HELL
By Dr. Kool
Prologue
I woke up to my alarm clock screaming at me. I knocked it off the small table to my bed, which did little to shut it up. I slowly sat up, grabbed the clock off the floor and punched the “off” button. I stood up, brushed my brown hair out of my eyes and stumbled down the hall to the shower.
When I got out of the shower a few minutes later, slightly more awake, I walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a cup of coffee out. Cold coffee isn’t quite as good as hot coffee, but it was easier to deal with and faster to get in the morning. The rest of my breakfast consisted of a few pieces of bread with honey on them. Not too appetizing, but it kept me going until lunch. I looked up at the clock, seven-thirty; I had to leave for work soon. Work. The downfall of my life. When I was a kid, I had fantasies of being a writer or an actor, but four years of college and six years at a dead-end office job had put me in my right mind. I worked ten hours a day with clueless idiots on things that no one fully understood. I hadn’t been in a real relationship since high school and barely got paid enough to feed myself and my dog, Orsan, an old, decrepit beagle, who currently had parked himself right in the middle of the kitchen floor, where he couldn’t be more in the way. I stepped over Orsan yet again to get my cell phone off the counter. I flipped it open and put it up to my ear to check for a dial tone. Unfortunately, there happened to be no dial tone. I must’ve been late on goddamn bill again. I hurled the phone to the cheap wooden floor. Despite advertisements’ claims, it couldn’t handle being thrown on the floor with all my strength. It shattered like dropped icicle. My boss would have to figure out I was sick on his own. Orsan slowly lifted his head, blinked a few times, and yawned. “What the hell do you want?!” I bellowed into his face. He blinked few more times and yawned again before nestling his head between his front paws once again. I finished my last piece of bread and honey before stomping over to the door.
I slipped my coat on and pulled a battered Red Sox cap down over my face. I wasn’t in the mood to be looked at. People often that noted that I wore a long, tan coat reminiscent of 1930s detectives. They would say that it was “vintage” and “out of style” I would often reply by asking them how they could find hats that would fit their swollen heads. I would also commonly run into people who disliked my wearing a Red Sox hat, as I lived on the outskirts of New York City, where most of the Yankees’ fan base came from. The truth is that I never really liked the Red Sox, or baseball in general for that matter, I just found the hat on the ground and figured it was better than paying for one, so I brought it home and washed. I also think it’s funny watching these guys get pissed off. They taunt me for my hat, and I burn them on everything from their sex life to their children to their weight to whatever else I think of at the time. I don’t actually know any of these people, and if I do happen to know them, I pretend not to. I’m not so into the whole “making friends” thing. I never have been, even in kindergarten I played with blocks on my own, and attempted to castrate any unfortunate child who tried to befriend me. Even up through high school, I was always the one who stood alone and did homework while other guys were doing drugs and hanging in groups. I went to a huge college so I just got lost in the crowd, no one knew me, partially because I wasn’t social, and partially because my roommate, the only guy I might have befriended died of a drug overdose early in the first semester. And even up to this point, I never was part of a group in work. I only worked with people when I had to, doing my own thing most of the time. Hell, most of them were too dumb to even have intelligent conversation.
I stepped out of my apartment building, the wind nearly whipping my hat off my head. Some wet flakes of snow slapped my face. What had we done to the environment to make the weather like this? It was only November, and it was already as cold as late December. I held my small laptop under my arm, maybe I could get some internet access at the Starbucks across the street. The little light on the other side told me I shouldn’t walk, but I didn’t hear any cars coming, so I though it couldn’t hurt to just jog across.
I was halfway across when the taxi hit me. The guy have been in a hell of a rush to get where he was going because his horn honk only gave me enough time to look at him and see the determined expression on his face.
The front took my legs right out from under me ad smashed my head into the windshield. The problem was that the b*****d didn’t stop when he hit me, he just kept on going. After my head, my shoulder hit the windshield and I flipped summersault-style onto the roof, then rolled over it and was spilled back onto the pavement. My head and right shoulder hit first together, followed by the rest of my body, and I rolled for a few yards before slowing to a halt as everything faded into darkness.
“He has a broken shoulder, ankle, femur, and his skull is fractured in seven places,” said an odd, distorted voice. White light filled the small crack between my eyelids as I heard yelling all around. Someone was screaming. No. Not someone. Many people. All screaming. Someone was yelling out something about pulse, one small voice was asking about brains and I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. I saw a single figure dressed in all white, except his shirt. It was mostly red. Thick red paint was smeared across his shirt. Why would someone like that be there? No. It wasn’t paint. It was blood. My eye began to slide shut. It was my blood. My blood was smeared all over this person. Everything was drifting away. “We’re losing him!” someone said, their voice laced with urgency. Then everything slipped into blackness again.
#####
First Chapter
I slowly opened my eyes. Well, actually, one eye, my right eye wouldn’t open. The first thing I noticed was that it was very, very warm. Warm to the point that sweat poured from your skin so fast that your body ran out of fluid to put out in mere seconds. Then I looked around to get a sense of my surroundings. I seemed to be a waiting room of sorts. Dozens of other people sat around me in comfortable red chairs. I also sat a similar chair. There was single door with no handle down the room to my left, and to my right was small desk. Behind the desk sat a woman who was clearly bent over some paperwork so I all I could make out was hair the color of steel that was pulled up into a bun.
