THE FIVE BASTARD WRITERS: BURNING IN HELL!

Part 2: Confrontation of Egos

The room remained cloaked in silence, but it was a different kind of silence now. It was tense, like the brief stillness before an explosion. They eyed each other from varying distances, each trying to decipher the other's face without uttering a word. Yet, this space was no mere room—it was an echo chamber that seemed to compel them to speak, to reveal their souls and challenge the convictions they held so dearly.

In the end, it was Salman Rushdie who broke the silence first. His voice was low, laced with suspicion.

"So... are we all trapped here, or is this just some trick of the mind?"

He hadn't expected an answer, but a small laugh echoed from the room's corner.

It was Marquis de Sade, who stood with a smile more like a sneer.

"If this is a game, I must admit—it's far more interesting than the moral games people like you usually play."

Salman frowned, displeased by the derision in his tone. "I don't trifle with morality. If my writing touches on certain beliefs, it's not because I take them lightly."

Ayn Rand scoffed, observing the two of them with a look of disdain. "You're both overcompensating. Words are weapons, and if you're afraid of their consequences, perhaps you were never meant to write."

Her comment struck a nerve, and Salman turned to her, his eyes filled with thinly veiled contempt.

"Ah, and you talk about morality? You speak as though your own moral code is the only truth. But you're just writing to celebrate ego—the narrow concept of the 'I' that only appeals to those who love to worship themselves."

Ayn did not back down, her eyes meeting his with cold defiance. "Better to write about individual freedom than to spew out fears about powers you secretly worship. Your words are nothing more than a coward's nonsense."

Nabokov watched the exchange, a hint of a smile curling at the corner of his mouth, amused and faintly dismissive. He looked at them all as though he were an observer, somehow above them.

"All this is absurd. You're trapped in the illusion that your words hold any true power. For an artist, power doesn't come from morality or rebellion but from aesthetics. The rest of you are only creating disorder."

Bret Easton Ellis, who had remained silent until now, finally spoke up, his tone flat but steeped in irony. "So, Nabokov, you think we're all just participants in some cheap drama? I agree. Ultimately, we're all just people hiding behind complex words to feel important."

Nabokov laughed softly. "At least I don't hide. I write for beauty and absurdity, unlike you, who only exploits humanity's darkness for fame."

Bret shrugged, his smirk filled with scorn as he stared at Nabokov. "And what about you, Nabokov? What is it you really write? Lolita is just an escape for your own twisted desires, isn't it?"

Tension suddenly thickened in the air. Nabokov, usually composed, felt his irritation flare. He stepped closer to Bret, his eyes glinting dangerously.

"I write about the beauty within chaos. My works reflect life, unlike your writing, which simply exploits human darkness for cheap recognition."

Ayn Rand interrupted sharply, her voice steely, shifting her gaze from Nabokov to Bret. "Recognition is a product of weakness. Only weak people need validation from others."

Marquis de Sade laughed again, his tone dripping with mockery. "You're all truly amusing. This is nothing but intellectual drivel. In the end, every one of us writes to satisfy our own desires."

They all fell silent for a moment. De Sade's words echoed through the room, striking them with an uncomfortable truth.

...

Salman Rushdie felt his blood boil. "And what about you, de Sade? Do you really think your writings mean anything? Fantasies of violence and perversion? What you call 'freedom' is nothing more than animal lust."

De Sade didn't flinch; his eyes glinted with a dark fire. "That is precisely what freedom is, Rushdie. You're all blinded by some idea of morality. I celebrate the darkness, for in it we find our true selves."

Ayn Rand cut in, her tone filled with disdain. "True freedom is not found in darkness but in unyielding personal achievement. You are nothing but a slave to your own desires. You know nothing of freedom."

Nabokov gave a weary, bitter smile. "Perhaps that's true—freedom is just an illusion we create for ourselves. In the end, we're all trapped in a labyrinth of our own egos."

Bret smirked, looking around at them with contempt. "Freedom, illusion, ego—it's all nonsense. What we're discussing here is just self-justification to make us feel important. But in truth, we're just people hiding behind words, terrified of meaninglessness."

Ayn glared at him. "I have never been afraid of anything!"

Bret replied with a cold smile. "Really, Ayn? You're terrified of weakness, of the idea that the world doesn't need your individualism."

Ayn fell silent, her face flushed with anger. Yet she couldn't deny that there was a grain of truth in his taunt. In this room, she felt her strength slipping, trapped in a never-ending argument filled with scorn and disdain.

...

As their arguments grew fiercer, the room began to change. The once neatly arranged bookshelves now seemed to close in, encircling them like a tightening snare. The red glow emanating from the books on the round table intensified, and one by one, the books began to burn. Thin wisps of smoke rose from each page, filling the air with a sharp, acrid smell.

Salman took a step back, his attention drawn to a single book that floated in front of him. It opened, its pages displaying passages from his works, but twisted into biting satire.

"Your freedom is merely a mask for your own fear."

He felt his blood boil, the urge to argue rising, yet the words floated, mocking him mercilessly, stripping away his carefully constructed defenses.

Ayn faced a similar book. The page read:

"The greatness you worship is nothing but a shadow of emptiness."

Her anger flared again, but this time she had no words to fight back with. Every ideology she clung to now felt fragile, hollow.

Nabokov looked at lines from Lolita—words he had once taken pride in as art—now twisted into accusations of moral vacuity.

"Beauty is the acknowledgment of the soul's frailty, not the arrogance of an artist."

Bret faced a mirror that revealed every hollow aspect of his being. The cynicism he had cultivated to hide his fear was now turning on him, exposing him as a coward hiding behind irony.

De Sade smiled at seeing his own words written in flame, but in his heart, he began to feel doubt. Everything he had believed about freedom and desire now seemed empty, like flames burning without purpose.

...

At last, they all stood in an agonizing silence. There were no more words to throw at each other. The words that had once been their weapons were now instruments of judgment, wounding them from within. Each of them felt the weight of their own egos and the falseness they had hidden within their works.

Salman looked at the others with a weary gaze. "Do we... do we even deserve to be remembered?"

Ayn didn't answer, but her eyes held a flicker of profound doubt.

Nabokov turned away, unwilling to acknowledge the frailty he felt within himself.

Bret let out a hollow laugh, though it sounded more like a death rattle.

De Sade wore a thin smile, realizing that perhaps the freedom he had sought was the very prison he had built himself into.

Silence enveloped them all, a silence filled with regret and the understanding that perhaps none of them deserved to be remembered. The room now felt smaller, forcing them to look at each other without masks, without beautiful words—only bare souls, exposed in all their emptiness.