In the beginning was the word, and from the word came all things. The word was breathed into the ether, and from that gentle spark, the beginning of all things-- movement and vivacity-- began from the source. The source watched and admired the creation, for it was good. But things would not always be such. Things would not always be good.

He had been there that first day. He had felt the breath of creation against his cheek, warming him, creating him. He could not compare existence to what came before, but when feeling was created, when all emotions and sensations began, he had felt that blessed pain, his nerves forming and dividing. He had been there that first day, and had surveyed all of creation, and it had been good. But there were others beside him that did not feel this way; there were others that looked upon all creation and cursed, spat upon it. These were the devils, the demons, the forgotten. They were the gods of ignorance, gods of impossibility, gods of manipulative power. And they had changed the first creation into something imperfect, incomplete-- not what it once was.

Watching the progress for thousands of years, he had been more and more disappointed. He had existed in the times of kings, in days when strangers were welcome in the house of another, where hospitality and friendliness were as valued as money and goods. But then the devils had whispered into the ears of the many, and a change had occured.

Now, he walked among crack addicts and prostitutes. The streets were his home, for he kept an eye on the darkness in the same way that one should always keep an eye on the corners that get dirty the fastest, in order to keep them clean. He had watched as his fellow angel became corrupted, fallen. He had watched as greed and hatred had killed good fighters, pure creatures that desired nothing but to see all of creation return to that purified day. That day many years ago.

They called him by many names. Some even pointed at him and screamed, "Lucifer in the flesh!" But the name that he liked best, the name that was given to him by a dying junkie in the backstreets, incidentally just a few blocks away from the largest mansion in the city, was Star.

"I don't know how you do it, Star," Beth had told him. She was barely conscious, her eyes a deep black socket in her head. Her actions still made him cry deep down, but he managed to supress his tears. "We are all screwed, ya know. We'll pollute ourselves, pollute this planet, until there is none of us left. And still you try so hard to save us."

Her eyes could not meet his. He wanted to look into those eyes, see through her, into her, but he could not. She had disconnected herself completely to everything good and could only embrace punishment and abuse-- the only two things she accepted while looking directly.

"And I don't know how you do it," he told her, frowning. "You are smart, strong... and yet you pump this crap into your veins until it will one day clog your heart, or open up the pathways to your brain so wide that everything you eat can go directly to it, rest there for awhile. Why do you hate yourself so much?"

"You sound like my father. You don't know what it feels like. It feels so... special."

Fighting harder to hold back a flood of tears, he touched her cheek. He bent over, kissed her forehead. "You are special, one in a million. But when you kill yourself you will fade into nothingness, mix with the dirt and decomposition of many people much less special than you, people who walk by you every day without looking, without feeling. People whose lives you could have had, houses you could have secured yourself in, had you just..."

She had begun crying. And as she did, he could hold back no longer. Tears began to fall from his face, dripping onto the ground and, for a moment as they splattered, causing a light so bright that for once, she looked directly at him. And in that look, she understood that her self-hatred was killing him. A stranger that she did not know very well, and she was killing him by killing herself. She silently wondered how many others she was killing by her actions-- her parents, her siblings...

And then the moment passed, as if it had been a dream. She could not remember what she was thinking, could not remember what had passed by, but she remembered the need for a fix, it was the usual time, the habit-time that people have when they accomplish atrocious acts not out of any animosity but merely out of unbreakable habit.

She filtered through her purse, a ratty thing that had once been her pride, and found it. He could not watch this act. A part of him wanted to destroy her needles, let them dillute into the pavement, but a part of him knew that she would fight him greatly for it, hate him even, and while that mattered little to him, what mattered more was the fact that she would no longer trust him, and without trust, he could no longer watch her.

He walked away, leaving her in the street with her drugs. He knew that she would die soon. He could feel it in the air around her, see it in the wind as it caught her hair. He understood hatred itself, because he cursed the man who constantly gave her those needles. He hated everyone involved in the creation of the drugs, and wanted to destroy them to protect her. But he knew in his heart that the destruction of others for the safety of another was something he could not condone.

There had to be another way. As he walked, he looked up into the sky and could see clouds begin to form. He knew what it meant. She had died and God was weeping for her death.