What kind of place is this? I thought I was dead. Maybe I am. No I’m not dead. There’s no such thing as Hell or Heaven. They’re just figment of weak peoples’ imagination. I was going to find out what the hell was going on. I stood up and found my legs amazingly weak. My knees buckled I crashed to the orange shag carpet with a dull thud. The carpet was hardly warmer than the surface of an ice rink. The sudden temperature change caused bile to shoot to my mouth and onto the carpet. A few of the people in waiting room looked at me for a second and then looked away. I managed to drag myself back into my chair, traces of bile still snaking their way down my chin. Maybe some of the people here could tell me what this place was.
There was a kid, no more than six years of age sitting two seats down. Tiny glasses perched on his little nose. His eyes were glassy, his cheeks red and a small booger sat on his upper lip, threatening to fall into his mouth. He had clearly been crying and had no idea where we were. I frowned. He looked so sad. I just had to talk to him. I managed slide down one seat so I was next to him. “Hi kid,” I said. I never really knew how to talk to kids. “What’s your name?” He looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and sniffed. “Adam,” he said quietly. “How old are you, Adam?” I asked, no quite sure what else to say. “Five,” was his simple response. I opened my mouth again, not sure what to say next when I heard a door open. A small, hunched man in a long, white lab coat stepped through a door near the desk that I hadn’t seen before. His skin was reddish-brown color and he had no hair on his head. Two short, black horns jutted from his head, his feet were cloven hooves and a short, featureless tail hung below the hem of his coat. There was clip-board clutched under his arms. He walked up to me.
“Is your name Charles March?” he asked in a bored tone. “Yeah,” I said, “that’s me.”
“Alright, good, good,” replied the creature. “Your record here says that you were an atheist who swore frequently, told others that God was false and you participated in many fights. Is all that true?”
“Yes,” I said, puzzled.
“Those are mostly minor sins so it won’t be all that bad,” the creature said. “However, I’m told that you were a Red Sox fan, that’ll knock you down a little way.”
“What?!” I screamed. Sins? Red Sox? What was going on?
“I was kiddin’ about the Red Sox bit,” the man said with a chuckle. “But the rest is true. Go to the desk to check in.”
Words refused to come to my mouth. I was speechless. I vaguely noted the little demon-like creature telling Adam he didn’t belong here and would be going to Limbo. Still lost in thought, I stood up and staggered to the desk. “Hi,” I said, putting my hand on the desk to steady myself. Just then, I noticed that my legs had gotten a little stronger. Well, strong enough to hold me up for a few seconds. The woman looked up at me. Her eyes showed no sign of irises or white. They were a terrible black, so dark I felt like I might fall into them and be lost forever. She wore a red, formless dress. Tiny red horns jutted from under her grey beehive. “What’s your name?” she asked in tone so cold that it sent shivers down my spine. “What?” I asked, staring at her painfully red lips.
“Your name. What is it?” she said, her tone even colder. I blinked and managed to say “Charlie March.”
“What’s your middle name?” she asked, exasperated.
“Nathan,” I said, pulling myself back to the matter at hand.
“Where did you die?”
“Die?”
“Yeah, you’re in Hell,” she said. “You’re dead.” My mind went spinning out of control. Dead? I was dead? My brain ached. I stumbled off to the side as the carpet shifted under my feet.
After a moment, I regained my composure and stumbled back in front of the woman. “So where did you die?” she asked in the exact same tone as before.
“In a street,” I said, still a little confused.
“Haha,” she said humorlessly, popping a piece of gum into her mouth. “I meant geographically, where did you die?”
“Uhh, New York City.”
“Alright, now we’ve got that cleared up, go through that door-“ she motioned to a door I could have sworn wasn’t there before-“ and go into the third door on the right. Satan should get there in few minutes. Next.” She waved me away and I realized line had formed behind me.
I walked through the door the clerk had indicated and was standing in a hallway that extended off into the distance. Doors were spaced equally on either side of me each marked with a number and a letter. On my right, the doors were labeled H1, H2, and H3 and so on as far as I could see. On the left, the doors were similarly marked, but with Cs instead of Hs.
I walked a little until I reached H3. It was nondescript wooden door with an inky-black handle. Out of habit, I knocked three times before turning the handle and entering.
A blast of hot air almost knocked me off my feet. I managed to slam the door behind me. I first noticed that it was hotter than a hot day in the Sahara at noon. The air smelled faintly of vomit and was completely silent. Other than that, I could tell very little about the room, as it was dark as a mine shaft. “Hello there,” said a booming voice from directly in front of me. I jumped back into the door looking around furiously. At that moment, an orange glow filled the room.
A man that must have been twelve feet tall stood before me. His skin would have pitch-black in normal light, but it shone orange in the current light. Giant beige ram’s horns curled from his forehead and he wore a white lab coat; that I noted was a little singed around the edges. His eyes burned like molten lava and seemed to be flowing inside his sockets. He smiled and held out his hand. I put my hand in his -it was ice cold- and he pulled me to my feet.
“My name’s Sopenix, and I’ll be your taskmaster. My job is to make your experience in Hell as miserable as possible. I’ll torture you, light you on fire, and put you to work on things that don’t really need to be done. You’ll hate me with every fiber of your being, but you have to understand that this is only my job. I didn’t choose to be a demon.” I shook his hand, not sure if I should like him or hate him. He seemed pretty nice for what I thought a demon would be. “I’m Charlie,” I said with a concerned smile.
“Have a seat,” Sopenix said, gesturing to some chairs I hadn’t noticed. I walked to one chair and almost sat down.
“They have blades all over them!” I yelled. They did, in fact, have several-inch-long blades sticking out of the seats and backs of them. Sopenix walked up to me and shoved me into the chair.
Pain that I hadn’t known shot through me as dozens of blades impaled my legs, torso, arms and head. The room filled with my screaming as blood poured from me and soaked into the carpet. Blood dribbled from my mouth because of a blade that was sticking all the way through my throat. I should have been dead. But I was already dead. I didn’t lose consciousness, I just sat there screaming until I couldn’t scream any more.
