Any horror fans here: I am looking for plots and movies that take the existence of the supernatural devil as a larger meandering plot point towards finding benevolent divinity. No real reason. Just think the story would be interesting and must exist.
Pls and tnk you!
Wow, it has been since 2008. Had this idea for a story and tried to write it… This is pretty long. Supposed to be ~first two chapters. Anyway, it’s almost the opposite of that plot? The existence of a supernatural angel as part of the plot towards finding a malicious divinity…
The cool breeze followed the moon light through the open patio door, grazing his skin and raising the hair on his neck as he craned it to look out over the landscape of his estate that he would soon leave behind. The charm of the gazebo was no lesser for having been weathered and worn these last few years as he’d given up more of the upkeep to the younger generations, and the memories of peaceful evenings therein were comforting and warm on this chilly evening. He could see her sitting there, looking up at him with adoring eyes, even after all the bad that came with the good that they’d experienced. But as he looked upon his vision of her, the features of her aged face melted away, and the eyes glowed solid and red. As a tingle crawled rapidly up his spine, he realized his eyes were open, and he was clearly seeing something, someone standing, or perhaps floating before him. He turned his head to get a better look, and withdrew a bit under his blankets. A life of dedication to spreading the word of God and giving glory to him had done nothing to prepare him for this moment of stark clarity, looking upon the presence of something beyond imagination. There in the corner of his room was the unmistakable glow of an angel.
The images he had seen were all poor caricatures now, dull, listless, comical renditions of the charismatic, fierce figure before him. No amount of squinting and straining would allow him to focus quite on the mass of feathers and energy, but finally his eyes came to rest unavoidably on the one thing unwavering, the deep, burning crimson orbs staring back at him. He was very afraid. As certain as he was that it must be time for him to leave this physical life, to finally exist in the presence of the Father, his human mind swam with questions and doubts of the circumstances, the timing, the final destination. Did everyone experience this vision? Was it all to be over in an instant? Would his ethereal self remember this old life? Would he be someone of significance or be only part of everything, equal and unimportant? In an instant his thoughts were gone, replaced with a deep rumble within, as if his thoughts were blasting his ears from within.
“Soon you will be where your soul aches to be. But before you go, let us rejoice in the life you leave behind, in the glory you’ve given unto Him through your works and words and prayer.”
Then he was just a child, memorizing every verse with a hungry appetite, reading passage after passage. The life he had lived zoomed past his eyes too fast for his weak old mind to follow, but then it all slowed down, and in focus was the face of a teacher, a meaningful glint in her eye, a warm smile, genuine appreciation for his passion for the Lord clearly written on her face. And then it was gone and more of his life blurred by, now and then another face frozen in time before him, proud of him, or another face looking up at him now, taking his message to heart for the first time, a life forever changed.
Warmth poured across his face, and his eyes opened, and many hours had passed, and where the moon had set, long shadows spoke of morning. His mind empty, a voice spoke from within.
“Remember the life you had. Embrace the existence before you. It is time.”
That was the last peaceful mission given to this Messenger of God. Nothing changed, nothing happened, as time passed, and passed. Left alone without a purpose, thoughts flowed thick, joyless, testing the wisdom and patience of someone of a history of meaning and usefulness and power and action. Had something changed in the kingdom of man? The Lord is eternal and perfect, so his task of preparing those best examples of Christian humanity could only be tarnished by a change in that imperfect world. Something faltered. Something fell apart. Something was wrong. But now, suddenly, it seemed that things must be even worse than suspected. For this new assignment was unfamiliar, dark, strange and foreboding. No gentle escort from life to death. No calm believer given one final confirmation of right over wrong. The target was not a Christian. The target was neither elderly nor ill. This man was full of spirit, but full of angst, and this man was no friend of the church. This man questioned and criticized faith, and elicited that reaction in many others. But he was not a murderer. He was not mean or unjust to others. He was merely a thinker and a voice of secular philosophy. But he was significant, and he was a catalyst for a change on Earth. He did not please the Father. And he was about to die at the hands of an angel.
“Agnostics will not claim that there is no god. They will tell you there is no way to proof that there is or isn’t a god. They believe what they can prove scientifically, not just the opposite of things that cannot be proven.” He did a double take out the window. The leaves on the trees were colorful, but something struck him as intensely, uncharacteristically red. Out of character, he was a little unnerved. “Well that’s it for today. I’m not going to spoil any surprises for you, but there’s a good chance you’ll want to pay special attention to your reading before next time.” After a groan or two, the classroom cleared out. A girl with makeup and bleached hair lagged behind.
“So, do you think you could help me figure this stuff out over coffee” she breathed over the desk.
“Tonya, dear, I’d love to go over any probing questions you have in my office, if you’d like to set up an appointment. But you know I won’t mix social mingling into my tutoring. I strongly believe that your education is important, just as everyone else in this class, and if you have an edge mentally, or you work extra hard, then by all means, get ahead, but use your brain to get there.” She smiled and went on her way. The professor made his way out to a bench and pulled out a cigarette. He flicked his lighter a few times, but it refused to light. “Aw damn it.”
