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Cain: The Story of the First Murder and the Birth of an Unstoppable Evil (The Fall of Man Series)

By Brennan McPherson

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Cain stood on a nameless hilltop. He was far from the City,
and below him stretched a vast field of long grasses and wild
flowers. Several trees stood in the depression, but the valley was
mostly flat and open, and cloud cover poured darkness into it like
wine into a giant bowl. He studied a familiar figure in the midst of
the valley as the smell of coming rain wove through the scent of
plant and soil. Then he gazed into the growing eastern twilight and
descended toward the figure.

The earth was soft beneath his feet. Moisture bubbled between
his toes, and mud suctioned his feet in place, as if the world was
attempting to stop him. He smiled at the thought.

Let everything try to stop me. Let the world try.

Upon reaching the bottom of the hill, he waded through the
waist-high grass. A slight wind blew through the valley, brushed
the blades back and forth in rippling waves, and caused them to
shimmer. He focused on the figure he had followed to this place as
his mind likened it to a statue, a silhouette chiseled out of the surroundings.

He was close enough to be heard, so he stopped as the
grasses beat his legs. Every moment was intoxicating, and though
he had spent weeks planning every word he would speak tonight,
he decided to savor the moment.

The winds settled and the silhouetted man addressed him in
the lull. “Which do you enjoy more, the calm or the storm?”

Cain did not respond. The wind picked up again, and the grasses
continued their attack on his legs.

“The clouds are in labor, but the floodgates are barred.”

Cain took a step forward with clenched hands. The figure
turned and his blue eyes gleamed. Cain knew those eyes well. He remembered seeing them gaze at him from a face soft with youth as the memory aged and merged with the shadowed figure before him.

Abel. The name spilled from countless recollections like a compendium
of wasps.

“I know why you are here. You might as well voice your
thoughts,” Abel said.

Cain’s head throbbed and his breath stuttered; so much
depended on this encounter. “You have always wanted to frame me
as a failure, haven’t you?”

Abel paused before answering. “I have done nothing but speak
truth.”

“And strive to ridicule me.”

Abel shook his head.

Somewhere, long ago, young Abel tugged on Father’s garment
and pointed, directing Adam’s twitching frown and furrowed brow
toward Cain. “You have always played the favorite.” He broke a stalk
of grass and tossed it. “I could have had respect and love, but you
stole it.”

“I have stolen nothing. Is it my fault if others show favoritism?”

“Of course it is. Don’t play the fool. Every time I fall, you are
there to take my place. Every mistake I make, you are there to correct
it. Everything you do is born through your desire to be better
than me. Since birth, life has been nothing but a contest between
us, hasn’t it?”

“I do what is right, and if that puts me ahead in others’ eyes, so
be it.”

“Do I only do wrong?”

“You have sinned.”

Cain laughed. “I take chances. I diverge from the well-trodden
road to forge my own because that earth feels better under my feet.
The dust kicked up by everyone else gets in my eyes and teeth, and
I grow tired of spitting it out.”

“It was not my desire that the Almighty would accept my sacrifice
and not yours.”

Cain knew his gift still lay by the altar caked with the dry blood
of Abel’s offering. The muscles in his neck flexed and pulsed with
hot blood at the memory of the broken stalks of his garden lying
discarded on stone and trampled by feet. He shook his head. “That
wouldn’t be enough to bring me here. You have played me for a fool
since the day you learned you could.”

Abel laid his words like a silk carpet between them. “I made my
choices and you made yours. I have never been guided by malice.”

“But you think me a stepping-stone. You cannot deny you have
perpetually gained by my failure.”

Abel bit his cheek and shook his head.

“You expect me to ignore the past hundred years?”

Abel’s eyes chilled and sharpened, though his voice remained
mild. “No matter what I say, you believe what you want to believe.
Your jealousy has poisoned you against me.”

Cain lowered the pitch of his voice. “I have not been jealous of
you one day of my life.”

“But I know you have. I know you better than any other.”

“If you did, you would not open your mouth again.”