After what felt like hours but what was probably only a few minutes the door opened and a man walked in. He wore a crisp business suit, polished black shoes and black cape around his shoulders. A black fedora was perched upon his head. He placed a stool on the ground and sat in it. He leaned forward and offered a red hand to me. “Hello, Charlie” he said. “My name’s Satan.”
I shook his hand, it was warm and human, unlike Sopenix’ hand. “How are you liking Hell so far?” he asked. I hacked up some blood. “Honestly, sir,” I said, wiping blood from my lips. “I think it sucks.”
“That’s good,” said Satan “although you have it pretty easy. It doesn’t get too much worse than the spiked chair for you. The rapists on the thirty-third level have it much worse.”
“Glad to hear that, sir,” I said.
“Well, I’ve liked talking with you Charlie, but I have to move on,” said Satan, getting up. He opened the door to leave, and turned back. “Oh, and Charlie,” he said, “you don’t have to call me sir. I’ll see you at the briefing tomorrow.”
I felt a little queasy. I had just had a conversation with Satan, and, even more strangely, we had talked about Hell and torture like we were talking about baked goods.
“You took that rather well,” said Sopenix from behind me. “Most people take the fact that Satan is sitting in front of them and chatting with them pretty badly. Especially the people who thought they were Christian in their previous life.”
“What do you mean ‘thought they were Christian’?” I asked, frowning.
“Oh, you know, people assume the forgiving of God,” Sopenix replied.
“I’m not following you.”
“Has a little kid ever taken something from you, and then said ‘You just have to ask for forgiveness and God will forgive you’?”
“Not personally, but I’ve heard people I know whining about it,” I say, still a little confused.
“It’s those people who assume the forgiving of God,” Sopenix said, a sort of grimace on his face. “They think that God’ll forgive them no matter what they do. They burn on the fifth level, normally.”
God sent his own people to Hell. The people that prayed every night. The people that went to church every Sunday. The people who read the Bible often. All sent to burn for eternity because they did one thing bad.
“Time for you to go, Charlie,” Sopenix said. “I’ve got other people to get acquainted with. Just go through that door there, you should be able to find your way.”
I got up and walked to the door. Then a question came to my head. “How long am I gonna be here?” I asked Sopenix, turning to face him.
“I’ve been here over five-hundred years,” he replied. “But the end might be in sight,” he finished with a knowing smile.
That didn’t really answer my question.
I turned and left.
#####
Second Chapter
The door from Sopenix’ office opened to a long hallway with glass walls. On either side of me were small, hewn stone chambers. Each chamber had a person and a demon in it. Each chamber seemed to exhibit a different method of torture. One chamber had a man who completely sheathed in flames writhing on the floor. Another room was so full of what appeared to be killer bees that it was hard to tell what else was going onside. Yet another chamber exhibited a man being lashed with a whip of chain links, and heated to the point that it glowed orange.
I was horrified. People were being raped, beaten and tortured in ways I had never imagined before my eyes by demons that seemed to be enjoying themselves and all I could do is stand and watch. I broke into a run.
Luckily, the corridor was only about fifty yards long, and I ran most of it, so I didn’t see all of it. However, I had seen enough to know this was not a good place to be. This was the Hell that Christians on forums had threatened me with. These bastards tortured for fun, because they could and no other reason.
The corridor ended with a pair of twelve-foot-tall wrought-iron double-doors decorated with carvings of demons faces and horns. Two of the demons stuck their curved tongues out at about doorknob level. There was also a giant carved ram’s head carved directly in middle with a huge ring hanging down from its nose. I hesitated before knocking. What horrors awaited me on the other side? Did I really want to walk through that door? The woman on my left having her head cranked in repeated 360s answered that question for me. I grabbed the ram’s nose-ring and knocked three times.
The ram’s head swung sideways like a door and the single, yellow, bloodshot eye of a demon that was clearly on the opposite side of the door. “What’s ya name?” the demon bellowed in a cockney accent. “Charlie March,” I said, revolted at the creature’s giant eye. Without a word he reached out with a yellowed talon of hand and slammed the ram’s head shut. There were a few seconds of silence before the doors slowly swung in.
Inside, it looked pretty much as I had always though Hell would be. People were laboring moving piles of rocks to somewhere else, knocking chunks of rock off the wall with pick-axes, demons patrolling the area and yelling at people. Another thing I had sort of expected was the fire. It flared from holes in the ground, floated in the air, and covered rocks. There was nothing flammable, but the fire seemed to make anything it touched flammable. Right in middle of my field of vision stood a demon. He wore a white lab coat like all the other demons. His skin was a rotting pink color and a single yellowing horn curled from the top of his head. This all disgusted me to no end, but the most revolting thing about this creature’s countenance was the single bulbous eye that took up most of its face. It was the same disgusting eye that had glared at me through the door. He walked up to me. Well, more he limped; one of his legs seemed to be slowly disintegrating before my eyes. “Welcome to Hell,” he said, extending his hand. His breath reeked of rotting flesh and cigarette smoke. I gingerly shook his hand, trying to smile, but it probably looked more liked a grimace of pain. “My name’s Zulphed, the Gatekeeper,” he said hardily. “I’m Charlie,” I said, slipping my hand out of his. “No you’re not,” Zulphed said. That was odd. “You’re a demon now, and you get a name as such. Your new name is” –he glanced at the clipboard in his hand- “Azihaap.” That wasn’t too bad. Could be worse. Just then, a bell tolled from somewhere off in the depths the Hell. “That’s lunch,” said Zulphed. “Just follow he crowd, you’ll get there.” Everyone around me was dropping their wagons, picks and shovels to go running in the same direction. I realized I was starving and jogged on after them.
