Chapter 1: Sight
To put a time on how long I've been down here would be quite impossible. I've been down here since time out of mind, my bonds long since melting into my once-there flesh. My bones have dissolved, into the Fire the lives within me. My features do not exist, not even a trace of my once human appearance remains. For a very long time, the pain was beyond my comprehension. I'd scream and plead as the glass like sand tore into me, searing and burning their way through my flesh like hot, living embers.
Indeed Hell was everything my Father had warned me of. The Fire, the torture, the other damned souls, all of it was somewhat predictable, even when I'd first arrived. That did not make it any better, if I remember those early times correctly.
The pain lessened as time sluggishly and lifelessly crept by. I learned to revel in the biting sand that burrowed within me. The Fire that lapped at, and taunted me for years finally came to me, engulfing me in its embrace. It thought it would destroy me. Being my own personal tormentor for so long, it had the idea that it was the stronger of the two of us.
I swallowed it whole, letting it burn away what remained of my soul, my flesh, my bones, and turn me into a creature meant for this new world I lived in. The sand was pushed out as the fire settled in, the heat turning it into red tinted glass that jutted and jabbed out in sporadic places all about my body.
When the chains had finally melted into my form, wrapping firmly around the fire inside me, trying to hold me in place still, I fell. Plummeting downward, I splattered all over the barren, sandy floor that I had hung above.
That was the first actual pain I'd felt in a very long time. My body was scattered in tiny droplets and puddles all about, the biggest mass pulsing and screeching around the chained Fire. The glass clung on as much as possible, some of it dislodging and falling down to split back into the tiny bits of sand it once was. It took a long time for me to come back to myself fully.
Every small piece of my being slowly found its way back to each other, acting like magnets. Still, I could feel everything, the pain each minuscule, unseeable part of me was in. I was every where at once, feeling everything a thousand times over, again and again. When I came back to my self, I did not move. I curled my self into a tight ball and let time fall over me like a heavy blanket. I had no desire to experience that again. So, slowly, as the heat of my body turned the sand beneath me to a red-glassed bed, I took in my surroundings for the first time.
Souls dropped from the sky like I had. Some shattered under the impact, while others dissolved, or crunched onto the ground. Though they ranged in size, shape, and figure, they all where the same as me; they all were ink black.
I repulsed some of them. They didn't approve of my Fire. They believed the Beats to be despicable, being the cause of their pain for so long. Others tried to steal it, wanting an upper hand in a place where there was no such thing.
I killed them and fed their carcasses to the Fire.
Slowly, the Fire opened up to me. She told me many things. One was how to open up a portal to the world above. She did not give me this knowledge because She liked me, nor was I under any presences that She cared what happened to me. She told me how to open the portal so I would have an escape if ever I needed one, taking Her with me.
She taught me how to manipulate my body into different shapes and edges to protect my self, therefore, in the process, I would be able to protect Her. She rarely spoke, and when she did, it was in fiery hiss that sent the white hot chains rattling about.
She hatted those chains, cursed them with all her might as she tried desperately to sear them off her every day. But they did not give. The Fire never stopped trying though.
