Flashback! Vision and Jude Marcus; Years ago...
It was hot. Unbearably hot, and the thin breaths he could manage to choke down weren't of clean air. It smelled like sweat and death and something he couldn't quite place. All around him his followers were laying down and not getting back up. He felt... Hopeless. Abandoned. This was supposed to be the rapture, and instead all of his followers,the people that had trusted him, were dead and he knew he was right behind them. They had sealed themselves in this cave days ago because that was what the angels had said to do. They were only supposed to be down here for an hour, maybe two tops, and they would be safe from the worst parts of Armageddon until the angels could come take them to Paradise. Plenty of air, food, and water for everyone.
Not anymore.
He looked up at the stone ceiling of the cave and wanted to ask God why he was doing this to him. Why had the angels, who had been leading him down the right path since he was old enough to remember, betrayed him like this? He didn't ask, though. It was stunningly apparent to Jude Marcus, known simply as David to the people that were dying in front of him, that God, even if he was up there, wasn't listening. Not to him. Not anymore.
A rattle of stones. A glimmer of light. Something like the hint of sweet, fresh air. And then...a voice.
"Hello, son."
He blinked and turned toward the fresh air more than the voice. The voice could be a hallucination. His brain was going without oxygen, it was common. But that air, that air he wanted to stand up and run after.
He didn't have the strength, so he looked up at the newcomer. He was handsome and older, and dressed in a fine suit. He didn't look hot or at all put out by any of this. Definitely a mirage. However, mirage or not, Jude's momma had raised him with manners.
"Hello, sir."
The man silhouetted among the rubble smiled. He reached out a hand. "Looks like you're in a bit of trouble, son."
Jude managed to lift a hand half way. "Lots of trouble," he agreed, then whispered, "they're all dead."
"I can see that." He could smell it, too, ahhh, that sweet perfume of death. Decay. Grief. It was the finest perfume to a man like him. "Don't take it to heart, son. You made a mistake, that's all. Sometimes things happen."
He shook his head. He'd been hearing angels his whole life. They'd predicted all great disasters of the world thus far, and he'd saved his followers before. He'd had no reason not to believe them when they said that the End of Days was upon the word. "It's what they told me to do. They lied. They... Why?"
"Oh, son." The man sounded sad. "It's what they do, don't you know that?"
Jude shook his head and once he started he couldn't stop, even though it was wasting precious energy. Angels wouldn't lie. They were messengers of God, and they would always point him down the right path. Except this time they had pointed him - here.
It was hard to see the just reasoning behind this. They weren't supposed to lie, but they had lied to him.
"They made me kill everyone," he said, voice soft and disbelieving. "I'm going to die too."
The man laughed, a bright and cheerful noise completely out of place here in this cave filled with death. "Oh, no. You're not."
Jude looked up at him, his vision going black around the edges, and suddenly despite all the heat in the room, he shivered. The frightening thing was, it wasn't in fear. There was something inside him, something dark that he'd pushed back all his life. Now, looking up at him, it yawned open.
"No, I'm not."
The man reached out his hand a little further. "Take my hand, son. Let me show you things you never thought you'd see."
Energy came from somewhere and he reached up to grasp the man's hand. "I can't go home," he murmured as he felt himself standing up.
"Of course you can. You can go home with me."
He looked at the man. "Who are you?" he asked, even though he was already following along.
The man looked down at him, touched a tender hand to Jude's hair. "I'm your father."
Yes.
Even though it conflicted with everything he'd ever known and everything he'd ever been told, he knew this man was his father.
"Who am I?" he asked. Because surely he was more than Jude Marcus if he belonged to this man.
The man laughed. "You're half me, kid, that's what you are. Which is a good damned thing to be."
They were walking toward something. Fresh air. Light. His lungs did a little dance of glee and he sucked in a breath. "What are you?" he asked, the oxygen filling his lungs and making him feel almost dizzy.
"I am the bringer of light, the father of many, the dragon," the man said with a hiss of breath that smelled of sulfur. "But most people these days call me Jon Vision."
The part of him that had been a leader, a preacher, a good son and a good citizen, coiled up tight in fear. But the other part... The other dark part of him, the part that had always reveled in bad, dangerous things, spread out through his body.
Yes.
"And I am your son."
Vision grinned, sliding a flickering tongue over sharp teeth. He pulled Jude closer to him. "Let me take you home, son."
He'd tried what God had to offer. God had betrayed him. God had killed his friends and what he'd known as his family. God had made him into a liar and a murderer, and he would cast him out for the very things he'd made him do. He felt guilt, betrayal, and absolute horror because of God.
He decided, looking up at his tall, handsome father, that he'd had about enough of that Son of a Bitch in the sky.
"Yes, Sir," Jude said, eyes flashing a little darker as he wrapped his arm around his father's waist.