THE FIVE BASTARD WRITERS: BURNING IN HELL!

Part 3: The Burning Confession

The room now felt like the remnants of something that had once been alive. The shelves of books around them continued to smolder, the pages blackened and turning to ashes that drifted into the air like embers, casting a dull red glow over everything. The silence was heavier than ever, a black shroud that suffocated them with an unseen weight. The five writers stood in a ring, forced to face one another, forced to meet each other's gaze and see the ruin that each was becoming.

Their heated debates and scornful mockery of one another had faded into nothingness. All that remained was the searing pain of this silence, which seemed to reach deep into their bones. Each of them felt as if they were being judged—not by one another, but by the echoes of their own souls.

Salman Rushdie drew a deep breath, staring down at the floor. A voice in his mind whispered, echoing his lifelong fears and regrets.

"I always thought that writing was my way of fighting against darkness, a means to challenge the constraints placed upon me. But here, in this place... I feel powerless, as if I have nothing at all."

Ayn Rand, who had once stood so firmly by her ideals, now felt that her ego and ideologies were nothing but a hollow shell. She looked around at the shrinking room, and for the first time in her life, felt a shuddering sense of dread.

"So this is the end of everything I believed to be true... There is no 'I' that remains here, only the emptiness I tried to fill with every word I wrote."

Vladimir Nabokov found himself lost in the notion of beauty he had spent a lifetime constructing. Every line, every word he had painstakingly crafted now felt like a hollow, meaningless game. For the first time, he wondered if his writing had truly ever meant anything.

"I wrote to construct a beautiful world, but here... here all that beauty feels so fragile, so pointless."

Bret Easton Ellis felt the emptiness he had tried to hide behind irony and detachment creeping up on him, swallowing him whole. What he had once thought of as his greatest strength now felt like a suffocating void.

"Maybe I've always known... that behind every cynical line, there was only the emptiness I've been too terrified to confront."

Marquis de Sade scanned the room with a gradually dimming gaze. The freedom he had chased his entire life, the one that rejected all boundaries of morality, now seemed like an endless trap that he himself had forged.

"I wrote to break free of limits, but... I only created a chain I cannot break."

They all stood still, each feeling the same aching despair. No one could avoid the painful truth of what they had done to themselves. The words they had so proudly wielded, the works they had once cherished, were now twisted shadows, haunting them and slowly consuming the last embers of their pride.

...

Salman Rushdie lifted his head and looked around at the others, his eyes filled with regret and fatigue. He took a deep breath, summoning the courage to speak, to reveal the truth he had buried for so long.

"I wrote about freedom, about the courage to stand up to authority. But the deeper I went, the more isolated I felt. I lied to myself, thinking I wrote for others, when in reality, I wrote to shield myself, to quiet my own fears. Here, I can see that it was all just an illusion."

Ayn Rand listened, her expression betraying a hint of scorn. Yet in her heart, she knew she, too, had something to confess. Reluctantly, she spoke.

"I wrote about individualism, about the unbounded freedom to achieve one's highest potential. I wrote to celebrate the 'I,' to glorify selfishness as something noble. But now, in this place, I see nothing but emptiness. Everything I held as truth was just a shadow I forced upon myself to fill a void."

Nabokov exhaled a long sigh, feeling a deep weariness, as if he had spent his life chasing after beauty that had suddenly vanished. He stared down at the floor, his words barely above a whisper.

"I wrote for beauty, for the perfection of words and feeling. But here, that beauty has no meaning. Maybe... maybe I was never really writing for the world, only to cover up the emptiness I was afraid to acknowledge."

Bret Easton Ellis let out a hollow laugh, though it sounded more like a sob. He shook his head, as though laughing at the irony of his own despair.

"I thought cynicism and irony could protect me from emptiness. That by exposing humanity's darkness, I could feel alive. But it turns out I'm just a coward hiding behind harsh words. I've been too afraid to face the reality that there is nothing underneath it all."

Marquis de Sade smiled bitterly, finally realizing that the freedom he sought was nothing but a trap of his own making. He looked around at the others with a hollow expression.

"I celebrated the freedom to do anything, even the most depraved acts. I wanted to break free from rules, from morality. But now, I realize that the freedom I chased was never enough, only leaving me more and more empty. I... I am a slave to my own desires."

They all fell silent, caught in a shared pain. No one could escape the brutal truth they faced. The words they had once used to elevate themselves had turned into chains, each link forged from ego, ambition, and a hunger for something that could never be satisfied.

...

With each confession, the room began to shift once more. The bookshelves, now reduced to ashes, had left a dark layer covering the floor. The walls of the room seemed to close in, pressing closer and closer. In the center of the room, a mirror appeared, large and imposing, reflecting each of their images back at them.

Yet the reflections were distorted, grotesque versions of themselves. Salman Rushdie saw an image of himself as an aging, frightened man, imprisoned by his own fears.

Ayn Rand saw herself as an isolated figure, encased in walls of her own ego, a fortress that kept her cold and alone.

Nabokov saw his reflection as a faded figure, a creator who had become lost in his games of aesthetics, unable to feel anything real.

Bret Easton Ellis saw himself as a hollow figure, trapped in an endless loop of irony and cynicism, a man who mocked the world but could not face his own emptiness.

Marquis de Sade saw himself as a beast, hungry for freedom but caught in an unbreakable cycle of unfulfilled desire.

The mirror showed them the raw truth they had spent their lives hiding from. They were nothing more than products of their own pride and insatiable desires, each trapped in the very illusions they had created. For the first time, they saw that beneath each line they had written, behind every word they had once cherished, there was only the same emptiness staring back at them.

...

The room grew darker, slowly draining away every last trace of light. The five writers stood together in the blackness, silent, looking at each other with expressions they could not fully understand. They had reached the end of everything they had thought was their pride.

A voice came from the mirror—perhaps Borges's voice, or perhaps just an echo from the void itself. It spoke softly, like a shadow of something forgotten.

"You all chose this path, the path that led to emptiness. Your works will fade, forgotten, because your egos are nothing but dust in history."

The writers exchanged one last look. They felt as though this was truly the end, that their works would disappear along with them. There would be no final recognition, no ultimate judgment; only silence, stretching into eternity.

One by one, they vanished into the darkness, leaving no trace behind. Only ashes remained in the room, the remnants of their works and egos, reduced to nothing.

And in the empty room, only the mirror remained, waiting for the next soul to arrive and be judged by its own reflection.