Chapter Text
One of the largest cities on the planet is plunged into the darkness of night. The artificial city lights create a magnificent panorama.
Lights shine through the large bay window of a hotel room and illuminate a silhouette in front of it. The shadow draws a feminine form, wearing a dress that hugged the curves of her body. Her long wavy hair is still damp from her shower.
The woman just lazily sips a glass of apple martini while observing the activity of the city below her.
The sound of the shower last time was monotonous. Her guest had decided not to spend the rest of the night with her. His loss.
She smiles ironically. Her doe eyes sparkle with joy when she thinks of all that there is still to discover in this city. She would eventually find someone who wouldn't leave before sunrise.
The beautiful woman finally sits down on one of the leather sofas. Her thoughts wander a little.
The alcohol burns her throat slightly in a pleasant way. The taste of the apple is very far from the taste of that of the garden.
She had really come a long way so far...
...
Chavah remembers her creation. Or at least the first sensations that followed her creation.
From her first breath, Chavah knew she was not whole. That she was just a part of someone else.
Created from someone's rib to become their mate.
Of course, at the time, she didn't know anything about it. Her mind floated in the bliss and bliss of ignorance before. Before the fruit of knowledge.
At first it was good. She discovers the world... while this world was limited at that time to the Garden.
She spends the rest of her time with Adam. This is what her life boiled down to.
Addam wasn't mean to her. Not like the other human tribes she would discover years later.
No, Addam wasn't bad. He spends his time talking about their Creator. Offers him everything beautiful he finds in the garden. He never did this for Eve.
For a long time, she thought that was what she was happy about. That it was love.
She spent her days with Adam exploring the Garden to find offerings to their Creator.
In reality, the first man was unaware of it most of the time. Except when he looked at her for a long time before starting to compare her to Lilith.
Lilith. The name that haunted him the most in his life. Before she even has the knowledge to manage her own emotions.
The first time this had happened, the future mother of humanity's heart had clenched and throbbed in pain from an emotion that no one had bothered to name at the time.
The comparisons were not critical. Adam called them generals after a long, lost look. As if it wasn't her but someone else he was looking at. His voice, barely above a whisper, was softer and full of respect than when he spoke of the creator.
Much later, Eve realizes that it was on this day that she learned that Adam did not love only the Creator. He could love her more…he just chose not to.
Over the years, she learned not to worry about it most of the time. After all, she wasn't the free-spirited Lilith with big ambitions.
No, she was just Chavah. A woman who, when not busy with her duties to Addam, amused herself by naming plants and spying on angels.
Already at that time and despite her very subjective vision of beauty due to the fact that she only knew the Garden of Paradise. She had a certain appreciation of beauty.
Although the words have disappeared over thousands of years along with the language she spoke in those ancient times. She had named the plants. The woman had spent most of her 1time and effort finding the names of the plants that were most beautiful to her. Those with lush colors and harmonious shapes.
Addam just raved about the beauty of all of the Creator's creations. Chavah had her preferences. Even if she would never say it out loud and didn't really realize it at the time.
Angels were a different type of beauty. During her little escapades Eve discovered that there were many who watch over the Garden.
The first time she saw one was perhaps the only time she shared Adam's devotion.
The angels were allowed to approach them more and more over time. Their appearance has also evolved.
The first angels that Eve saw had fuzzy edges. There was a certain awkwardness in the way they walked as if he had never used legs before. And their human form hung on their bodies like a baggy garment. Small cracks of light leak through their skins. Sometimes you could see an extra eye or an arm that shouldn't be there. As if an extremely large being had forced itself into a small box of pulpit.
Every time she stares at one for too long, understanding how their limbs can hold together, her head spins.
These characteristics disappeared over time. Until it was impossible to tell an angel from a human.
Chavah's memory also forgot the small details of the angels' true form. And she wasn't going to complain.
Life goes on like this for a long time. The passage of time was not something relevant. So she doesn't worry about it. And continue her quiet routine.
And one day she meets the angel who changed her life.
That day she lingered a little longer. Hidden behind a lush fruit tree.
And she saw it.
The most beautiful thing she had ever seen. A light and beauty purer than anything the garden had to offer.
He, because he resembles Addam in his physique. Although much more graceful, was in the middle of a clearing.
Looking at the new animals that the Creator had created.
He also had strange things covering his skin for some unknown reason. Of course in those distant times, Eve didn't know that it was her who was naked.
There are other angels around him but he is the only one she can see. Its light eclipsing the presence of all these companions.
Without warning, the angel turns his fiery eyes towards her. Chavah is so taken aback that she panics. Realizing that she has been discovered, she tries to escape. And trips on a branch while trying to get away.
The woman blushed with shame once she fell to the ground. The crystalline laughter that comes out of the angel and silences all the birds, only reinforces the blush.
Eve remembers this day very well.
Once the embarrassment had passed, the angel showed up. Samaël. The Lightbringer. What a fitting name.