We weaved through ravines, tunnels and caverns for a few minutes before coming to a huge mess hall-style room. Long tables were lined end-to-end in perfect rows. It was all so perfect. Except that there was no food. There wasn’t anything to imply that food was anywhere. No food on the tables. No buffet bar. Nothing. I hear someone behind me mutter, “Damn, not again.” That was rarely a good sign.
A demon in a huge chef’s hat appeared on top of one the tables in a puff of flame and yelled, “Lunch in served!”
With those words, the walls opened up like garage doors and a swarm of three-foot long scorpions poured from them. Their black chitin glistened in Hell’s half-light as they flowed at us like a moving river. Several people shrieked in terror, myself among them. A few people charged the swarm and grabbed scorpions by their tails and slammed them into the floor repeatedly. When the scorpion stopped moving, the other scorpions seemed to leave the person alone. After that, the people would go sit down and rip the dead scorpions apart. Was it possible that these monstrosities could be our lunch? After the first few, a couple more people moved toward the swarm and tried to catch one. Soon, the dining hall was filled with howls of pain as stingers and claws dug into soft human flesh.
My eating depended on my ability to kill something. I wasn’t gonna kill something just because of my own hunger. I couldn’t die of starvation, I was already dead. There was no reason for me to kill something. A scorpion came flying out of nowhere at my face. I instinctively dodged out of the way as a claw grazed my cheek. That had been close. I spun around to check where the little bugger had ended up in time to see it sink it’s stinger into my calf. Pain exploded up my entire leg up to my tailbone. A shriek of pain escaped my lips as I stumbled backward. That was uncalled for. I focused on the little b*****d, who happened to scuttling toward me, stinger poised dangerously. I lounged at him, grabbed his tail and lifted him off the ground. I let him dangle for a second, time enough to let him consider his fate. One of his claws dug into my wrist. I bellowed as another jolt of pain shot through my body. I spun him over my head for a couple seconds before flinging him into the wall. Bug juices splattered the wall and the scorpion dropped to the floor. I walked over and picked him up. Black fluid dripped out of a gaping hole where his head had been. Bile rose in my throat. I had never seen anything quite so revolting. Oh well, it was food, and I was starving.
I carried my scorpion over to one of the more populated tables. I sat down next to a nice-looking guy. “Hi,” I said brightly. If I was going to be in Hell, I might as well have friends to go through it with me. The guy looked up at me, a half-smile on his face. Black bug juice covered his chin and fingers. “Hello,” he responded softly.
“How’d you die?” I asked, thinking that being dead was one of the few things he all had in common.
“I was a private in the National Guard,” he said. “A sniper got past my helmet.” I flinched. Not a great way to go. “How about you?” he asked.
“I got hit by a taxi when I was crossing the street,” I replied. When I said it out loud it sounded pretty pathetic. “What got you into Hell?” I asked, realizing another thing we all had in common; we were all sinners of some type or another.
“I killed someone once and I wounded a few other people,” he said. “But I saved someone’s life one time, so it evened out to put me here. You?”
“I was an Atheist, I swore a lot and I got in some fights,” I replied. My life really sucked compared to this guy. He smiled and extended his hand, “Mike Spears,” he said. “Charlie March,” I said, shaking his hand; it was callused and muscled. “This scorpion is fantastic,” Mike said, turning back to his meal. I looked at my lunch. It was pretty gross. I dug middle my and index finger into the hole where the head used to be and yanked a chunk of black, juicy meat out. I surveyed it for a moment as it dripped on the table before popping it into my mouth. It was good. It tasted like butter-coated lobster. “This stuff is pretty good,” I said, pulling another chunk out.
###
Third Chapter
After lunch I had a few minutes to look over where I would be sleeping. It was, of course, another painful reminder that I was in Hell. The room was about fifty feet across and extended out of sight. Each wall was lined with bunk beds that were only spaced a couple feet apart. Another depressing detail was that there were no mattresses on the bed boards and the pillows were blocks of wood. I also noted that there were doors spaced every few hundred feet down the dorm. I groaned. I’d never sleep at all in conditions like this. “I need a bunkmate,” said Mike who was standing next to me. “My last one got knocked down to the sixth level for getting in a fight with a demon. He’s carried one of his arms around since then, too.” I grimaced. This was only the third level and I had no idea how many more there were. This is only minor torture. I couldn’t imagine being on the sixth level. “Mike,” I said. “I’m thirsty. Where can I get some water?”
“Well there’s a water fountain through the door there,” Mike said, pointing at the nearest door to us. “But it’s probably a better idea to go thirsty. The water’s worse than a sun-baked rain puddle.” That was sound reason to go thirsty. I swallowed and looked up at one of the many clocks in the room. It was time to get to work; whatever work was.