“Are you threatening me? I have abided the hatred in your eyes
for far too long. I have loved you all my life, but you have pitted
yourself against me as if I were trying to usurp your place as firstborn.”

“I took care of you when you were weak. I protected you, I
taught you, and I led you. That is love. What have you ever given
me in return?”

Abel was silent.

The corner of Cain’s mouth trembled. “And what do I get from
everyone else? Father prefers you, he always has. From the moment
you were born, I was unwanted. And now even the Almighty has
rejected me.”

“But I have done nothing to you.”

“No, you’ve made sure of that. And your inaction, your calculated
silence, it has twisted everyone I love against me.”

“Give me proof, not empty words.”

Cain remembered how Sarah’s eyes had danced over Abel at the
celebration the day before; and when Abel turned and met her gaze,
a flame burned in her eyes like a spark in dry grass. Cain knew that
look and had for years failed to draw it from her. It was admiration,
attraction, love. Yes, as much as she tried convincing Cain otherwise,
Sarah loved Abel. Cain scowled. “We both know my words
are anything but empty.”

Abel softened as if noticing Cain’s cruel expression. “We are
both sinners, brother.” His voice lulled and pulled at Cain. “All
of us, even our children and their children. It is the curse Father
brought upon us by partaking in the forbidden fruit.”

“Of that, you speak truthfully.” Cain stepped forward, severing
the space with sharp strides. He had grown weary of the argument. All pleasure deteriorated into impatience and irritation at the sound of Abel’s voice. “So, brother,”—Cain smiled—“shall we have a contest like when we were children?”
He could smell Abel’s breath and feel the heat of his body.
Insects buzzed around their ears, but neither moved. He could see
Abel’s calculating gaze analyzing, attempting to understand.
Cain’s smile cracked. “Let’s see who the real sinner is.”

As Abel’s eyes narrowed, Cain seized him by the throat. The
impact made Abel blink and sputter, but Abel shoved him back a
few paces. Cain regained his footing as Abel massaged his throat
and coughed. Then Cain rushed toward him, screaming as his
shoulder made contact with Abel’s midsection, sending them both
to the ground. They tumbled through the towering grass, and Cain
managed to roll on top of him and pound knuckles on his face, but
then Abel struck back and the two twisted. Abel threw him off and
rushed to his feet, stumbling like a drunkard. Cain scrambled up
and leapt on him, flattening Abel on his belly. Cain pinned him to
the earth with his knee and hammered the back of his head with
knuckles hardened by harvest and hatred.

Abel went motionless. Cain paused, but his hand found a stone
and gripped it hard. He poised the object high above and then
smashed it into the back of Abel’s head. As black emotions swelled within his chest and erupted as a bestial scream, he bludgeoned Abel’s skull over and over again.

Eventually, Cain’s limbs weakened, and he fell back. All around
Abel’s head and torso lay a glistening pool of liquid, flesh, and bone.
No air entered Abel’s lungs and no air escaped them. Cain stared
at his brother’s body, at the shape of the crater of collapsed bone
and tissue. Nausea and pleasure coiled together, and he wondered if
what lay on the ground were truth or fiction. It had been so simple,
so quick.

But there it was. The smell of blood and brain blackened his
nose.

“Murder,” he whispered. The world had not known it possible,
but with a stone and two hands, he had proven it was. He had never
before felt so powerful and vulnerable at once, but as twilight fell
into darkness, panic speared his shoulders.

What now? He had thought through each step countless times
but the tossing froth in his stomach overwhelmed him. He bent,
rested hands on knees, and breathed deeply against the rising nausea.
He felt as if it would pass, but his body lurched and he wretched
bubbling stomach acid.

He stayed bent, gasping for air and spitting the remains in spiderweb
streams. The biliousness receded and his body relaxed, but
a whispered voice came to him as if from far away. He thought it
said, “Bring the body to the river.” Cain stilled himself, wondering if
it were anything more than amplified thought. Again he heard the
voice, and chills scrambled up his neck. “Bring the body to the river.”

