look told him why Abel had picked the beast he had. The ewe in question was quite past her prime, and her wool was slightly patchy compared to some of the others. She was probably getting close to the end of her life, and a sacrifice to God was a better death than going down the road of sickness or worse.

“Alright. Let’s get her back to the house, and over to the altar.”

“Mmm. Can you help me carry her?”

“Sure.”

Caine helped shoulder the back-half of the ewe, and the brothers left the rest of the herd in the paddock. As they walked along the rolling hills, Caine nodded toward the edge of the valley again.

“Do you think you’d ever leave this place? See what else God made?”

“Why?” Abel cocked his head to the side. “We’ve got everything that we need right here. And mom and dad need the help. What’s out there that we don’t have right here?”

“Well…”

His thoughts about the trader and his ‘protector’ faded as Abel looked back with such innocence and curiosity in his eyes. Caine couldn’t bring himself to voice his doubts to his twin brother, not with the sacrifice so close and Abel already being a bit anxious about it. The last thing that his brother needed was something ‘treacherous’ on his mind when he was meeting with God. [i]That[/i] would give his brother far more trouble than he needed.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“Caine?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for helping me. It’s just…well, you know, it’s hard to pick something to give up when –”

“When you’re too soft-hearted for your own good and love everything so much?”

“Come on. I’m not [i]that[/i] bad.”

“Abel, you sat with one of the lambs three nights running because it was [i]lonely.[/i] Not sick, not dying, not hurt, but lonely. Even mom doesn’t do something like that.”

“…It was scared.”

“I know. And you’re adorable for caring that much, but it does make you one hell of a softie,” Caine said, shaking his head.

Abel blushed, but didn’t argue. Caine knew that the whole process of the sacrifice was meant to show that they understood where they were in the grand scheme of things, and that they understood that God was above them and deserved their love and loyalty, but he also knew that it would be harder for Abel than for the rest of them to show that love.

After all, their mother and father had lived with God for a while, knew him and understood him on a level that neither of the brothers did. There were days when God visited and their parents spoke privately to him, and it must have been hard for them because of the long silence afterward, but they certainly knew God in a way that he and Abel did not. More than that, though, their mother and father didn’t have the same sort of attachments outside the house that he and Abel did.

And Abel was the most openhearted man that Caine had ever found. His brother had such free-flowing love that he gave it to anyone and anything. The animals were all enamored of him, even the wild ones in the far reaches of the valley. The wild wolves came to him to be stroked and petted like the hounds of the merchants, and the birds came down to speak to him rather than fly overhead with fierce screeches. What love Abel gave, the cat got back in spades from everyone that he encountered.

Caine had his own gifts. He was good with the earth, and he gave it the love that he could. Attention and discipline stirred the crops from the ground, but they never loved him. They just…did what they were told.

[i]Heh. I’d be jealous of him if he wasn’t such a soft heart,[/i] Caine thought, shaking his head. [i]Anyone could take advantage of him and he wouldn’t even know it.[/i]

They reached the house. Their mother and father were waiting outside, with the former sitting down and nursing a new child and their father leaning against the side of the house. Adam looked tired, as he frequently did these days, but he smiled nonetheless at their approach.

“Heading to the altar?” the older, graying cat asked.

“Yeah. Just have to say goodbye to her first,” Abel said. “I…I hope that it’s good enough for God. Do you think she will be?”

“God respects the gift of love.”

Caine arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. They had had long talks before about the nature of God’s demands and sacrifices, but this was not the time. Not when Abel was already on-edge.

His twin brother hefted the ewe on his own, nodding his thanks before heading around the small stacked-stone house. Caine watched him go, waiting for him to be completely out of earshot before turning to his family again.

“Do you think that this is…”

“Don’t start, Caine,” Eve said, shaking her head. “This is the way that it has to be. God demands it, and we follow him. The last time that we disobeyed…”

There was that shadow again. Every time he saw it, he doubted the love of God. If his mother and father were that scared from what had happened with just one mistake, was that really love? Or was that something else?

He leaned against the house with his father, looking toward the edge of the valley again. It must have put something on his face, because the older cat nudged him.

“You don’t want to let him see that when you make your sacrifice,” Adam said.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t look happy. God wants you to love him. If you can’t…”

“He’ll be happy from Abel. Everyone loves him,” Caine said, shaking his head. “And besides, I’m not going to be thinking about this when I talk to God. I’m just…thinking about things out there.”

“Like what?”

