Cooking up the soup over the campfire, Adam hummed a tune as he sniffed and pinched a taste here and there for the spice, summoned herbs, and seasoned flesh as Eve happily swirled the pot with her comically oversized wooden spoon.
On the sidenote Samael was poking his head out from the tree line to keep an eye out while Lilith dismantled the game and properly chopped up the meat.
Taking the spoon from his mate, Adam brought it up to his mouth, sniffed it, and tasted it, nodding at the fact that it was as best as it was going to get.
Now sitting around in a circle on the ground, with their own warm bowls filled, they each took a bite with great anticipate.
""PFFFFT/PFFFT"" Eve and Adam both happily ate their meals while the other two rapidly turned red and spat out what felt like fire.
"Hot HotHOT!" Samael repeatably as he shot up from the ground, jumping on his toes as he rapidly fanned his hands over his tongue, while Lilith closed her eyes tight and put down her bowl while trying to keep control over herself.
All the while the First Man, and his current partner happily ate their meals, Adam with much less of a reaction.
While Eve looked a little flushed at the cheeks and lightly panting from her mouth, but didn't look nearly as bothered as the other two.
"Adam…" Lilith started, not managing to completely hide how clearly affected she was, "-I believe this is the first time I would consider a making of yours a clear failure."
Adam scoffed, as he eagerly took another bite, while Eve looked baffled at her fellow girl, "And why is that? This is amazing, so warm and I like the flavor."
Lilith returned it with a incredulous look, "It tastes like it's on fire, it is clear it is poisonous!" Adam nearly choked in laughter at something this mild being called poisonous.
He could have easily made something so much more hotter, it was getting a bit dull lately, all the while the resident angel was actually starting to gather up tears in his eyes.
Enjoying their meal—more like two of them were and the other were trying to consume and survive the aftermath—half an hour went bye, before Samael and Adam froze.
Adam, shirtless and nothing covering his face for when he was cooking, suddenly felt the tattletale feel of the wind telling him the something far above was approaching.
Perhaps if it was just him it could have been dismissed as something like a Pterodactyl or a big ass bird, but Samael always reacted like this when-
A patrol of high concentrations of Holy Light.
And judging based on the vibrations, they were only about a mile out.
"Everyone! LAY COVER!" Adam cried as he began to rip the covers off of the floor and start throwing their supplies into the bushes.
Samael spread out his wings like a puffed up bird, "THERES AT LEAST TWO! MAYBE THREE!" As he began with small amounts of magic messing the terrain a bit to match the enviroment.
Adam jumped into the river once he was done, but before he could fully sink in, he turned to see Lilith dragging the rest of the pot of soup and poured it into the river.
"NOOOOOO! MY SOUP!" Adam thought in dismay before he let out a tear of dispair, before he sank down into the waters, having no need to breath.
But to think…ALL THAT TIME AND EFFORT WASTED!
Now empty, Eve and Lilith turned the pot upside down, looking no different from a big rock, and hid beneath it, Eve holding her breath, turning her hair back to blonde.
Samael turned into a deer, awkwardly standing there like he was an actual one staring into a car headlight on the road.
We waited, and not even a minute later if anyone had been watching, they would have seen entities in the shape of interconnected rings and numerous eyes swoop through the terrain radiating light.
The Thrones scoured the forests, their numerous eyes on the look out, presumably, for the four of us in determined-filled duty.
They have been at this for quite some time…Adam felt a little bad at just how much time and energy they are spending in looking for them.
Doesn't help that he repeatable over the course of time more hearing the voices of countless angels speaking his name.
It was…a constant headache getting a few lines of whoever spoke his name intending him, the loudest being Sera who acting like a headless chicken running in circles.
Though it felt strange when he kept getting signals to…Heaven he assumed, where the direction was not something he could even describe into worlds.
Having to step to the side and within himself to the fifth dimension to get to the pearly gates.
After they have gone by, Team Eden grabbed their stuff, and started hurrying to the mountains ahead.
They didn't stop till the sun has started coming done for the night ahead to give way to the moon and stars.
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Sleep came quietly for them once the fire was made to crackle for them.
One moment, Adam was there, his body lying motionless beneath the weight of blankets, breathing slowly and evenly in the middle of the air.
