The first sensation was not thought, but absence.
A hollow, silent void where a universe of power once roared.
For aeons, consciousness for Lucifer had been a symphony. The silent hum of cosmic dust coalescing into stars, the psychic screams of dying galaxies, the vibrant, chaotic chorus of mortal souls rising and falling like a tide. His being was woven into the fabric of creation and un-creation, a boundless ocean of energy that responded to his every whim. He *was* the storm, the fire, the will that bent reality.
Now, there was only... silence.
A thick, suffocating silence that was not peaceful, but dead. It pressed in on him from all sides, a pressure in the dark nothingness he occupied. It was the silence of a tomb.
Then came the second sensation: pain.
It was a vulgar, grinding ache that started behind his eyes and radiated through his skull, a crude throb that felt utterly alien. It was not the noble agony of a god weaving a cataclysmic spell, nor the glorious burn of a star being born under his command. It was a headache. A pathetic, mortal headache.
Lucifer's mind, a weapon that had once plotted the downfall of Heaven itself, recoiled from the sheer *indignity* of it. A fog of confusion swirled within the pain. How long had he slept? A century? A millennium? He remembered the confrontation. The blinding, self-righteous light of his nemesis, Michael. The celestial choir singing a hymn of judgment. He remembered the sting of a curse, a metaphysical severing, like a blade cutting the very roots of his soul. He had chosen this slumber, a strategic retreat to purge the angelic poison.
But this feeling… this wasn't the slow, methodical cleansing he had anticipated. This was violation.
Darkness. It was absolute. He needed light.
The command formed in his mind, effortless from eons of practice. *Let there be light.* It was the simplest cantrip, a parlor trick. A spark of his will, a mote of hellfire, should have ignited at his mental touch, illuminating his resting place.
Nothing happened.
The darkness remained. The headache pulsed.
He tried again, focusing his will, pushing it against the impenetrable barrier of… what? There was no barrier. There was simply no wellspring to draw from. The infinite ocean within him had dried up, leaving a cracked, barren desert. A frantic edge began to creep into the fog of his thoughts. He pushed harder, a desperate, silent scream of intent into the void.
*Ignite!*
A sharp, electric lance of agony shot through his temples. It was so intense it made him gasp, a ragged, unfamiliar sound that rasped in a throat raw with disuse. The effort left him breathless, his body—his *body*—trembling with a weakness that was terrifyingly new.
Panic, cold and sharp, finally pierced through the layers of pride and confusion. This was not the aftermath of a curse he was sleeping off. This was the result of it. The curse had not just put him to sleep.
It had *broken* him.
He was trapped. In the dark. In his own body. In this… sarcophagus.
The realization galvanized him. He had to get out. Before, the lid of his obsidian casket, a single piece of polished night weighing several tons, would have slid aside with a mere thought. Now, it was a mountain pressing down on him.
He lifted his arms, his muscles screaming in protest. His fingers, long and elegant, once capable of crushing adamantine to dust, scrabbled against the cold, smooth underside of the lid. There was no purchase. He shifted, his bare skin scraping against the unyielding stone. The space was tight, constricting. Claustrophobia, another dirty, mortal feeling, clawed at him.
"Open," he rasped, the word a dry crackle. His own voice was a stranger's, weak and thin. It had once commanded legions and made archangels tremble. Now, it was swallowed by the oppressive silence.
Rage, pure and undiluted, finally burned through the pain and fear. It was a familiar friend, a furnace in his core. It might be the only thing the curse hadn't taken. He would not suffocate in a box. He was *Lucifer*.
With a guttural roar of fury, he pressed his palms flat against the lid and *pushed*.
His shoulders strained, muscles he hadn't truly used in millennia bunched and burned. The bones in his arms felt fragile, as if they might snap under the strain. Sweat, slick and salty, beaded on his brow. It was a grotesque, primal struggle. The effort of a slave trying to move a boulder, not a god commanding his domain. He pushed until black spots danced in his vision, until the headache threatened to split his skull open.
For a terrifying moment, nothing happened.
Then, with a low, grating groan of stone against stone, the lid moved. An inch.
A sliver of grey, dusty light cut through the darkness, striking his eyes with the force of a physical blow. He squeezed them shut, a pained hiss escaping his lips. It was just dim, ambient light, but to his unaccustomed eyes, it was a sun going nova.
The victory, however small, fueled his rage. He adjusted his position, found a better purchase, and pushed again, grunting with the raw, physical exertion. The obsidian lid, a monument to his power, scraped agonizingly across its base, wider and wider, until with a final, desperate shove, it overbalanced.
