When one imagines Hell—the Underworld, Haidi, whatever you call it—one expects fire and brimstone. Lost souls howling for help from their eternal damnation. Unbearably heat. This is what I imagined Hell would be like as well. But I was surprised whenever I did visit Hell, it was much more…proper that I expected it to be.
It reminded me of my fair city of London. There were finally dressed men and women—of course they had a few deformities such as red skin or horns sprouting from their foreheads. But there were also manors and cute little cottages. A town square where vendors set up their merchandise. Small children running about playing tag around the fountain—I ignored the fact that the fountain was dry; this is Hell after all.
Honestly, Hell had its own ecosystem and everything. It was quite interesting.
Oh, and apparently the citizen of Hell do not like to refer to the place they are living in as Hell; they prefer the term “Underworld.” Does that make them “Underworlders”? Is that even a proper phrase?
Oh well, I could not really experience the strange beauty of…the Underworld, at the time. Considering I was kidnapped with Valkyrie and we were being held hostage by Satan at the time…
Oh, I completely forgot! I haven’t mentioned that part of the story yet, have I? Please forgive me; let me start at a proper place where you can understand it better.
I believe that this story begins with two demon siblings; Lucifer and Lux.
~O~
“Listen up, you worthless, wastes of my time!”
At least one thousand new recruits—from just today alone—all flinched at once. They were all in uniform, no one stepping out of line. Men and women alike, of all different ethnic backgrounds and orientations. No one slouched; no one even dared flex their fingers. Not with their very intimidating Commander slowly walking up and down the line, inspecting everything that could and was wrong.
“I am not your friend,” he said, his voice low and menacing as he cracked the knuckles of his rather large hands in front of a new recruits face to see how he would react. He didn’t move, but he did begin to sweat a little. The Commander nodded his head in approval and moved on.
“I will not…” He stopped in front of a young Asian woman who looked like she was about to drop; her knees were shaking. “Go easy on you.” He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and she immediately straightened up and locked her knees.
His glowing red eyes scanned down the long line of recruits. “You’re not in the Upperworld anymore. Welcome to the land of the dead.” He smirked at them as he saw some of them register that information, letting it sink in; they were all dead.
“There was something in your souls that sent you to me when you died. A fighting spirit, courage? Honestly, I don’t care. Some of you will not make it though and your soul will not even be fit enough for Satan’s hellhounds to dine on.”
A teenage girl in the line suddenly collapsed to her knees. She began to sob as her whole body shook. “No! I wanna go home!” she wailed.
The boy next to her began to panic and crouched down beside her, trying to comfort her. “Lilian, please, get up,” he whispered urgently. A large black shadow loomed over them and when the boy looked up, he screamed in fright.
Standing above him was a demon. Dark energy radiated from him and his skin was the color of ash; his eyes looked like flames as he stared down at him.
“You’re far from home, weakling,” he growled. “You’re in my army now. Or…at least you were once apart of my army.”
To the boy and girl it looked like the man grew ten feet tall. He raised his booted foot; the boy knew that he should run away, but he couldn’t. It felt like his whole body was frozen; he couldn’t move. He just watched in horror as the bottom of the Commander’s combat boot came closer to his face.