“Like…like what it’s like for the people that don’t know God. What do they do?”

“Die, probably,” his mother said, Eve shaking her head as she cuddled her newest baby to her breast. “He keeps us safe here.”

“Then how does everyone else stay alive?”

“By breaking his rules.”

“So why doesn’t he punish them?”

“We don’t ask those questions, son,” Adam said, shaking his head. “And you’d be better off putting those questions out of your head before God hears you asking them. He’ll be here soon enough once Abel puts the lamb to the altar.”

Once again, silenced. Caine understood why – or thought he did, at least – but every time that he had his questions silenced, he felt his faith in God shake that little bit more. His family [i]was[/i] supposedly safer here in the valley than they were anywhere else, and the tiger did bring them great gifts. Seeds and fruits, creatures of the air and earth that would be both guardian and companion, cloth and garments, and not once had they been sick since coming to the valley. He knew all that for a fact, and he knew that his mother and father credited God for those things.

And yet, what else did they get? What was the price that they paid for this sort of protection?

There were days where he wondered if that shadow was worth it. The palpable fear that descended on his parents as the altar smoke began to fill the air was so strong that he could almost taste it.

And they knew how loveable Abel was. They knew that he gave so much to God, had so much faith in him. Were they that sure that something would go wrong?

[i]Maybe the monsters might be better,[/i] he thought, looking back out to the edge of the valley. [i]No more protection to this degree, but at least the price wouldn’t be quite so high…and at least they’d be able to keep me alive without me worrying that they’d change their minds with one little mistake.[/i]

He shook his head. Better to put that question out of his mind, as his father said. It would be his turn to make a sacrifice later, and –

“AAAAAGH!”

All three cats leaped at Abel’s pained cry. Eve turned to the house, opening the door, and his father grabbed for him. Caine was too fast, leaping around the older cat’s outstretched hand and darting around the house. The world blurred around him, all his thoughts dedicated only to his brother’s cry of anguish.

As he rounded the house, he found the altar in the back. The great stone pile was still burning, still covered in holy fire, and the skeleton of the ewe had been all but consumed. His brother had fallen, screaming, his fists beating the ground as he emptied his lungs.

“Abel. Abel!”

Caine fell to his knees at his brother’s side, turning him around. His twin screeched like the birds at the slightest touch, pulling himself into a tighter and tighter ball. His muzzle was caked in drool and tears, his breath coming in the most ragged of gasps, and he could barely hold himself together. His eyes were blurry, and he could barely seem to see.

“Abel. Abel, it’s me. It’s Caine. It’s Caine. I’m here.”

He pulled his brother to his lap, letting Abel rest there. It provided no clear comfort, but his brother grabbed him, desperately holding his arms and whimpering against him. Each gasp of breath reminded him of the time that Abel had fallen, breaking his leg when they were little kittens. The sharp sounds of pain were so much worse this time, though, and yet, there was no sign of injury.

As Abel whimpered and wheezed, Caine held him as gently as he could. No sign of their parents, no sign of any of their younger siblings that were waiting in the house. Nobody came. Nobody would. They were too afraid of God.

Caine held his brother close, leaning down. He could feel Abel trying to talk, only to break down in another whining squeal of agony. His brother couldn’t seem to stop shaking, the constant, wracking pain echoing through him from head to toe and back again.

“I’m here. I’m here.”

“It won’t…it won’t…stop…”

“What happened?”

“God…God…hated me…”

“How?” he whispered. “Nobody hates you.”

Abel couldn’t answer. Not immediately, anyway. His brother screamed again, pulling into an even tighter little ball of fur and flesh. His tail was pulled down between his legs and every muscle was as tense and tight as it could be.

For the first time in his life, Caine felt helpless. No matter what he did, he couldn’t soothe Abel’s pain. This was something that went deeper than a wound, deeper than any injury that either of them had seen with the traders or had experienced in their lives. This…this was like some sort of foul curse that had settled deep in Abel’s bones, burning through him.

“He…”

Abel kept trying to talk. The poor fool. He needed rest, or – or water, or something. Anything that would –

“He said…n-not enough…wanted…wanted better…sacrifice.”

“What could he have wanted from you?”

“More…more love…show him…I – I loved him more…than…than…”

“More than – Abel, Abel, hold on. Hold on.”

His brother almost slid off his lap, and he barely managed to keep the other cat from sliding away completely. He sunk his fingers through his brother’s fur, pulling him up, resting him against his chest. Abel couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop screaming until his air was gone. The moment that he managed to catch his breath, the screaming started again, louder, shriller until it was gone once more.