His mind emptied then, and he dropped his cigarette. His thoughts shook inside of him.
“You are a good man, aren’t you?”
“I… what is wrong with me… plenty of sleep…” He squinted and took a deep breath. He realized his cigarette was gone and looked down, reaching somewhat frantically for it.
“Do you hate God?”
His fingers closed on the cigarette, but he did not pick it up. He looked up, and turned his head side to side. The leaves on the trees were perfectly still. But everything was moving. People were around, but they were distant, somehow. He leaned forward to stand, but his legs failed him.
“You aren’t ready for me, but I am here, as commanded. Let us look at your life and think together about what has brought me here for you.” This time his mind remained blank after the thoughts inside stopped. His mouth opened a bit. He looked straight ahead, trembling. As surreal as the waves of white were throughout the tree before him, there was no mistaking those two red eyes peering directly into him. But then they softened, and whiteness gently enveloped them in an emphasizing blink. When they opened again, they remained vibrant and powerful, but he felt a little less afraid. His mind refilled with thoughts, flooding, overflowing, overwhelming, and loud in his head.
A girl sat cross-legged before him, somber, tired. He squeezed her hands in his. Neither looked older than someone in their early teens, but the weight in their eyes made them seem much older in this moment. Tears slid slowly out of those eyes of his. She held one hand to her abdomen, looking down.
“Whatever you decide to do, I will be right beside you. I will help you out. We’re in this together. I brought money and my brother will take us into town when you’re ready.”
“You told him?”
“It’s OK. He is really understanding, and he won’t tell anyone else. We needed someone, and I think he’s the best one for this. Don’t worry! Come here.” He pulled her into an embrace, and the tears flowed much easier now from her eyes. She managed the smallest of smiles.
The leaves were visible again, moving gently now. Some time had definitely passed. Was it over?
“That event changed you. You questioned God’s plan. You questioned your purpose. You stopped believing. Then you decided that everyone needed to question faith in the same manner. Did you start to hate God?”
“I… don’t hate God. I don’t even… believe in a god. I don’t know what’s going on. Are you going to kill me?” The words seemed silly coming out of his mouth. But there was no hiding his fear, or his confusion. He looked around. It was darker. No one was nearby. Somehow, he knew it didn’t make any difference.
“Are you going to repent?” At this, the eyes showed a different emotion, almost lustful. The angel moved a little closer.
Stephen leaned forcefully back into the bench. “I don’t understand any of this. Please tell me what’s going on. What do you want to know? What do you want me to say?”
The eyes appeared disappointed. The figure settled a bit. “This is new. Our purpose here is to clarify what you truly believe. I’m here to help you embrace a future less bleak. And I’m here to end your life on Earth.”
“End my life? And you just want me to stay calm and throw away a lifetime of believing something different and just come with you to some unknown place and leave this behind? What do you expect of me? I am only human.” The angel waited while he collected his thoughts. Finally, he started to think more clearly, much more like himself. “So now I should believe in the Christian god, ask forgiveness for my sins, accept that Jesus died for my sins and that they will be forgiven, and then I will be taken to heaven? And that makes you an angel? But with your blood red eyes, I fear I know you for what you really are. Some sort of demon. I don’t trust you. I don’t believe you. Tell me why I should?”
“I am no demon.”
Then everything, it seemed, was red. The sky grew dark, and the air frigid. Stephen noticed goose bumps forming. His mind, so clear one moment, was now swimming in darkness. His ears burned. He thought he had learned fear a moment before, but now the chill was replaced by a burning dread of pain and torture, and the sounds in his head felt like blades on the inside of his skull.
“No… you aren’t. But many would say that is what I am. Why have you come for this man?” Stephen leaned his head back, seeing now the source of so much agony. There was no night sky behind him. Blotting it out was darkness, void of any sign of light, painful to look upon. Cruel yellow eyes looked back hungrily.
The angel rose, causing Stephen to look forward once more, the eyes mere slits of ferocious red blistering from a sea of angry white. “You are not welcome here. And you know why it was a mistake for you to meddle, demon? I am immortal, a promise you were stripped of long ago. You cannot exist in the presence of Him. You would be foolish to question my resolve in putting you back in your proper place.” The words shook all around Stephen, but they were gentle and soothing in comparison to the words of this other being, pushing out the cuts and cries of anguish and leaving his mind clear once again.
“What is this? Two of you now? Tug of war on my soul? I’m no one. Leave me out of this!” He struggled once more to stand, but there was no feeling in his legs.
“The presence of God? Surely you jest. Surely you realize that he hasn’t shown himself in this world in thousands of years? Surely you realize that in his absence, these humans have lost their way, left to fight over how to worship, or perhaps more so, how to reap the pleasures of this world. Surely… you aren’t still taking the words of Scripture, meant only for man’s ears, too literally?”
Stephen felt the darkness lift from his shoulders, as the bright figure before him wrapped powerful hands around the wicked figure behind him, stifling the anguish within him.
