And will be done (Fields of the Nephilim: Volume 4)

Chapter 4

The barren land is quiet and yet I knew it wasn't empty. There was that evil stillness in the air. There was that howling cries in the wind that could chill the bone. There was that malevolent waves of current in the very air. There was that pungent smell of burning meat and decay. The smell is bringing up confused images of children on stake with their fats oozing down the poles that held them up. But this smell was too strong.

I was gagging as I felt the churning in my stomach to the stench. The memory of Gehenna is almost like a dream to me and yet I remembered nothing of this stench before. I was soon on my knees vomiting like an idiot. I could hear the faint laughter of my tormentor in a distance yet he wasn't there with me. He is inside my head. I continued to choke as the sound of my coughing echoed in the air like it was the only sound audible.

I stayed with my knees on the ground for a while until I was able to collect myself. The stench didn't leave me though. That burning meat....

Then I stood up slowly and looked around. Yes, everything is familiar. The ground beneath my naked feet felt almost like home. How long has it been since I have last treaded these grounds?

 

Almost a hundred mortal years....

No, that couldn't be possible. It has only been a day or two that I was at the mercy of the good priest before I left him for the waves. But how long have I been staying in the Abyss?

You are no fool. Time varies from different realms and you know that Gehenna would revolve in years when the mortal world budges in days. And as for the Abyss, there is only forever and never, the better to make one suffer...

And what has already passed in those years? What has become of this realm after I left? I continued to ask inside my head. Abaddon is there. He will give me the answer. And again there was that faint laughter.

Why don't we look around? Come, the wasteland is all yours. No one will interfere our stroll..

 

I did as he told me. I took my first step carefully. I didn't have a real direction though and yet I knew that Abaddon is guiding my feet. It was almost like he is within my own body and that I wasn't just moving on my own accord. I held on to the cloak around me. I realized I was no longer naked inside it.  I was even amazed to see the glass pendant hanging down my neck as it snuggled on the ruffled cloth on the front of my white shirt.

"Why do you show me these illusions..." I said aloud as my eyes scan the whole vicinity. Mountainous rocks and dirt, that was all I could see, and ruins of what seemed like stone temples and broken tabernacles of black marbles, sort of rotten woods and more rocks.

Illusions? Ah, you wound me that you think my power is only that of illusions. But this is Gehenna Lune, as you've once call it home. Don't you feel the loneliness you have caused when you have left this place? Can't you hear the cries? The curses? This has been your home in the North. The angels have left this place and yet it wasn't truly abandoned.

My brows knitted in a subtle frown. What could that mean? I looked back as if I was to find Abaddon behind me or somewhere beside me but still I was alone. How could the angels left and yet the place wouldn't be abandoned? I waited for a reply. There was only the howling of the wind.