[i]This is what a loving God does?[/i] Caine thought. [i]This is wrong. This is torture![/i]

He held his brother, shaking his head, trying to think of anything that he could do to take away even a bit of the pain. What was there to do, though? When God laid his hand on someone –

“I’m not good enough…not good enough…”

“No, no. No. You’re good. You’re the best,” Caine whispered, shaking his head. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Hurts…hurts so bad…”

“I know. I know. Just…just hold on. Just a bit longer. We’ll figure something out.”

“Nnnngh…”

His brother shouldn’t have been conscious, but he was. The constant flow of tears and snot and worse soaked Caine’s robe, but he didn’t pull back, nor did he lean away. He just kept looking around. His parents, his siblings –

None of them showed their faces. The punishment of God was upon Abel, and that was all that mattered to them. They couldn’t stand to see it, he realized, and so they looked away rather than feel tempted to do something that they shouldn’t.

“Abel. Abel,” he said. “Can you – can you hear me?”

“Nnngh…too much…hurt…hurt…nnngh…”

“Abel, what can I do?”

“Nnngh…”

Another twist, another spasm. His brother was trying to break himself in half from all the muscle spasms, and every time he felt them tighten more beneath the other cat’s skin, he feared that they’d snap and leave him paralyzed. He kept pulling him back, hugging him closer, but even that seemed to give more pain.

“Abel. Please. Tell me what you need.”

“Make it stop, make it stop, stop – STOP!”

As his brother’s screams set the sheep to baaing in the distance, a realization descended on him. Caine looked at his brother’s face, at his glazed eyes, and knew that this would never stop. Nothing would bring an end to this pain except for one thing, and it would be the thing that nobody else would do.

He looked at the pyre before him. The skeleton of the ewe had been burned to ashes already, and the holy fire was fading. If God had made this decision, then God was still there, still watching what was happening. And God had decided that pain was better than anything else for his brother.

Caine gripped Abel’s arms all the tighter, hugging him as close as he could.

“Do you want me…to stop it?” he whispered.

“Please, please, please-please-please!”

There was no sense, no understanding of anything but pain in his brother’s voice anymore. The loving nature of his twin was gone. The happiness, the innocence, the kindness had been stripped from him and replaced with nothing but agony.

Unfairly.

Wrongly.

It was the worst decision that any brother should ever have to make for their sibling, but it was the only one left to him. Caine lifted his brother, carrying him as best he could as Abel kept twitching and writhing in pain, and carried him to the side of the house. Abel strained against him, the other cat trying to hold him and trying to push him away at the same time. It was nothing but pain for the both of them, and Caine held back the tears that were already forming in his eyes.

But it was the only choice. If the crops came up wrong, twisted with parasites, then you could not save them. If the pests got in at the wrong time, then there was only one choice. You uprooted them, you took care of the problem, and kept it from suffering and getting worse. He’d done it for the crops, he’d done it for sheep that Abel couldn’t bring himself to touch…

And now, he would do it for his brother.

He looked Abel in the eyes. A teary face looked back at him, lips worked raw from biting down and trying not to scream. He kissed his brother on the forehead, and whispered his goodbyes.

And then, he dashed Abel’s head against the stones of the house. The jagged sides that stuck out of the clumsily-made building were long and sharp enough to do the job quickly. His brother’s head was caved in, his throat was cut, and he died in seconds. His body went still, the spasms of pain that had wracked it fading.

As for Caine, he fell to his knees, holding his brother’s bleeding, cooling body with tears running down his cheeks. He sobbed, his entire body shaking, and he whispered.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“Apologies do not suffice for this, Caine.”

He knew that voice. The surviving twin slowly looked over his shoulder. A tiger in white clothes that glowed brighter than the noon-time sun stood behind him, the light coming off the feline eclipsing the altar behind them. Caine shook his head, looking down at his brother again.

“You hurt him.”

“I punished him. And you decided to interrupt that punishment.”

“You think that was justified?”

“The point of the sacrifice is to show me that you prioritize me above all else, that you understand that your love and devotion to me must be stronger, more important than anything else in your life. If he had understood that, his sacrifice would have been the most well-loved sheep of his flock. Or more than one, if he could not choose. Not the one that was closest to death.”

“So you decided to torture him?”

