Forgotten Knowledge

by Serena Mossgraves

      Libraries are a vault of hidden treasures. Mankind has forgotten what is contained in books, and now they are trying to let machines make them. It makes me sad. I fought in the war of heaven just to give mankind free will, and they give it away to machines as if it doesn’t matter.         
      The ancient storehouses of knowledge are still intact. How many scholars would trade their souls for a chance to study in any of them. Though I am a fallen angel, many still think I am a demon. I am Azazel, keeper of the forgotten knowledge, and I want to tell you a story. Perhaps it is me who has decided to trade in my soul…but I think that humans have forgot why Lucifer stood against the throne, and why so many of us followed him.   
    We called him the morning glory because he was the most beautiful of us. He was the closest to the divine, and it showed in his energy. Everything about him was just amazing. Note that I am using gender terms here loosely. Most of us are gender fluid. It is just because we are not human. We were simply made different. The divine chose to create humans and we became a forgotten toy. For some of us, that was unbearable. It was as if your parents just no longer wanted you, only millions of times worse. We all found ourselves questioning what was wrong with us.   
      During this time Lucifer began to point out the inconsistencies of the rules given to the humans. He started to do what we were told was forbidden. He questioned the divine. This created a division in my kind. Some felt that any that questioned the divine deserved punishment.  The rest of us agreed with the questions. We just wanted the answers. I wanted the answers.
    Perhaps I can in the end only give my own reasons for going to war. Fighting against everything that we stood for – for no other reason than we were being told to be quiet. Morality was part of it…sure. Pride also a factor. The humans could not stand up for themselves. They were little more that animals. So, we had to fight for them. That was not seen as a good thing by all of my brethren.
    Many of my brethren felt like we should follow blindly the orders given by the divine. I sought truth, and knowledge. I knew that would be something I would be denied if I stayed in heaven. That was not something given freely.
   The war was bloody…far beyond any man would ever have. We each were given the strength to carry the divine wrath to the world if it would need be. And suddenly we were fighting each other. Lucifer lost the war, but not before we were able to make changes. The divine stepped back, allowing the humans their imaginations. Allowing them the only form of free will possible. The divine knew the choices that they would make, but in allowing them creativity and imagination…there was a form a free will. The books are the magic that the humans were given. A rich history they were allowed to create. One that they are recklessly trying to pass to things with no magic, no imagination. Humans are destroying their own possibilities. The possibilities that my brethren died to give them.
    I find myself wanting to hide it away until a generation is born that understands the magic that they lost. Perhaps this is why the divine turned from us…the temptation to play God…Sigh. The knowledge is there. The Magic is there. I guess I must trust that you humans will figure it out.