The First Blood
"The earth drank what Heaven could not save."
The world outside Eden was not a paradise.
The ground was hard and cold beneath Adam's hands as he tilled the soil. Eve wept often, clutching her belly as life grew within her—life born into a world that knew death. The river no longer sang. The sky was often gray.
In time, Cain was born.
And then, Abel.
Two sons of dust and spirit.
Two paths diverging before they could even walk.
Cain was a child of the soil. His hands were thick, his arms strong. He toiled the ground with anger, feeling every thorn, every dry season as a personal betrayal.
Abel tended flocks. Gentle, quiet, his voice soothed the wild things around him. He laughed often, his eyes bright with wonder even in a broken world.
Adam watched them with a heavy heart. Eve prayed that neither would inherit the curse they carried.
But even in their games, a shadow grew between them.
Cain, ever glancing at his brother with narrowed eyes.
One day, Adam spoke:
"Offer unto the Creator the fruits of your labor.
A gift from your heart."
And so they did.
Cain, from the sweat of his brow, gathered the fruits of his harvest.
Abel, from the firstborn of his flock, offered the purest lamb.
They laid their offerings upon stone altars.
And Heaven answered.
A fire fell from the skies and consumed Abel's offering in a pillar of divine light.
Cain's remained untouched.
The smoke curled into nothing.
His hand clenched into fists. His heart turned to iron.
"Why?" he whispered.
Heaven remained silent.
But Hell did not.
In the caverns of Hell, Lucifer smiled, watching the rift grow in Cain's soul like a crack in a mirror.
"Jealousy is a sweet wine," whispered Beelzebub.
"It ferments into rage," added Asmodeus, licking sharpened teeth.
Lucifer leaned closer to the veil between realms.
"Whisper, my child.
You are forgotten.
You are lesser.
Strike... and be seen."
Cain found Abel alone in the fields one dawn, the mist clinging to the ground like ghostly fingers.
Abel smiled and spoke of dreams he'd had—dreams of light, of forgiveness, of peace.
But Cains's world had no such dreams.
It had thorns.
It had drought.
It had silence from Heaven.
And it had rage.
Without a word, Cain picked up a stone—heavy, jagged.
"Brother?" Abel asked, stepping closer.
The stone struck flesh.
Bone cracked.
Blood bloomed like a black flower across the earth.
Abel fell, eyes wide with shock and sorrow. He gasped once—like a child searching for a mother's hand in the dark—and died.
The earth drank deeply of the first human blood.
And Cain stood trembling, the stone slipping from his hand.
In Heaven, the elder brother wept.
The trees bent low. The rivers stilled. The stars dimmed.
He descended, clothed in terrible sorrow, and spoke:
"Cain.
Where is your brother?"
Cain's voice was bitter.
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
The Creator's voice thundered, shaking mountains.
"Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground!"
Cain fell to his knees, sobbing. But no punishment could undo what had been done.
"You are cursed from the earth that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood at your hand.
A fugitive and a wanderer shall you be."
Cain begged for mercy.
And in mercy, the Creator marked him—etched a burning sign upon his flesh that none would kill him.
"Thus you shall walk, carrying your guilt across the earth."
And Cain, weeping and furious, fled into the east.
In Hell, the Princes celebrated.
"The first blood has been spilled," whispered Belphegor, reclining upon a throne of shattered oaths.
"The fist brother slain," said Leviathan, scales glinting.
Lucifer rose, his wings of darkness unfurling.
"Thus falls the house of man.
Not with the roar of armies...
But with the hand of a brother."
The younger twin smiled, the flames of his throne reflecting in his endless eyes.
Thus was committed the Sixth Sin—Envy, sharpened into Murder, the breaking of brotherhood and the staining of the earth.