“It was his lesson to learn. And you cut it short,” God said, shaking his head. “I was looking forward to seeing how long it took him to learn that lesson. Perhaps it would have taken less than a year.”

A year in that sort of perpetual torment would have killed his brother…except, perhaps it wouldn’t have. God would have kept it going, kept his brother from dying easily. It would have been eternal madness, hell on earth.

Caine shook his head. He hugged his brother’s body –

“You are no longer welcome here.”

“…What?”

“You are banished from the valley, and more, I curse you for what you’ve done to your brother.”

“…You…curse me…”

It was impossible for him to hide his anger as he stood up, letting Abel’s body fall to the earth. The cooling cat was gone, but he was filled with rage. He rounded on God, glaring up at him. The tiger might have stood a head and more taller than him, but there was no fear left in the furious feline. He jabbed a finger against God’s chest, growling in his throat.

“You cursed him! My brother! The best thing in my life, my little brother, is gone because [i]you[/i] thought he didn’t love you enough! He never hated you! He never questioned you, never wondered, never thought about anything but how to love you more! And that wasn’t enough for you? You –”

“Silence!”

Caine’s jaws slammed shut on their own, unable to move as God glared down at him. The tiger’s stripes gleamed with a golden light, turning from black to yellow and then to a hot white that nearly blinded him.

“I will not be questioned. I laid down my punishment, and you decided you knew better than me. For that, and for murdering your brother, I lay a new punishment on you.

“On you, Caine, I lay Doom. From this day forth, chance will turn its face from you. Luck will veer away. Everything that can go wrong for you shall do. If you think you are so clever, if you think that you understand things so much better than me, then this is your chance to prove it.”

And as God spoke, his light reached out, and it touched the white spots of Caine’s fur. With every flicker of light, the white patches disappeared, fading into blackness, and little by little, the white-and-black cat became nothing more than a patch of darkness, his fur darker than the deepest shadows on a night without a moon.

And then, God was gone, with Caine left alone with his dead brother. He stared at the altar as it finally burned out, and he screamed to the heavens.

#

Years passed, and the curse came true.

That same day, his father died when Caine was cooking dinner. He turned in place, and the knife in his hand cut Adam as he was passing by. The older cat fell to the ground, bleeding out before he could be saved.

Caine left, his mother driving him away, and he traveled the lands. He saw things, learned things, met with other cats and – more than that – the demons that he had seen. The oldest, most ragged of them remembered a time before this and had stories that he never understood, not completely, but he remembered them and made a promise to pass them on, so that there would always be a tale of the ‘Hell that Was’ and the world that used to be.

Luck, as God promised, veered away from him. No good things came to him without fighting for it, and even the hardest-won victories came with a cost. He lost his tail in an avalanche that he barely survived. He caught nameless diseases that cost him an eye and a finger. He never had money for longer than a few days before some thief got lucky and stole it from him before he noticed.

His life, such as it was away from his family, was nothing more than torment for every year that he managed to hang on. At first, it was out of hope, then out of spite, and then out of sheer fear of what would happen when he finally gave up and God got his soul to toy with for the rest of eternity.

There were some few fleeting victories. For a time, he had some happiness. He had a family, a wife and a son. Yet, even that was barely a victory; they lived a starving life, and she eventually passed before him, having deprived herself of the few bits of food that he had been able to get so that their child – a cat as black-furred as him – might live. And his son, too, was taken from him, kidnapped in the night while he was hunting for more food when the little one was no more than six.

For the rest of his life, he was alone. And alone he remained, not wanting to inflict the curse on anyone else.

And when the day came for him to die, when he could no longer lift his head from the rock that served as his pillow, he stared into an empty future and wondered if the curse would die with him, or if God had been even more vindictive than Caine had realized. His son had been the only other cat of pure black that he had seen in his life, and if it was not just chance, but something worse…

“Live…” he whispered as his heart began to fail him. “Live…and fight…and never submit…”

His breath turned from a wheeze to a rattle. Caine clenched his fist, glaring up at the ceiling of his little hut. It was nothing, nothing even close to the house that he had shared with his family so long ago, but it was his. Scraped, stolen, forced upright against the world, a shoddy defiance against a curse, but it was his, nonetheless.

“Live…and fight…and never…give in…”

Thus spoke Caine as he died, and said no more.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Caine and Abel get their part, and the curse of Doom is brought into play.

Tags: No Sex, Death, Murder, Cat, God, Tiger, Caine, Abel, Adam, Eve, Family, Curse, Pain, Torture, Series,