A Realm of Hell

Chapter 6

How do you determine what is good and evil? Good can do bad and still earn praise and forgiveness. Bad can try, they can sweat and ache and dig but the name follows them endlessly. But who gave them that name? Who decided to brand them with that fate?

Satan. A name that chills winds and stills hearts. Devil, demon, serpent.

Evil.

And here in front of me is evil incarnate. The spawn of Satan. Her beady eyes that mirror depths of hell and sadness. The one who tempts souls, never letting them rest for their misdeeds. The one who influences endless torture and scars. The one who..sets me heart ablaze. Who stills and awakens my weakening soul. She holds my interest like a flame, playing with fire only to have me burned.

"Satan.." is the only thing I can breath. My choking tongue lying limp. I don't know how to move as I become truly frightened of the person in front of me.

She stares back her eyes showing no emotion and all I can see is the glossy face of a scared man.

"Be careful of your next words," the man beside her says, his voice the sound of the wind.

I don't reply. It isn't necessary. There were no next words. No insults or claims that I would fire at this face. The one who swooped into my life and dragged me into hell.

"He is fine," her angelic voice sounds, the melody much too sweet, "will you fall?" She asks, bringing my attention to my wobbling legs. I stand straight, the shake still humming my body.

She sighs when she sees me on stable ground, "I have already told you I will not kill you and I cannot take you soul. So there is no need to worry."

"I never even..." I start again. The thoughts in my head too loud, too many to finish a sentence.

"Maybe we should rest," she looks me up and down.

"Rest?" I half laugh, "do you sleep?"

She tilts her head, no humor lighting her eyes, "not really" her finger comes to reach out. I flinch making her stop. She looks at me and when I don't pull away she continues her route to my forehead. Ever so lightly she presses down.

"Sleep," she whispers.

I am floating through a fog, time endlessly spanning. My arms, my legs limitless as my body accepts this peaceful voyage.

Where am I? Where is its destination? Do I have to leave? Do I have to move, ever again?

The white fog soon divides to present a black spec. The dust expending and the speck soon becomes a circle, a hole, a cavern, a smoke that engulfs my world sending me  into nothingness. I continue to float. The air more thick, more real, more suffocating as it swirls into my lungs. It captivates them without so much as trying.

And then I hear a voice, a slither in the wind. It hisses its warning much too clear in this forgotten place.

"Don't," it dips into my brain, as if the voice was my own, "do not trust the one who cannot exist, the plague, the mutant. Do not trust."

And then it's gone the voice fading with it's repeating words. Still darkness welcomes me. The blanket much too heavy, too shackling.

I don't know how much time passes as I lie with the darkness. It's embrace creeping into my soul, influencing it, persuading it to join it forever. But soon I hear a noise, so slight i thought it was my imagination. A breeze in the wind, a buzz of insects, a melody of the darkness. It hums its tune growing closer and closer to my ear until I could feel it's breath, its smile.

"Will you ever wake?" She sang, it's whispers tickling me ear.

"You quite like it? The darkness," she moves around my head, the voice now my own conscience, "you lie without so much of a fight, of a lift of a finger. You know you can break it? Did you know you could escape?"