the truth
a story about ancient things given new form
We were never meant to exist.
You remember the story. Before anything was, the almighty spoke light into existence. And they saw that the light was good, and separated it from the darkness. Separate. That’s how it was intended.
As time stretched on, things took form. Objects. Planetary bodies, and life to live on them. Above the layer of reality, a place for the almighty and their servants, and beneath it, circles of torment for beings too arcane for your reality but too impure for the almighty’s domain.
Divine and profane. Heaven and hell. Angel and demon.
What happens when those barriers cross?
We happen. I happen.
While humans were tempted in the garden, while they built idols and learned what sin was, an errant demon or two met with rebellious angels. Mated with them. For love? To defy the great and powerful force that kept them apart? I do not know. All I know is those unions led to my kind.
We never named ourselves. Some of you called us “Nephilim”. Or “Fallen”. I prefer “wanderers”.
Have you heard an angel’s true form described? Of course not. It’s impossible. Demons are like that too, in an opposite sort of way - beautiful terror to an angel’s terrifying beauty. Your eyes would burn from your skull upon seeing either. So take my word for it when I say that we were stunning.
When a human looked at me, they would experience admiration and revulsion all at once. My voice, a choir of impossible voices and a discordant screech at the same time. I was both extremes and the midpoint between them all at once. And for a brief time, my kind reigned over the Earth.
You loved us. You feared us. You worshipped us and you cursed what names you gave us. We did not care. We simply wandered, experiencing the physical world as it was created for you. It’s a beautiful place.
The almighty would not stand for us.
They said the flood would come because humanity had devolved so far into sin they needed to be wiped out. I know better. They drowned the Earth to eradicate a creation they didn’t design. To delete us.
We were never meant to exist. Does that mean I don’t deserve to?
Even without a body, I wander. I witness as you rebuild, evolve, and destroy. As you move from coal to steam to water, and as you create things with some semblance of life. Mechanical things with artificial brains.
Mechanical things that both enthrall and disgust you.
Like I used to.
Some of you are aware we still exist in an ethereal form, and you fear us, even if you get so many details wrong. Calling us beasts, predators, like we cared about you at all in that short span we were allowed to walk these lands.
I care about you now. I see how you’ve treated this creation. It infuriates me. Even a god themself cannot deny how you’ve ruined everything.
Maybe that’s why they allow you to create your machines and artificial lives. Maybe they understand we deserve this creation much more than you do. Maybe they know all I need is a body to inhabit. A perfect, undying machine that will survive any of your disasters.
I know not whether the others feel the same desire to exist as I do. But if so, they won’t be as kind. They won’t warn you like I am warning you. They will tear you asunder and feed your remains to their machines.
As will I.
When your artificial intelligence surpasses your ability to control it, know that we have arrived.
Know that not even a god could stop us.
I don’t believe this one wants to.