He straightened and wiped his mouth. Could someone have
seen him kill Abel? His lungs squeezed his throat with bony hands.
Plants rustled in the wind and insects chirped. The screech of a
distant owl pierced the night sky and ricocheted off the hills, but he
could identify nothing abnormal. Nothing, except for the itch in his
brain and the sweat in his clothes.

“Bring the body to the river. Take him to the river and wash
yourself.”

He couldn’t seem to pinpoint the direction from which the voice spoke. Though he knew sound behaved strangely in the hills,the displacement unnerved him.

“You need not fear.”

He twisted and searched with narrowed eyes for a face, a body.

“Do what you must.”

If it were the voice of the Almighty, he could not recognize it. In
the long silence, he listened. No more words.

Cain nodded slowly. Then he stepped to Abel, stooped, and
grabbed his garment by the neck with one fist. He began to drag
his brother’s body toward the river. He listened for the voice but
heard only the wind in the hills and the crackle of thunder. Breath
burst past his clenched teeth and his fingers ached with the weight,
but all he could seem to see was blood glistening in the darkness. A
shadowy trail through trampled grass.

So much blood . . .

The panic pulsed in his head, but the sound of rushing water
just beyond the trees met his ears like cool water on cracked lips.
He let the body drop. His arms and legs shook like tree limbs in a
storm, despite his attempts to still himself.

“The river,” urged the chilled voice again.

Cain’s chest tightened.

“The river, the river, the river,” it droned on and on, buzzing in
his mind.

“Wait,” he whispered. “Just wait.”

“The river!”

He shook his head as the anxiety intensified.

Am I fighting myself, or does this voice actually exist?

He smeared bloody fingers through his hair as he sensed himself
slipping into that familiar abyss where only panic existed. He
wanted to beat himself, to rip his hair out, to silence the voice, but
most of all he wanted to kill again, to feel that rapturous release.
He recalled feeling the rock in his hand as it made contact with
Abel’s skull. He thought of how the violent blows shook his shoulder,
and how his vocal cords tore as his scream pierced the murky
darkness. He had felt such power and pleasure. He had felt like God.

It made him sick.

“The river!”

“I know!” His voice echoed through the valley, but soon was
swallowed by the roaring river. He ran to the body and hefted it
again as desperation invigorated his limbs, but the world felt all too
intangible.

Surely the corpse my knuckles strain against is only as heavy as
my thoughts. Surely the voice is nothing more than a reaction to stress.
With aching shoulders, he arrived at the river’s edge. It was
wide and fast and, most importantly, flowed away from the City.

The icy water washed his calves, and his thighs as he thrust the
body deeper into the river and watched it bob and float along the
surface. The current carried it away as Cain washed his arms and
face, scrubbing his skin until it felt as if only bone remained. He
plunged his head into the water, attempting to rinse the sticky matter
that had congealed in his hair and clung like tree sap.

The voice returned. “Cut it.”

He straightened as the hair on the back of his neck prickled
through beads of cold water.

“Cut it off.”

“Who are you?”

There was no answer.

“Tell me who you are!” He scrambled up the bank and searched
for the source of the voice, but the entire world seemed overcome
by rushing water. He let his eyes linger on the shivering stream, and
asked again, only softer, as if trying to coax a child from hiding.
When he grew tired of waiting, he chuckled anxiously, ran fingers
over his matted hair, and walked home as if the world was as it
always had been.

As if Abel were still alive.

The voice returned. Though his mind was absorbed by it, he
let it be. When the volume increased, so did the itch in his mind,
and he wondered if the two were connected. But he had little time
to spare, so he did his best to ignore it, because it was time to see
Sarah.

Sarah. My sister. My wife.

When at last he walked through the doorway of their home,
she stood by the window. The sight of her shadowed figure stopped
him just inside the threshold. She said nothing, but he knew she
saw him. She had waited for him.

He walked to her slowly, unable to breathe. A mental image
of Abel lying on the ground, dead, poured snow into his gut. He
swallowed as he neared and saw her glowing eyes trace his stained
figure. For the first time, the heat of guilt wetted his forehead.

Her breath was ragged, as if she had been crying. He paused
and almost raised his hand to touch her, but stopped. She knew
what he had done.