When I got outside, a group of people, including me, were whisked away by Sopenix. We walked for about twenty minutes through the hallways and caverns of Hell until Sopenix stopped in front of plain-looking wooden door. He turned to face us, glanced at his clipboard and bellowed “Azihaap, you’re first.” I looked around, curious to see who was first. No one was stepping up. That was odd. “Azihaap!” he yelled again. Not a single person was responding. Then I looked up. I was Azihaap. I stumbled up to Sopenix as few people chuckled. “Forget our new name, did we?” he asked in the tone of an accusing mother. I nodded weakly. “Don’t let it happen again,” he said tonelessly. Without a word, Sopenix opened the door and gestured for me to enter. I stepped over the threshold, head hung. Sopenix follow me through the door and closed the door gently behind him. The room was lit by flickering torchlight and smelled of sweat. The walls were made of hewn stone like the rest of Hell. I turned to Sopenix with the intention of asking him what would happen next. However, his fist wordlessly told me as it slammed into my face with the force of a freight train. I tumbled backwards to the ground with a thud. I saw a blurry Sopenix walk up to me a pick me up off the ground so that me feet dangled a few inches from the ground with a single hand. Warm blood coursed from me nose, filling my mouth with its metallic taste. I barely felt cold iron snap around my wrists, binding them together. “What was that for?” I slurred as I blew blood from my mouth, sprinkling Sopenix’ chest with the thick red liquid. “You’re in Hell,” Sopenix replied. “I get to beat you up all I want. Get mining. The picks are over there.” I vaguely saw him gesture to my right. He dropped me to the ground once again. I was too dizzy for my legs to hold me up and I crumpled like a stomped soda can. I grabbed the wall and pulled myself to my feet. My knees clacked together like knitting needles as I leaned against the wall. I saw the pick-axes a few feet away from me. They had two-and-half-foot-long heads that were sharpened to a lethal point. I stumbled to the pile of picks and hefted one onto my shoulder. I saw Sopenix walking to the door. He deserved to have something sharp shoved through his head. I looked at the pick-axe perched on my shoulder. He was beginning to open the door. If I moved quickly I could get him before he went out. I hobbled after him, a stupid grin plastered on my face. He ignored my ragged breathing and loud footsteps as I advanced behind him. The door made a final creak as I raised the pick above my head. I could pick out each individual face of the crowd as they stared, wide-eyed at my blooded face and Sopenix’ blood-splattered chest. I picked out Mike in the crowd. He was shaking his head back and forth. What could be trying to say? Sopenix was stepping over the threshold and reaching for the handle. It was now or never. Just before I swung the axe, I realized what Mike was saying. My mind’s eye saw Mike’s former bunkmate hanging by his toes from an unseen ceiling while being beating with sticks by laughing demons. The pick-axe slipped from fingers and fell to the ground a clang. “Good choice,” Sopenix muttered as he slammed the door.
I figured it was best not to go against Sopenix, so I bent down and heaved the pick-axe back onto my shoulder. I had no idea what to do, so I just started pounding at the rocks on one of the walls. Soon enough, Sopenix came back, another sinner in tow. This guy ducked the first punch but wasn’t fast enough to dodge the second punch that plowed into his stomach. Sopenix cuffed the guy’s hands together, like he had mine, and told him to get mining. Just like me, the guy took a little while to recover, but he got mining next to me in a minute or so. “Sopenix’s a real hard a**, huh?” I said to the new arrival.
“He’s no so bad,” he replied in a tired tone. “I’ve been on the fourth level for the past month and our taskmaster would beat us around more than just one punch.”
“How’d you get up here?” I asked.
“Some guy tried to run for it,” the guy responded. “I tripped him and smacked him in the neck. It saved Satan a lot of headache trying to find the guy.” I whistled.
“You helped the Devil,” I said sarcastically. “You’ll go to Hell for that.” He chuckled. Maybe I should have been a comedian when I was alive. “What’s your name?” I asked. I couldn’t call him “Hey you.”
“Danny,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“Charlie,” I said. “I would shake your hand, but I’m handcuffed and mining.”
“What a coincidence,” Danny said, “so am I.” I took a breath in to laugh but I was cut off by the door banging open. I looked up from knocking rocks off the wall and gasped. A girl of maybe sixteen dangled from Sopenix’ outstretched hand. She was kicking and screaming with all her might. “Talk to me like that, will you?” Sopenix was growling. He batted her across the room with the effort of hitting a whiffleball. She crashed into the opposite wall and slumped to the floor. Sopenix stomped up to the girl, grabbed her face and lifted her off the ground again, his claws digging into her cheeks and forehead. Sopenix’ other snatched a pick-axe from the pile like kindling and swung it into her side. Blood sprayed from the wound, covering the walls and Sopenix in a shiny red coating. He slammed the girl into the wall once again, driving more blood from the gaping wound in her side. Sopenix snapped his fingers and shouted, “Umael! Get over here. I need you to do something for me.” A few silent seconds went by as I stared at the blood-soaked Sopenix and his bleeding victim. Then a small creature dropped down through the ceiling like it was jell-o. The creature was about a foot-and-a-half tall with leathery wings and bat-like wings. Its skin was a dark maroon with black on the inside of its pointy ears. “Yeah?” said the little creature in high-pitched squeak. “We’ve had a volunteer for the welcoming committee and I want you to take her to the gates,” Sopenix said, brandishing the girl. “Tell Zulphed Sopenix sent you. Now go.” An evil grin stretched across the little creature’s face. It grabbed the girl by the wrist and leaped back up through the ceiling, dragging her behind it. I wondered the “welcoming committee” could be. Then I thought of walking down the glass corridor when I had first come in. Bile rose in my throat once again. The poor girl was going to be tortured some how. Sickening.
The rest of that bit of punishment went rather uneventfully. I didn’t talk much and no one else messed with Sopenix. After what seemed like the first hour my hands began to get sore from chipping at rocks. A few other people complained about blisters and aching muscles. They got a smack from Sopenix. I was smart enough to stay quiet. We mined and mined. One guy dropped from exhaustion. He was left there for a few seconds to recover, then pulled to his feet and told to work or he would be hanging from the ceiling by his hair. Long after I had become tired, bitter, sore and blistered, Sopenix allowed to us to go. I glanced around the room. We must have doubled its size with the mining.