He had been there in the beginning. In the beginning there was purity, and shortly after it had failed. Soon afterwards, beings began to fight over the true definition of 'creator.' He had watched men kill each other without ever getting close-- if they had they would have known that a creator never wishes the destruction of the creation. He never wanted this corruption, this poison that filtered through everyone. It was a poison that was not divisible to the drugs, but a poison much deeper, a poison which was much harder to remove: the pain of disconnection. Good people, living without an ounce of support, have not much more chance than the spoiled brat rich kid who wants to have drugs not out of any hate but out of the need to own everything, including the cool drugs that the neighbors shoot up with when the weekend comes. Good people, without any sympathy, have as much chance as the man whose multi-million dollar business dropped to a supportable but measily sum, who dives out of the highest window he can find rather than live a simple, humble life.

He understood it all and yet could do nothing. He watched as the empire of self-hatred had been built in the name of many abstract ideas-- divinity, money, power. And yet, how could he be certain that he was allowing them their own choices unless he let them take on such projects? He had a hope that the projects would be abandoned once their emptiness was revealed, but still, revelation meant little to the creatures that he guarded, and abstract ideas had as much power over them as what God gave them as a path to Him, truths around the earth so obvious and undeniable that, with close observation, they could not help be found. The humans were not incapable in this regard, their science advancing in leaps and bounds, but at the same time, they grew very slowly in their philosophy, the root of their self-hatred. They cursed themselves for low bank accounts even if their minds and souls were rich and their lives full. They killed themselves over an inability to feel close to another, even though their minds and souls connected them to everyone around them.

He had lived many years amongst these people without ever being cursed. They had felt wanted and pure when he was around, and he had enjoyed spreading this love. Had they acted against him, chose to live a life without him, then he would have no choice but to leave. But they had never given him any attack, and he had never attacked them even when it would have been for their own good. Because he wanted them to be here as well.

"Hey, buddy?"

He recognized the sound of the voice. It was Patrick, a man he had worked with intimately to try and overcome his fixation on little children, among other vices. He had taken him to a hospital when a combination of his drug-use and an angry parent had him so close to death that the clouds already had begun to form.

"Hey, Star! Can you lend a dime or two? I need money."

Star looked at him coldly. He could see hatred in Patrick's eyes. He could feel the heat of anger and mistrust broiling and steaming out Patrick's eyes.

"You killed that little girl, didn't you?"

Patrick looked back and forth, scared. He laughed awkwardly and uncomfortable. "What are you talking about, man? I told you, I would never hurt her."

Star leaned forward, rested a hand on his shoulder. As he touched Patrick, he could see that he was telling the truth, to some degree. He had sold the child to a man who enjoyed killing, and who had paid a good price to do so. The man, Star could see, killed the girl with his bare hands before going home, washing the blood off his hands, changing into his suit, and kissing his wife. His wife had no idea that her husband was a monster. To her, he was just a business man who had given her a house and two beautiful cars, and a small child. To her, he was just a provider, something that fueled her along, someone who gave her the money she somehow felt she deserved by virtue of existing, even though she had done very little to deserve it. Had she known that he was a murderer...

Star removed his hand. He looked into Patrick's eyes as he began to cry. The image of that child, succumbing to the blade... blood splattering everywhere, her vocal cries for help as her life faded from her, the screams becoming more and more desperate... and over her dying body, Patrick, counting his money.

Patrick knew Star enough to know that the 'gig was up.' The look Star gave him, he felt, left him with no choice. Patrick took the knife out of his pocket faster than Star could defend himself against, though it mattered little. The blade penetrating his stomach was not the wound that killed him, for he had survived worse wounds. What killed him was the act of betrayal, the act that told him that he was not wanted, that he should 'mind his own business', or so Patrick said over the body as he spat.

A star shone brightly in the sky, an exploding sun many miles away caused by betrayal and an angry revolt against poison of any sort. The message went mostly unnoticed in the dark sky, though on the street, one girl looked up in a drugged daze, and, looking at the star, she found something that she recognized. She did not know why, but seeing that star made Beth cry uncontrollably for over an hour, her eyes clenched tightly and trying desperately not to see.