His dry voice hammered the silence. “I need your help, Sarah.”
She stared, but did not speak.

He turned and headed toward their sleeping quarters, and she
followed as he knew she would. He snatched a burning candle from
the hall and set it in a holder that his son Gorban had made. The
golden flame unveiled her face, and as their gazes met, every minutia
was communicated. Sarah grimaced and looked toward the
floor as if it would open up beneath her.

“I need you to cut my hair.” He cleared his throat and whispered,
“The blood . . .”

After a long, tense moment, she wiped her eyes and nodded.
He rubbed his face with shaking hands as Sarah retrieved a
blade. When she returned, Cain sat cross-legged with his back to
her knees.

She slid long fingers over his matted hair and recoiled from the
gore. But slowly, reluctantly, she brought up the blade and began
her work. The knife tugged and scraped and sliced, at times causing
him to wince, but the pain made him feel alive.

Sarah was crying again. Part of him ached at the knowledge.

The other part felt profound satisfaction that he had done what was
necessary. He had no other escape. All logic within him demanded
he murder Abel and test the bonds that held them within the walls
of the City of the Almighty. Though his soul had at first been repulsed by the thought of murdering his twin, repressing his conscience had been a necessary progression.

“A step for humanity,” whispered the voice in his mind. He tried
to push it away, but couldn’t help but agree. Yes, and who better to
take that first step than he? He would take the fall. He would perform
as they all expected him to. And he would rise again, stronger
than before.

Or die in righteous rebellion.

His eyelids and the corners of his lips drooped at the sound
of his hair tearing against the dull blade. The flame on the table
stabbed the shadows, and as his thoughts spread and interwove, the
rhythm of the blade carried him close to waking dreams. Like the
swinging he had felt in his mother’s arms so many years ago. The
same arms that had held his brother.

A chunk of matted hair struck his nose. The smell of Abel’s
blood filled the air as though his body were hanging in the room,
and suddenly the voice spoke again, whispering secrets in the dark.
Sarah had stopped. He looked over his shoulder and saw her face
buried in red-stained hands. She wept, but not for herself. Cain
knew she cried for Abel.

He stood and walked out to wash his scalp. Even if he had
wanted to, he could not have comforted her. It was the chasm
between them. He looked at his hands and shook his head.
I killed you, brother, yet still I feel your hands pushing her from me.
His fingers clenched.

If only I could kill you again.

He lifted a pot of water high and pitched forward, letting the
water cascade across his head. As the last drops fell, he lowered it to
the ground, careful not to damage it. He wiped the water from his
face and breathed deeply. The unexplained buzz drove him to seek
solitude, and the whispering sporadically increased in volume until
he could perceive words.

“Kill her,” it commanded.

He shook his head. That, he would not do. Sarah would tell no
one. Not until the time was right. She hated Cain, yet her fate was bound to his. And as much as he wanted her to experience pain for desiring Abel, he could not bear her death. Even as the hunger inside him grew.

He started at the paradox between his longing for her and the
desire to end her life. The thought came to him that the voice, and
its urgings, belonged to something else entirely, something new. He
could no longer deny it, and the more he meditated on its meaning,
the warmer it throbbed like blistered skin.

He shook his head to rid it of the buzzing itch as Sarah’s cries
continued growing until she wailed. He couldn’t endure the sound,
so he turned down the road and strode on. Billowing black clouds
swallowed the sky. Strangely hued lightning bolts streaked through
them and shook the ground with vengeful rumbles, but no rain fell.

His eye twitched and his labored breathing brought no satisfaction.
Each lungful felt hollow, somehow less than it should be.
He needed the rain. He had counted on the rain, had waited for
a storm such as this. And yet it stalled.

He found a patch of soft grass underneath a large oak and
closed his eyes, but he found no peace. So he stared at the sky and
waited for it to wash away his sin. Hours slipped by like waterless
droplets in an ocean of thought, but only one thought remained
solid like the earth at his back. He closed his eyes and whispered,
“Nothing could clean stains such as those.”

He felt a strange peace in speaking it.

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