I followed the crowd back to the dorms. I stepped through the door and collapsed onto my bedboard. I was asleep in seconds.
####
Fourth Chapter
“Wake up, wake up.” The voice drifted through my head. Someone was talking to me. “Wake up!” Someone was trying to wake me up. I slowly opened my eyes. A wicked-looking barb filled my right-eye’s field of vision. I scrambled back, trying to get away from the tarnished spike that was hovering mere centimeters from my eye. My head connected with the wall with a crack. The world blurred for a moment then re-focused. Sopenix stood beside my bed, hold the cruel-looking barb. “Get out of bed,” he growled. I sat up, cracking my head on the bed above mine. Sopenix moved off down the hall, brandishing the barb. I saw Mike standing in front of our bunk. “What the hell is goin’ on?” I grumbled, rubbing my head. “Be quiet and listen,” Mike said sharply. “He’ll tell us soon.” I groaned. Now my bunkmate was being mean too. That’s the last thing I need. I opened my mouth to ask what Sopenix did with that spike when Sopenix’ voice filled the room. “Everyone wake up! Those still asleep will be minus an eye!” Every single in the room bolted awake. That answered my question. All eyes focused on Sopenix and his metal eye-remover. “Alright, this is the deal,” Sopenix bellowed. “Umeal has just informed me that God is going to come down to inspect us today. The only ones that like this are God and his angels. You’ll hate it more than any other time here. We hate it too, because he can punish us as well.” This was sounding less and less fun by the second. “We need to get ready for this as quickly as possible, as we only have an hour,” continued Sopenix. With that, he turned and left. A few people muttered curses. “Why is this inspection so bad?” I asked Mike who, like many other people, was muttering one of the longest strings of curses I had heard. “God makes sure that we’re miserable enough.”
“Oh, s**t!” I said.
This was definitely not sounding fun.
Over the next half-hour, all the newbies, were told everything we needed to know for inspection. We learned how to act sad, tortured, and depressed, how to talk to God, how to resist pain better (something that the demons enjoyed all too much) and so much more. After that, we helped get physically ready. They put some people to putting metal studs in the bedboards, some very unfortunate people were tortured to make it look people were tortured more often than they really were, still other were told to put ball-and-chains on people, apparently that was a very important touch. I was assigned to hanging dead things from the ceiling with a few other people. This was one of the more revolting jobs I had done in my all-too-short lifetime, as I was fastening shrunken heads, raisin-like bats and unrecognizably deformed creatures to the ceiling. Basically, we got a ton of strings with a magnet of some sort on one end, and a wicked-looking, crescent-shaped blade on the other and a laundry bag-full of shriveled creatures and body-parts. I would stick the blade into the dead object and the magnetized end would attach to the ceiling. A simple -if not revolting- job.
When I was done with that, I was allowed to sit down and get a ball-and-chain to my ankle.
Just after the guy straightened up from attaching my ball-and-chain, Umeal, the little bat-like imp rushed in. “He’s coming!!” the he shrieked. A tingle ran down my spine and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I was not getting a good feeling about this. I checked around the room and found that everyone else’s reaction was about the same as mine. Sopenix had dressed up for the occasion as well. He was decked out in spiked chains, metal gloves and a metal eyepatch. Wicked-looked weapons of torture adorned his back and his body was covered in self-induced wounds. He looked like about the last guy I wanted to mess with.
Then, it came, the moment we had been waiting for. The door at the end of the dorm swung open. Through it came an explosively bright light. I resisted the urge to look away. I couldn’t see anything but this giant ball of light. Slowly, very slowly, the light faded and became four pious-looking figures holding a palanquin between them. The palanquin swayed slightly as the, still-glowing, foursome slowed to a halt. The figures were dressed in first-century togas, sandals from the same time-period and glowing gold helmets. Their features were chiseled and handsome. However, the most startling thing about these glowing men were their wings. The majestic, powerful feathered wings that were the purest of white in color that sprouted from their shoulders. They were angels. They wore no expression on their faces, despite their majesty. It was as if they were mindless drones with no thought of their own. There was a soft clink as the angels set the palanquin on the uneven stone floor. The door of the small box swung open and small pair of feet lowered themselves to the ground. It might have been a trick of the light, but I could sworn that the ground flattened out before the feet touched it. From the palanquin, stepped a wizened old man with white beard that extended down to his clogged feet. Long white hair stretched to the small of his back. Thick eyebrows shaded his sunken eyes. A black robe wrapped around his frail frame. His right hand held a wooden cane. He was a total of about three feet tall. I tried to stifle a giggle. This was God? This was the high and mighty creator of the universe? This old geezer was the one who brought the Ten Plagues down on Egypt? I couldn’t help but to giggle.
The sound had barely escaped my lips before a shining chain appeared around me where air had once been. The chain didn’t give me time to flinch before leaping at me and wrapping me up like a mummy. My legs snapped together as my arms slapped to my sides. I managed to maintain my balance for a few short seconds as I teetered on my immobile legs. I fell surprisingly lightly to the ground. The smell of metal filled my nostrils, only seeming to make the blackness of my vision darker. Blood drained limbs and head as the chains brutally tightened. It wasn’t actually all that bad compared to sitting in a bladed chair. I just lay there for a few seconds while my fingers went numb. Then the chains glowed white with heat. I saw the light through my closed eyes a fraction of a second before the pain exploded through my entire body. I tried to scream through my pinched lips, but it came out as more of a high-pitched groan. My brain told to convulse, twitch and writhe on the floor as the pain filled every molecule of me body. However, my blood-deprived, pinned muscle could not oblige my adrenaline-filled brain’s commands. I was trying to scream like I never had before but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t express the pain as my body blackened from the chains. Tears slipped from behind my closed lids. A sound was filling my ears. It wasn’t my screaming. No, it was different. It was laughing. Someone was cackling like the Joker with new idea on how to kill Batman. They were howling with laughter at my unbearable pain. I also heard other people screaming. I must not have been the only one that found God’s appearance amusing. That made me feel a bit better about being wrapped head-to-toe in burning chains. My head was pounding so hard that I though my brain would pop out of my forehead. How much longer would this torture last? I couldn’t stand it anymore.