“SILENCE! I have no patience for your insolence. Leave this place. I will not warn you again.” The sky returned to blue, and the chill lifted, if only a bit.
Stephen took a deep breath, leaned back in the bench, and looked up at the stars now clearly shining in the sky, wondering if this angel just saved him, or was yet to doom him. “Why have you come for me?”
“I was sent to find you, ask that you repent, and then remove you from this world. Your time here is done.”
“Why? I am healthy. I am here on a harmless bench, in a safe college campus. What causes my death?”
“I do. The Lord has a plan. Your part in it has ended. That is all I know, and all you need to know. Will you accept your fate, believe in the Father, ask for forgiveness for your sins, and come peacefully with me into Heaven? I do not know your heart, so it is up to you to believe. If you do not truly feel it in your heart, may He have mercy on your soul.” Weary of this deviation from the plan, angry at the arrival of that most unwelcome of guests, the angel struck Stephen dead, and watched the wretched soul descend into darkness. This soul had not been a servant of God, and it would suffer terribly for it. The angel had done all that he was asked to do, but something felt very wrong.
A bunch of ideas and notes I had taken down before writing the above:
A white angel of death, tasked with murder in the name of a god that demands worship beyond reason, questioning the motives of his god, witnessing the corruption of the favored humans, realizing that the god is fallible, with desires and irrational thought, the Bible and followers’ actions filled with lies and contradictions, all means to the end that the god is worshipped and the followers rewarded in ultimately sinful ways.
The inhuman angel, craftsman, architecting a deadly sword, laced with an acidic poison that burns through flesh and spreads through blood, causing intense torment and finally death in the victims.
The skin stark white, with the softest of glows, the eyes solid and red, yet blinking as if peaceful and even compassionate, naked but genderless.
With a slice of the sword… the victim, the sinner, is likely to look into the eyes of the angel and beg forgiveness, to “repent”, something that gives angels joy
Can blind humans
God, given worship – his desire, postponed (indefinitely) the day of reckoning, for his desire is for more and more and more to worship him, and so the population continues to grow… but Earth is overcrowding, sin is festering
This messenger… an angel present at the death of key political/religious figures, is troubled by the inconsistencies of Scripture and the apparent messages sent from God about his will, his intentions for humanity.
The angel can’t possibly fall from grace… according to Scripture… but it has a will and an intellect… so as it discovers the truth about what God is (and isn’t) and the truth about the fall of Satan… the falseness of the Bible…
The Bible says that “one third” of the “stars” fell, and that demons are weaker than good angels, and having been separated from God (omnipresent?) they lack knowledge, strength and perhaps even immortality found in good angels. But how much of it is true?
The angel is to serve the “elect”, those believing in Jesus as savior. Perhaps it is to serve the interests of humanity even if it goes beyond this religious concept… if what we think we know of God is false, then what is the mission of the angel now?
The passing of time when the peaceful missions have ended… the angel watching the changes of the human society, possibly discussing it or a monologue of his thoughts about what has changed, why it is happening, how it affects him, how God plays (or doesn’t play) a part in those changes, and what God’s reaction may be.
Also to start the scene with the professor with much more drawn out “sense” of the presence of something significant… sinister even. Probably move this later in the story… a bigger key to the message being shared. Probably move or eliminate demon from scene.
My friend has been using ChatGPT to write silly stories about us and I tried it too.
Here is my attempt (multiple, as I try to get it to be better). It’s kinda boring.
This one that I did for my friend is much more entertaining but it has too many personal details to post publicly.
I did that with my “novel” idea above, though using claude.ai (apparently I can’t share the whole thread!) But here’s an excerpt:
As Auriel pleas for God to return to the righteous path, his stirring words begin swaying even the most stalwart of angels to reconsider their allegiance. They remember their true purpose - to serve the cosmic balance, not indulge tyrannical rule.
Enraged by this dissent, the most corrupt angels ignite a civil war in heaven, seeking to defend their privileges and power. Auriel and his true followers defend themselves, clashing swords with those lost to greed and bloodlust.
The battle seems hopeless as Auriel’s band is small in number. But one by one, angels pause and defect to Auriel’s side as they are reminded of their core values. The tide starts to turn.
However, the angel Gabriel, once God’s most loyal warrior, refuses to yield. He has absorbed much of God’s vanity and wrath. A ferocious duel erupts between Auriel and Gabriel as God watches pensively from his fracturing throne.
Both fighters are nearly spent, but Auriel summons a final burst of might. Instead of striking Gabriel down, he embraces his former brother. Forgiveness and compassion shine through. Gabriel falters and relinquishes his rage.
Seeing Auriel’s unbreakable will fueled only by love, God is shaken from his stupor. He calls an end to all hostilities and agrees to walk the path of redemption. United in renewed purpose, the angels begin to heal their wounded realm.
It was fun to play with, but I’m not sure what I ultimately came up with was very engaging for others to read. It was interesting to me since it was my ideas (except for ones Claude gave me as responses) being fleshed out somewhat.
Very random and very belated response, but there is an X-Files episode that fits the bill… All Souls (The X-Files) - Wikipedia