Samaël had not chased her away. He had even been rather curious about her. She wasn't really used to this happening but she likes the feeling it gives.
Samaël had suggested she name the animal. The concept was very strange to her. This was Addam's task. Yet she did it...
And the world didn't collapse. No. Samaël had just thanked her while looking at her with an enigmatic look. Then she spent the rest of the day with the angel listening to his voice and his songs.
After that. Samaël always found a moment to come see her.
Without her realizing it and without it really mattering, the years passed.
Eve with the hindsight she has today, she still doesn't know if Lucifer saw her more as a friend or a curiosity.
He had always been curious. Always wanted to test the limits of what he or others were capable of.
Samaël had been more and more fearless with her.
After years in the garden he asked her if she was curious to go out...
-“Outside?” young Eve asks.
The concept of "things other than the Garden" was very complicated to envisage.
-"Yes. You didn't think that my father was limited with you two, did you? He always tends to do too much." Said the angel in a playful voice.
-"I...yes! I trust you."
-"Perfect my dear. We're going to have fun!" Answers the angel.
Then for the first time in her creation. He approaches her and places a kiss on her forehead. Between the two eyebrows.
The burn of the contact of the angel's lips remains engraved as much as his skin and his spirit.
...
Eve had seen a tree different from the others in the garden. From afar because Adam had grabbed her by the grip and pulled her away very quickly.
It was only a few hours after its creation.
But she didn't feel his iron grip on her.
She could only focus on the tree's grisly white bark and black leaves. Things that look like red apples are extremely visible, unlike leaves.
At that moment Eve felt the weight of Destiny on her conscience. Heavy and inevitable.
Nor was she aware of the different pairs of eyes following her as she and Adam walked away.
...
Getting “outside” was an experience. The first time, she was overwhelmed by the sounds, the smells, the sensations...
It was the first time she smelled something that could be described as "bad."
But ironically, it was also the first time she was able to fully enjoy what the Garden had to offer. Her mind was finally able to see a vision that was not biased by Heaven.
The cold on her bare skin made her appreciate the ideal temperature of the Garden all the more.
The bad smells, those of the flowers, the dissonant noises that came from a village in the distance, that of the birds and the songs of the angels.
The chime of Samaël's laughter brings her back to the present. Followed by a weight on those shoulders. He had placed a thick fur on her that covered her entire body. The woman looks at him confused.
-“Oh my darling you’re not planning on going to see yours like that are you?”
-"I'm not sure I understand..."
Samaël gives her a look... that she could only describe as strange at the time. And she had felt the same sensation as near the strange tree.
Today she knows that was the kind of look he had when he accomplished something. That the knots of destiny had crossed as he wished.
-"Oh don't worry. Keep it up and you'll understand very quickly."
...
Oh, it didn't take long for what Lucifer said to come true.
She still remembers the feeling of the red fruit in her hands. Not totally an apple after all. It beat like the heart in her own chest, in the palms of her hands.
Addam, who had accompanied her, was starting to get angry, the last of them. But Chavah was too absorbed by the weight of her soul to worry about him.
Chavah thinks back to everything she has experienced so far. And realizes the millennia that have passed in an insipid and monotonous way in Heaven. She realized with a certain dread that her few escapades were in reality spaced out by a thousand years of repetition and trouble.
She looks at Addam, wondering if he felt that way too. She picked a red fruit and put it in his hand. He just looks at the throbbing thing in his hand in confusion.
Samaël, in front of her, looks at her with a patience rare in him.
Right now, the First Woman needs no encouragement. And bites the forbidden fruit.
She vaguely records Addam also taking a bite… and releasing the fruit just as quickly with a scream of terror.
All Chavah can focus on is the sour taste burning her throat. The tender flesh of the fruit which crumbles easily under her teeth to give way to the metallic taste of blood. Flowing freely down her chin.
"So this is why the fruit is built like a heart” she thinks as Adam’s horrified screams intensify.
The sword of Damocles above her head had fallen.
Her brain overheated as the knowledge was unlocked. Conflicting sensations assail the woman. She realizes with fascination that the veil before her eyes is lifting. The awareness of their nudity wasn't the worst of all, although being aware of her own body was still strange.
She's much more aware of the metallic taste in her mouth and the blood flowing freely from her chin.
As the sky of the Garden darkens with the wrath of God and the howls of terror of Adam, whom she had dragged there, echo in the air. She looks at Samaël. Realizing for the first time how almost unhealthy the satisfaction and curiosity in his eyes are.
She feels many things, good and bad but also for the first time hatred.
Hatred towards Samaël, Addam, God himself! For the years she had wasted! For the feelings and emotions she couldn't fully feel!
-“So Chavah? Do you understand?” Asked the devil. With calm and gentle eyes. As if the Garden wasn't transforming into Hell before their eyes.
She runs her finger over her chin to collect the blood from the fruit.
She ignores Addam's frightened pleas for God. And looks Samaël straight into his burning eyes for the first time. Eve makes a smile with her bloody teeth.
- “Yes. And I thank you.”