Then, as if they were never there, the chains evaporated. Someone was talking to me but all I could hear was the pounding in my ears. Through the fuzzy haze that occupied my eyes I saw the old man; God, walk up to me. A small, near-toothless grin was painted upon his wizened face. “Do you know why you’re here?” God asked me, his voice drifting through my ears and his mouth slightly off from his words. I tried to open my mouth to respond but my lips split open as they began to move apart. Blood trickled down my chin. A bellow of pain ripped up from my throat. After a few seconds, I calmed down enough to speak. “No,” I said, coughing a little.
“You don’t know?” he asked, the merriment in his voice barely concealed. “No,” I said. “I don’t know, but I can put a good guess to it.”
“So what would that guess be?” he asked in the tone of kindergarten teacher asking a student about their summer.
“I was a bad person?” I asked, coughing again.
“Correct. And why were you bad?” he asked calmly.
“Because you pre-destined me to be bad?” I asked. What did this quack want from me? He probably already knew the answers I would give him.
“Wrong,” he said, his tone still flowery. “Satan poisoned your mind when you were very small.”
“That so?” I asked in an inquisitive tone.
“It is.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding confused.
“Why did he poison my mind?”
“Because he is an evil creature bent on harming all of mankind.”
“If that’s so, why don’t you destroy him?” I asked. It sounded like a good question to me. But the answer was about the last thing I expected from God’s mouth.
“Heaven isn’t big enough to hold you all,” he said with a wicked grin. I was appalled and terrified at that remark. I was suffering in Hell because of real-estate restrictions. I wanted to rip his black heart out of his wizened chest. However, two things prevented me from attempting to kill God. The first was that the power at his fingertips was enough to create a universe. And, secondly, my flesh was so burned I could barely speak. The old man’s voice brought me back to the present. “You’re Charles Nathan March, correct?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled through burnt lips.
“Very amusing,” he said, more to himself than to me, before hobbling off to the next victim. He found my name interesting? That was odd. I saw Sopenix walk past me, trailing a distance behind God. “What’s so special about me name?” I asked Sopenix in a hushed tone. “I’ll tell you later,” he mumbled through the side of his fanged mouth. Sure. That helped a lot. I heard God speaking to Sopenix. They were talking about how miserable we seemed to be. I was feeling pretty damn miserable at that point. No one else looked altogether happy either. The guy standing behind my sprawled body was staring down at me with a frown on his face. The burns, bruises and cuts that covered is body gave him away as a veteran of Hell. A little grimace crossed his face momentarily before his foot flew into my gut. My mouth opened to scream but I fainted from the pain before a peep came out of my mouth.
####
Fifth Chapter
Mike’s face swam into my tired vision. “You okay, man?” he asked me, his voice echoing through my ringing ears. I tried to respond but all that came out was an exhausted groan. “Dude, you look hideous,” he said again, as if assessing my situation would make me able to talk. As if I didn’t already know. Yet again, I groaned in response.
“You think he’ll be alright?” Mike asked someone I couldn’t quite see.
“Eventually,” said Sopenix’s low growl.
“Does he know what we’re saying?” Mike asked Sopenix.
“Yes,” Sopenix replied. “I can tell by his eyes.”
“Look at this!” Mike said, brandishing a cracked mirror in my face. It was true. I did look hideous. My normally pale skin was charred to the color of charcoal. My brown hair only remained in scorched clumps on the top of my blackened head. Scabs covered my burnt lips. I would have screamed had I been able. However, the thing that surprised me more than my revolting appearance was Sopenix. He was showing empathy for me. He cared about me and wasn’t looking to torture me. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was plotting. “How’re we gonna get him to the briefing?” Mike asked.
“We’ll get a stretcher for him,” Sopenix replied. “Get someone else to carry him with you, I’ll grab the stretcher.”
However odd it was the Sopenix cared for me, it was nice. I was glad my Hellmates cared so much about me.
On that thought, I drifted into unconsciousness.
The world swam into focus before my tired eyes. I was lying down. Yet I was moving at the same time. That wasn’t something that happened in Hell. I was too tired to move, so I just settled for watching the reddish rock of Hell’s ceiling slide past me.
After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, my floating body stopped abruptly. “Where are we?” I grumbled.
“We’re at the monthly briefing,” said Mike’s familiar voice from below me. “I heard this one was important.”
“That’s great,” I mumbled. “I hurt all over.”
“For good reason,” said a second voice, also from below me. “Let’s go here.” I got the feeling that second bit wasn’t said to me, so I decided not say anything.
Soon enough, we were settled. I had a prime view of the
Podium and I could lie down. Everything was good. Other than that I was so badly burned that I couldn’t move. But even so, it was better than the deal everyone else got. They had to stand up in a cramped space and if they were caught sitting down, they were whipped. No one would sit anyway, as they would be trampled.
