A Shadow Over Man

“When man’s light outshone Hell, even the Devil looked away.”

Foreword

There comes a time when evil no longer needs a master—

when humankind becomes so clever, so powerful, and so blind,

that even the Devil himself retreats in awe.

This story is not about faith or rebellion.

It is about the quiet horror of progress—

when creation outgrows its creator,

and destruction becomes an act of intelligence.

A Shadow Over Man

By Faramarz Parsa

Satan had done everything in his power to rid himself of humankind—to prove to his Creator that man, born of dust, was unworthy compared to him, a being of fire. Yet all his efforts had failed. Neither his pleas at the gate of Heaven nor his submission before man could release him from the ancient covenant he had made with God.

Then Gabriel, the Messenger of Revelation, came forth and reminded him:

“You chose this fate yourself—to live until the Day of Resurrection, never to taste death—so that you may prove that this creature of clay was never worthy of your bow. So go on your way.”

Satan accepted. But within himself, he whispered:

“If I cannot destroy them directly, then I will find a way to make mankind destroy itself.”

From that moment, all his thoughts were consumed by the search for man’s downfall. He vowed never to rest until he found the way. He soon realized that confronting man directly was futile. Humanity was no longer what it once had been—no longer the simple, speechless being newly formed from dust. Today’s human was cunning, intelligent, and far too complex to be lured by simple temptations.

So Satan turned inward, brooding deeply, until he reached a conclusion. He began studying mankind’s past, opening before his mind’s eye an image of humanity vast as a galaxy. He examined their desires, weaknesses, and instincts—and saw how hatred, envy, ambition, laziness, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge and control had woven themselves into their very essence.

He saw how some turned faith into a ladder to power and wealth, how mankind dug into the depths of the earth and soared into the heart of galaxies, yet failed to know itself. He became so absorbed in his study that he lost track of what was happening in the human world. And when night came and the world fell silent, he sat alone—haunted by the cries of those who had fallen victim to greed, lust, and violence—voices cursing him for sins in which he had no part.

Then one day, a fire unlike any he had ever seen—though he himself was born of fire—flared before his eyes, and in that blaze, Satan saw the truth:

Man would bring about his own end.

He began to laugh—a laughter so loud it shook the heavens. After all his begging for mercy and his futile bow before Adam, God had not released him from his vow. Yet now, at last, he had found the path to humanity’s ruin.

With pride and confidence, Satan spread his cursed shadow over the greedy, the power-hungry, and the self-proclaimed geniuses of science and technology—those who could create but not preserve.

His temptation this time was not simple—it was seductive, sophisticated, cloaked in the language of progress. He tempted the wealthy to fund the scientists who could build artificial intelligence, mechanical humans, and terrifying weapons—to lead the world, in the name of advancement, straight toward its destruction.

Blinded by their brilliance, power, and vanity, they saw nothing else.

And so it was that Satan’s work was finally done.

The world of humankind perished by its own hand—a slow, merciless death that, in the not-so-distant future, will swallow the entire planet Earth.