It fell.
The crash was titanic. A thunderclap of shattering stone that didn't just echo—it *crumbled*. The sound was followed by a cascade of smaller noises, the rattle of falling debris, the groan of stressed architecture. The acoustics of the chamber were wrong, broken.
Lucifer lay there for a long moment, gasping, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The beat was frantic, weak. Another mortal insult. He slowly, painfully, pulled himself up. He hooked one arm over the edge of the sarcophagus, the sharp, broken stone cutting into his flesh. He barely felt it, his mind reeling from a far greater wound.
He looked out, and his rage turned to ice.
This was his throne room. Or what was left of it.
The vaulted ceiling, once a canvas of captive constellations swirling in an eternal twilight, was gone. A jagged hole gaped open to a sky the color of dirty dishwater. Rubble and dust covered everything like a funeral shroud. The great marble columns, inscribed with the true names of vanquished primordials, were shattered stumps. His banners, woven from the dreams of sleeping titans, were rotted, unrecognizable tatters hanging from rusted poles.
And his throne…
Forged in the heart of a dying star, a seat of power from which he had watched empires turn to dust, was a wreck. It was cracked down the middle, half of it buried under a pile of fallen masonry. Filth, grime, and some kind of pallid, creeping moss coated its surface.
The air was thick with the stench of millennial decay, of damp stone and stagnant water. It was the smell of a tomb that had been robbed, desecrated, and abandoned.
The scale of the destruction was absolute. It wasn't the result of a battle. This was the slow, inexorable work of neglect. Of time. Ten thousand years of it. The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. He had slept for ten millennia. And in that time, his palace, his fortress, his *kingdom*, had died.
He stumbled out of the sarcophagus, his legs unsteady. His naked body was caked in a fine layer of dust. He felt a chill, another novel and unwelcome sensation. He wrapped his arms around himself, a gesture of vulnerability he would have once found contemptible.
His gaze fell upon a large, curved shard of what must have been a mirror, propped against a pile of debris. The glass was dark with age, but it still held a reflection. Driven by a morbid curiosity, he staggered towards it.
He expected to see himself. Lucifer Morningstar. The Lightbringer. Terrible and beautiful, his features a perfect blend of angelic grace and demonic pride, his eyes burning with the cold fire of ancient stars.
He saw a ghost.
The face staring back at him was gaunt, the cheekbones sharp angles under pale, almost translucent skin. The lips, which had whispered temptations that brought down saints, were bloodless and cracked. And the eyes… the fire was gone. In its place was a vast, haunted emptiness, and within that emptiness, the dawning horror of a king staring at his own ruin. His hair, once a cascade of spun starlight, was a long, matted tangle of silver-white filth.
He looked thin. Weak. He looked… human.
And he was starving.
A vicious, gnawing ache started in the pit of his stomach. It was a raw, physical craving that overshadowed even the headache. It was hunger. Hot on its heels came thirst, a burning dryness in his throat that made swallowing feel like an act of self-harm.
He pressed a trembling hand to his abdomen, the unfamiliar sensation of a hollow stomach a profound offense. Food. Water. These were the needs of cattle. Of mortals. Now, they were his own. They were chains, binding him to this frail, pathetic prison of flesh and bone.
He let out a sound that was half a laugh, half a sob. It was the sound of a god's sanity fracturing. Stripped of his power, his palace in ruins, his body a cage of mortal weakness. Michael's curse had been more thorough, more cruel, than he could have ever imagined. It wasn't just a severing. It was a remaking. A reduction.
He had been reduced to… *this*.
The silence of the throne room was suddenly broken by a sound from beyond the great, shattered doors. It was a distant, chaotic noise—a shrill shout, the clang of metal on stone, a burst of harsh laughter.
It wasn't the disciplined march of his demonic legions or the hushed reverence of his courtiers.
It was the sound of vermin. The sound of scavengers who had made a nest in the corpse of his kingdom.
Lucifer stood motionless in the wreckage of his glory. The denial was burned away by the acid of reality. The shock was solidifying into something cold, hard, and heavy in his gut. It was a coldness that burned.
He was weak. He was mortal. He was a king with no power, no subjects, and no kingdom. He was a god in the gutter.
He took a single, unsteady step towards the doors. Then another. His bare feet crunched on shattered marble and grime.
He may be nothing.
But he was still Lucifer.
And his hangover was just beginning.