And then—Creeeeeeak~
A door opened, though it wasn't one that was literally a door one could open and pull with a grab on the knob.
His sleeping mind unfolded as Adam felt himself warp like his body and mind were water pond filled with ripples.
The first thing that appeared was a dark hallway before his eyes as a burst of light glimmered before him and vanished just as quickly.
It stretched impossibly far in both directions, illuminated by countless pale candles that seemed to burn without consuming themselves.
The walls were made of dark wood, seemingly polished smooth with what could have only been years with how they felt to his touch and looked as if it was just recently waxed.
Doors lined them from floor to ceiling, some tiny enough to fit a hand through, others enormous enough for giants.
None of them had any sort of markings of any kind that separated them from one another other than their sizes.
Adam reached for the first door- and realized he was suddenly in a room that didn't look like a room.
It was an open field of countless flowers that he recognized was Eden, immediately Adam zeroed in on the family memory of the scene that involved Eve and him making flower crowns for eachother.
The way she made him feel multiplied and expanded on to impossibly raw levels of emotion.
How strangely attached he was to Eve, how he yearned for her, and how complete she made him feel when together like two parts of the same whole.
Before suddenly founding himself back in the hallway that was his thoughts, as the more he understood what was happening, the more details he was gathering up.
…Like the countless whispers in the air that he could hear barely out of his reach of understanding on what they were saying.
It wasn't incomprehensible because of some Alien Logic however…but just how quite and how countless the amount of voices speaking at once were.
Thousands of them at the minimum, perhaps even millions of them, or at least that was how it felt like to him.
They came from behind the doors, from beneath the floorboards, from the ceiling, from the walls themselves.
…Hope Adam is…
…We must find Adam…
…Searched high and low with no sign of Eve, Adam, and…
…why did The First Family Adam, Eve, and Lilith leave the Garden?? …
…she said Adam…
…you should have stayed Adam…
…I don't know where else we can search for Adam…
…Adam…
…Adam…
…Adam…
They were voices, but he cound maybe make out a few bits and pieces of them if he really focuses and doesn't lose them to the tsunami of other voices alike before they multiplied by tens to hundreds.
It was strangely not so loud though ever present now that he was aware of it.
It was simply…everywhere.
This must be…his Mind Palace, his mind scape materialized with everything his mind had to offer.
And so, it should be as simple as…
Adam raised his hand up before he clenched them in the air, as suddenly…everything has gone white.
Before he suddenly found himself on a luxury chair, surrounded by shelves upon shelves of books upon books, the books replacing the rooms before.
He focused, he closed his eyes, and thought of the voices…the unfamiliar ones that he didn't know the names of, he dedicated their voices of saying his name to a seperate corner of his mind specifically for him.
Basically putting them on mute to check on later if he so wished to
He stood up, and looked all around him, at the impossibly tall room where he could not see the ceiling, at the many memories that existed, before he pulled and put back one by one.
The memory of fighting that strange Rex, the memory of leaving Eden, the memory of Lilith at last landing a blow on himc the memory of him, Eve, Lilith, and Samael simply hanging out for fun, the memory of that day he met Eve, the memory of him unlocking his flight and letting go of his insecurities, the memory of him having that one to one talk with Lilith, the memory of him first meeting Lilith, when he met Samael and the other angels and when-
He simply lost track of time, Adam had to admit, simply trapped in the very crystal clear nostalgia over the countless years, how his mind grew even sharper than Library Mind had done for him.
But then…he stood face to face with…books that didn't match everything else that belonged here.
His books were mixed of shiny Gold and pure White, they were perfect and pristine, made up of the finest of leather and paper.
…He was standing with the books he had spent so much time looking through, in the bright light.
However he seemed to get to the part of his head where there was a almost…cutoff point before him, a dark corridor, seemingly melting, the books…the memories.
They were dark purple, black and gray, clearly pages were eroded, shredded, and just clearly non-existence and filled with holes.
Damaged beyond belief, the memories here did not match the rest of him, as if this is the part of him that was not truly, entirely pure.
It was…kind of wierd, to Adam despite the very much paradoxical nature of the sheer difference between the two location,...felt like they were both him.
The way it sucked out the beauty and light, staining it and ruining the bliss, and yet filling and replacing it in place with Knowledge.
There was no sense of danger, and what would there be? This was his mind.
