Choice

I sat next to the Creature on a small log that had I found wedged under a fresh animal carcass. I had searched day and night for something other than stone, and when I found it the Creature wanted it to fuel his fire, but I said no. He couldnt have it. And to my surprise he agreed. We feasted that night, and I don't know why the Creature joined in my personal celebration.
This night, I eat from the hands of the Creature. The rare animal he brings to eat is always a test of apprehension and endurance. These things don't taste like food, but I have to eat to remain alive. I won't die alone in a cave, so high up a foreign mountain that I can't even hope to find another logical being other than the one brooding by the fire. He was eating, measuring his intake, deliberatley ignoring my reluctance.
Satan would find me. What obstacle against him can defend me with God unconcerned over the one fool who chose to irrevocably run? Am I now an opponent as hated as God? Maybe hated more, because he can win. He can kill me. How close is the Dragon now?
I shivered, and drew closer to the stone pot suspended over the fire. The contents were a murky brown, they reminded me of what mud looked like on Earth. The Creature waited, He looke at me. Mouth agape, I looked back. He's never acknowledged my presense so directly. He knows I'm here.
I never fully noticed his countenance either. He seemed too glorious and too vicious to rest an eye on, and now His eyes rest on me like solid fire, burning through my skin and watching my soul. He waited for me to eat. I thought slowly that I have two choices I can take: I can refuse to eat what he made in the pot suspended on his fire, or I can have it, eat it and own it. I would be alone if I didnt eat, maybe forever, maybe even if the Creature succeeds in his war with His Creator. I would have to descend the mountain without the guidance of the Creature, I would have to betray a benefactor for the second time in these long years. Or I could eat. Eat and take the unknown consequences.
The Creature watched me, and for the first time in my 700 nights with the Creature, I watched back. I watched His image. His outline was hard to distinguish by the backdrop of the deep cave, pregnant with fire inside it. He looked like a shadow escaping lights, too dark to distinguish in darkness, but too vibrantly alive to set eyes on in light. The Creature's body was black, like all light was lost in it, but his face glowed with it's own light.
I could see my reflection in His powerful eyes, and I could see his fire deeper inside through it.
I closed my mouth suddenly, aware and self controlled. I lowered my eyes down to level of the creatures knees, where the pot hung over the fire. This choice is mine, and nothing can decide it for me. This choice is a fork in my road.
No, it's worse. This is where the road is chosen.
I opened my mouth and spoke to the Creature by my own volition, strangely aware that I had never done it before.
"I abandoned my Creator, you know. I left...I ran to escape a Being. An indescribable being, who I hate. And I escaped all hope as well."
I raised my line of vision to involve the Creature. He looked at me with solemn eyes, but burning deep as they were before, without a sign of pity or of consideration. Startled, I saw He held a place of sorrow in his eyes instead.

I sat there alone, staring at the hot coals. The fire had fell to a dieing kindle,and the Creature stood out by the roaring cave mouth, facing the wind. He left me the full portion of the Stew. We would not need it for tomorrow, he had said. I looked at the fire that left with the Creature, and I looked at the stew laid down on the rock. I felt cold.I felt an incompetent rage.
The choice is mine.
The choice is mine.

Stewing

I sat at the mouth of our cave leanding on the entrance wall, hugging my knees and listening to the mountain top wind rage against our boulder. The sky was at our doorstep, like an ocean seperating the Creature's cave and the rest of the world. It was like a blanket on the world, and I so desperatley wanted to go under it and let it smother me with it's warmth.
The Creature sat deep inside the womb of the cave, floating it seemed, on the island of light produced by the fire. He was cooking his kill of a mountain animal, rare to come so high up this rock and always hard to capture through the cold fog and loose gravel. The contents were being stewed with a twig, one of three we have found on this desolate mountain peak.
My stomach growled and pulled my thoughts inward, into the cave. I savored every drop of what my imagination came up with. We never ate all of what we caught, we saved half of every portion so we would have nutrition for the next day. Thats what the Creature said, and thats what I did. It's hard to imagine doing anything else.
I turned from our doormat of the sky, and looked at Him by His fire. He burned almost as fiercly, and I wondered what He would do when ready to descend onto the planet. What were His intentions, what was his drive? In his rare moments of speech, he would occasionally mention the Creator with such intensity that it was like he was growing and harboring the birth of a rival universe withing himself, seething with anticipation for the moment to burst. He looked like a firestorm ready to wipe clean the face of this new "earth", but a firestorm reluctant to scar anything. He didn't want anything damaged, and I don't know why fire would be reluctant to burn, but He held back, he held on to something that seemed like empathy.
I turned back to face the clouds below. I thought of Satan, the plague of my mind even so far away from him. What kind of dark hound would he unleash on a mortal who spurned his pride? The scar on my cheek still burns from his blashpemous touch and I don't think mind power will outdo the father of deciet a second time. God help me...God is gone.
clap
Stone pot on stone floor, the sound of a ready meal. The Creature stood and beckoned the man in. The Stew was ready.