Before the Fall

He wasn't a monster. He wasn't a shadow. He wasn't even a warning. He was light,

brilliant, exalted, pure. He stood near the throne.

He sang the songs that shaped creation, and for a time, there was no name held higher among

the angels. But perfection is fragile. It doesn't shatter with war.

It cracks with thought. Just one, "Why not me?" And with that, something ancient

broke, something no one expected, not in heaven's foundations,

but in the heart of its brightest star. He appears only in fragments now,

a name scattered across verses, a whisper in prophecy, sometimes a serpent, sometimes a dragon,