Steadily, he grabbed one book, and pulled it out-…what he got was chunks of memories of what seemed to be Highschool.
And yet clearly nonsensical, considering the sheer amount of missing details, all the faces were blank slates, everything was colorless and emotionless, and it only seemed to exist as data rather than a precious memory,
A memory of his past life, it was suppose to be him, and yet from the sheer looks of things, his mind treated the two as if they weren't remotely the same.
Another memory of a book, one that brought confusion as it mentioned the name Adam and Eve, strips and pieces, information that just wasn't complete in any feasible manner.
Names like Lucifer floated about, Solomon and Moses and Noah, speaking of the Sabbath day, words that are spoke with importants like Flood that he couldn't understand why they were so-the memories were simply degraded to nonexistent.
He put the memory back, Adam grabbed the next one, one that was even more damaged and destroyed, as if it was being eaten away at.
What he witnessed was a black furred cat that cut in and out of it, rapidly changing from a kitten, to a cat, a few fun moments and its idiocy of jumping into dangerous locations, and knocking over glass cups, to its death.
Frowning, Adam put it back, and looked at the memories more and more of his past life.
Broken bits and pieces of which that…didn't feel like this was the case, as he one by one quickly looked over it more and more.
Memories of pop culture and foreign ones, ideas both from feint childhood to the relatively recent ones.
The way Adam paused and then scorned at the choice to stubbornly kept throwing lies at every inconvenience, afraid of any negativity.
The way he would allow events to unfold before him be it in front of him or even to his own nation, simply because he didn't believe he was needed, enough, or it—to his irrational guilt—didn't seem to concern him in his eyes.
All things, Adam didn't think he would ever…truly ever act as if the memory was of an entirely different-
He paused, as a thought occured; a thought that was,…honestly quite horrific, and added a sort of existential complixity to all this…
A thought occured…was he actually who he thought he was?
He commanded a mirror to come before his hand, and looked into it, and realized…before in the waxed hallway, was something he automatically seemed to deny seeing, by his mind and senses.
He dropped reflective ornament, complete shock at what he saw.
He did not panic or even feel scared…but there was indeed a large amount of concern and worry at the sight that laid before him…
He reached up, up to his head with his arms, and gripped unto something, something that almost could be mistaken to feel like his skin and hair.
Before he pulled, and pulled at it hard.
It was painful, like taking off a layer that was glued on for so long, as if he was ripping a Brazilian Wax Strip off of himself rather messily and poorly, but unto his fucking brain instead.
Black ooze spurted out from the edges, as he felt something give way little by little, his groaning and moaning going from one voice…to layered, one all so impossibly close to one another.
Before suddenly he felt like something that was pressed against his head and mind shot out before him.
It felt freeing, as if he was a character following the script written out by bits and pieces of himself, and was at last allowed to think with no cloud and most in his mind.
A sludge of black ooze and warped memories, whispering and spilling concepts that were a bit advanced for this otherwise pure world and reality.
Vaguely, in the shape of a humanoid if they were made out of melting black oil, shakily stood up, the smallest fucking person Adam has even scene up to this point, even more to than Samael.
Its eyes looked at him with unimaginable colors both real and fake, a look of someone that was trying—as much as one could with how incomplete they were—to understand like a mirror to what Adam was doing.
He stared with wide eyes, with eyes that might have been close to horror, as realization occured to him.
One that the being before him returned with just as much emotion.
All this time, Adam believed that he was reincarnated person from another universe…
And yet inconsistencies definitely existed; such as the fact just how barely he remembered the personal life of the one before, at how little he knew of the little details.
The way he kept experiencing something he thought he should be feeling but simply wasn't…he had come to believe it was suppression, that there was some sort of control—of good intentioned—being done to him.
…It wasn't.
He was simply catching the dripping knowledge and meager amounts of memories the one before him was unknowingly effecting him with, with ideas and concepts that didn't have a strong base in this reality.
He IS Adam, the day he opened his eyes at the Garden of Eden was the first time he ever opened his eyes…
The core that was used as his center has been unintentionally influencing him from the very start, two beings of the same whole…
…Having finally come face to face.
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AN: trying to pull this into a different direction, to explain the memory gaps and trying to somewhat change how the SI-OC that felt like it was slapped on top actually integrates into this.