The Raven

Doubt

I could hear many voices screaming in agony after going through the gate. They were the unearthly screams that I had never heard while I was alive. The screams sounded far away, but I could still hear their constant, never-ending anguish. 

I stopped for a second preparing myself for what I might encounter. I started realizing that I shouldn't be as frightened of the demons and monsters as I should be of those horrible sounds and sights that awaited me. Those were my brethren, and they were being tortured by horrific beasts. 

The biggest challenge for me would be not interfering, not stopping their torture. How could I look at the souls and leave them to perpetual suffering? But that was exactly what I had to do, to save the world. 

As I came closer, I started realizing that there were thousands of people being tortured, and it was only the beginning. I knew then and there that it would be a long and tiresome journey.

The first souls that I saw, seemed to be real, flesh and blood. It looked to me as if they had actual bodies, but my instincts were telling me that they were just souls. 

They were burning on the stakes. It was so sick. The torturers made the fire burn slowly, so the fear of the tortured would grow before they actually felt any pain. It was both physical and emotional torture. 

They could also see the other souls being tortured and it was like they could see their own horrible futures. The progression of the fire was horrifying. The burning people were screaming and parts of their skin and flesh were melting off their bodies while they were still alive. 

Once they 'died', it the whole process started again and again, for all eternity. They rose from the ashes as normal looking people and then the whole process would continue, forever. 

There were also demon guards there, whose job was probably to keep the fires burning and to bring the souls back as whole bodies once they burned down. 

The air was saturated with the foul smell of burnt flesh and it was more than I could stand. So I hurried on, to avoid that sickening smell, but also to avoid being seen by the guards who, if they saw me, might recognize me for what I was, an unruly soul.

There were too many indescribable, inhumane things down there. So many that the rare few would be able to stay sane if they saw all those grotesque and sickening things. However, I tried to focus my mind on my final goal, which wasn't an easy task. 

Passing by the body part pit where people seemed to be alive and searching for their body parts, unsuccessfully trying to put themselves back together, I didn't give them a second glance. There were so many other things after that, appalling things that are too disgusting to even try to comprehend. 

I did my best to avoid looking at the people being frozen and then broken to pieces only for the process to be repeated and many other monstrosities. 

What terrified me to my core was a kind of grimly forest I had to go through with dead and sick trees. It hid a grisly secret. On the side of the road, there were people pinned to the trees with ravens eating their flesh while they screamed in fear and anguish. 

I knew all too well how they felt. I was once a raven's victim as well, but it was much worse for them. As the birds tore and ate their flesh it seemed to heal so that they could feel the excruciating pain all over again.  

For a few seconds, I was frozen in place but I recovered fairly quickly, getting rid of any additional shivers that ran down my spine at the alarming memory. 

Strangely enough, all the tortures I had seen looked very familiar to me and then it suddenly hit me.  All the tortures were actually the types of tortures used by humans. The demons didn't need to invent any new and better ways to torture us, the old ones, the human ones, were already quite efficient. 

They just had to adjust a few things to make them work in Hell, and then they had perfect torture devices in their hands. 

That realization made me wonder if humans were even worth saving. What kind of sick mind can think of so many ways to torture fellow living beings? 

Was I fighting a losing battle? Weren't humans sometimes much worse than all the demons and monsters? Did anyone truly deserve to be saved?