This didn’t go on for too long before Sopenix came to the podium. “Welcome our very own, the one and only, Satan!” he bellowed over the cacophony. At these words, the whole room fell silent. After a momentary pause, Satan walked to the podium. He was dressed in exactly what e had been wearing when I met him; a crisp black business suit, black slacks, black leather shoes and a black fedora. His reddish face showed no expression. “This is a very special briefing,” he began, in a booming voice that filled the whole room. A few people clapped, but stopped when they realized no one was joining them. “It is special because I have an announcement to make,” he continued, “an announcement of one of the single most important decisions in the history of time.” He took a momentary pause for suspense. If everyone had been sitting, they would have been on the edges of their seats. “I am declaring war on God and Heaven.” Gasps issued from the crowd. A few people muttered “Holy s**t.” Satan waited for everyone to quiet down before continuing. “Some of you may wonder how this is possible. Everyone in the war would be dead. Also, you are relatively in the dark as to the nature of Heaven; as per request of God.
“The truth is, the good Christians that all went to Heaven only have it a little better than you all. They become part of God. The God you’ve seen in the inspection is just his physical manifestation. He really is more of a giant soul bank. If you had been Christians you would have gone to Heaven and put into God. You would have become just another part of him. Just one soul among millions of other Christians. You lose all sense of individuality. You lose all sense of everything. You’re just there.
“So, for those of you wondering how with fight a war like this, I will tell you. It’s the angels that we would fight. They are made simply by God willing a Christian soul to become an angel. However, angels can be destroyed. They are like living soldiers that are killed by wounding them. The problem is that God has an almost infinite amount of souls as his command. It will take forever to destroy his whole army. That’s where you, the damned souls from earth, come in. You cannot be killed. You are invincible. This is The Eternal War. It may never end. But it will happen.
“I will now take questions.”
A few people raised their hands, but before anyone was allowed to be called on, one voice bellowed out “Why the hell are we doing this?”
“A fine question,” Satan said with a small smile. “Do you like getting tortured? Do you like being around the revolting creatures I call Demons? Would you prefer watching people you know to be tortured before your eyes over sitting around and relaxing? Would you rather sleep on a plank on wood than a four-poster bed?” He paused for a moment. A few shouts of “No!” could be heard. “That is why,” Satan said. And with that and without answering any more questions, he turned and left.
We mind spun. We were going to war with God. It was amazing. How would they train us? What would happen? Could we lose? Would it really never end? All these questions spun like a whirlpool in my head. Then, without warning, we were plunged into darkness. The flames were extinguished. The normal glow that constantly emanated from the stones that made up Hell faded away. If I could have waved my hand in from of my nose, I wouldn’t have seen it.
I might have passed out, or maybe I just didn’t notice that I was moving. Either way, when the lights came back, I was in a different place entirely. It was like an office, but nicer. There was a desk with several computers on it, a couple armchairs and some various doors arranged around the room. In one of the armchairs sat Satan. “Welcome to my office,” he said, a smile on his face. “Have a seat.”
“I can’t move,” I said. My lips didn’t crack when I said it. I felt no pain.
“Yes you can,” he said, his smile growing to a small grin. Slowly, very slowly, I began to leaver myself up. I was moving with no pain. I was in perfect condition.
I bounced over the chair and sat down. “Do have any idea why you’re here?” her asked me. I opened my mouth to reply, and then shut it. There wasn’t actually logical reason why I would be in Satan’s office. “Does this have anything to do with God’s inspection?” I asked slowly. “In fact, it does,” he said. “Good guess. Now do you know why God found your name so interesting?” I thought about it for a second before responding. “No.”
“You are a descendant of Jesus Christ,” he said in a tone far to calm for what he was telling me. I gasped. Not only was I dead, in Hell and tortured daily by a horned demon, but I was also the descendant of the Christian’s savior. I felt like my brain was going to explode. Through all my confusion, Satan just looked at my like I was a mildly interesting alga. My head was abuzz with questions. But all I could manage was a stunned “Really?”
“Really,” Satan said. “And the even more interesting part is that you’re the first one of his descendants to go to Hell.” My eyes grew to the size of portabella mushrooms. Lucky me. The only one of who knows how many to go to Hell. It just had to be me. “How do you know this?” I asked as the question popped into my head. “I’ve had a demon tracking the bloodline since Jesus died,” he replied.
“So how does God know?” I asked.
“God can process anything several billion times faster than the current fastest super-computer. He can know whatever he wants whenever he wants.”
“Alright,” I said. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Two reasons,” Satan said, holding up two of his talon-like hands. “First, you deserve to know. You haven’t known this for your whole life, and you need to have the information. Second, I need you to make a choice. You’re one of the single most important people ever to exist. Well, actually you’re only just a soul that functions much like a person. Even so, I want to ask something of you. I want you to command my army. You have it in you. I’m not going to make, I’m just asking you.”
“What happens if I refuse?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be a one-way ticket to the thirtieth level.
“You have two other options,” he said. “First, I send you to Heaven; I can get you there if you want. You’ll probably end up fighting against us, but you’ll be at peace. On the other hand, you can die. Not just die and go to Hell, I can make you just go away. You’ll become a part of nature. You’ll be in the dew that falls; you’ll be in the trees and everything that’s part of nature. It’s exactly like Heaven except in this you’re not near God. I felt my stomach knot up. I didn’t like any of the options. What I wanted more than anything was to go back to being a person. When I was on earth, I thought my life was a living Hell. What I didn’t realize was that I had lived in relative luxury. I had food, family and a house. Everything after that was optional. In Hell they strip all that away from you. Eventually, you just become nothing but a hopeless excuse for a soul. Finally, I turned to Satan. “I’m going. You can screw God and your whole damn army. I’m going home.”
“Alright,” Satan said with a grin. “Let’s go.”
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As a note, it would be nice if someone could proofread this for me. I'm far too lazy to do it myself. I don't really like to read my own work.
