Helga (unedited)

Chapter 16: The Elimination Chamber

A land of pure unforgiving steel-that is the Elimination Chamber. It is violent and forgiving. The only way one could escape was via death and mine was at hand.

The non-prophetess Calypso had prophesied my demise and it was only fitting that I die in the chamber.

To get inside, we had to change our direction in the passages of darkness. We now headed in the direction of the offices of the demons. They had to catch us for us to get into the chamber. That was easy for them. We made it so.

They grabbed us in a merciless kind of way: the way a teacher grabs its most hated pupil when that pupil is in wrong. Their long nails dug in deep within the layers of skins. This was the second marking Hell-related that we got.

‘Now, you die!’ said one of them, obviously jubilant.

I think we were record breakers-come to think of it. Usually, people spent millions of years in the darkness of Hell and their minds before thinking of committing to foolishness. Even Hades had time on him. But not us, we were Hell’s rebels. Why prolong death? It’s wasn’t as if we had anything to live for.

‘Is this where I die?’ I asked of Calypso.  At this moment, we were at the entrance of the chamber, and I could perfectly see her marked anatomy.

‘The scene of your death is not for me to say because you’ll try to avoid it,’ she returned. She had a knack for speaking like such. I mean, if I am going to die, atleast have the audacity to tell me where.

‘Death is a beauty thing,’ she spoke ‘but you must earn your death. Many die without with honour, but you get to die in with honour and valour. The virgins will sing songs of you. Many will be set free from mental imprisonment because of you.’

Because of me? I was just a teenage boy. What more was I? But she had a point. I’d known and still know many people that let circumstance defy them. What was my age to my greatness?

Under the impression of my death being in the Elimination Chamber, I entered and hoped for elimination. Ngi, Anastasia, and Calypso would hopefully remain and complete our great escape.

The chamber was massive...elephantine. No, the chamber was elephantine o steroids. That’s the only way I can describe its size without saying that it was elephantine and then some. The steel went on...for days, that’s how many would describe it. There were places to hide and it was there where I got my advantageous view to tell you as to what happened next.

Gore was ubiquitous. The bones of corpses were as present as dust in the desert. One couldn’t go for a second without finding the kidney of someone opened by the beasts. The people there were mainly criminals and prostitutes.

‘You’re a whore,’ I heard one of the demons that was torturing say ‘if you can sell yourself to men, then you should have no problem selling yourself to Death.’

They personified death, the demons. To them death was worthy of worship, a god of sorts, and people like Hades were their priests. Calypso probably had the same mindset, the way she beautified it.

The prostitutes there weren’t beautiful-at all! Their make-up was gone. I basically saw a group of desperate women in my honest opinion. Perhaps Ngi would tell a different story. But this is my story, and in my story they just didn’t belong in that place. The way they screamed in their torture...Their shrills clangour and all, one could almost personify their pain. Because of their profession, it was difficult to imagine that they had men still alive that would atleast try to fight for them. They were on their own. Only their brassieres and thongs could help them.

‘We will find you and kill you!’ could be heard reverberated in the chamber.

The murderers, well, they got what they dished out. Whether they murdered intentionally or not ‘A kill is a kill’. They were killed with more conviction and in a more horrific manner. Male or female, they were all treated as Murders. The other criminals were also killed in horrific fashion, but less macabre than that of the murderers.

‘Death ! You gotta adore him,’ said Calypso.

We were shaken by these statements of hers. She sounded like death’s bride. The more she spoke like this, was the more that I felt that my death would be at her hands.

‘Accept Death,’ she probably would’ve said ‘that’s my husband there.’

Of course I had not the courage of asking her whether she would kill me or not. That is shear and utter madness. That would just plant the seeds in her untrustworthy mind.

The initial moments in the chamber we safe: we only had to hide. We were secure in discombobulation. The only problem was that we were teenagers. Teenagers stand out in a chamber of adults. Sooner or later they would come calling for us...