Devilish Love

10. In A Hellhole

Chapter 10: In A Hellhole

There is nothing as unnerving as waking up, yawning, and looking straight into the eyes of the Devil.

Of course, with my rotten luck, I had to do just that. The Devil's eyes were fixed on me intensely and they kept flickering with different colours. It was odd that his eyes were full of colour, while he was pretty much clad in black clothes. His friend Grim had stuck to the emo concept, with a red and black colour scheme. The traditional colours of Hell, I supposed.

"Why are you staring?" I asked.

He turned his head to the side faster than I could take my next breath. Was that...a small blush on his cheek? "You had a fly on your face," he said to the wall of the train carriage next to him.

I smiled. "Sure." I was pretty certain he was lying, but just to be safe, I took a quick swipe at my face. 

"So, can I call you Lucifer?" I asked.

He jerked his head upwards, eyes widening in surprise. "You heard Tenebris?" he asked.

I nodded happily and looked at him, waiting for his response. He frowned and said "My full name is Diávolos Lucrima Lucifer. But you are welcome to call me any of the three."

"Definitely calling you Lucifer," I decided, tapping my chin and jiggling my leg up and down as I thought out loud.

He looked scandalised. "Don't shake your leg! It's unladylike."

"Lucifer," I said. Ooh, I liked the sound of his name. It felt nice to pronounce, too, easy on my tongue. "Times have changed. Stop talking like a thousand-year-old man." Besides, I always shook my leg. It was a habit now. I knew it was bad, but it was something I did when I was bored.

Lucifer blinked slowly. "I am a thousand-year-old being, that is true. Well...about a thousand and forty nine, I believe."

"You still bother to keep track?" I gasped. "Isn't that awfully taxing for you? I mean, seriously, some adults on Earth don't even know their ages, and here you are, calmly counting your years?"

He met my astonished look with an unruffled stare. "Well, yes. I may be the Devil, but I am surprisingly free to count my age. It's a job with flexible work hours, you know."

"You didn't say," I said dryly.

He looked puzzled. "I did say."

"Oh, never mind. Are we almost there yet?"

He nodded. "In fact, we have been travelling the whole night. There was, unfortunately, a delay in the engine, and so we are travelling at four times slower than normal. It's almost sunrise now, if you wanted to know the time," he said, noticing me checking my wrist for the non-existent watch. "Grim had convinced me that you will be staying in my palace, so be prepared."

"Okay," I shrugged.

Lucifer looked slightly affronted. Maybe he was expecting me to drop my jaw in awe of his palace in advance, but I wasn't excited in the least. Every minute we inched towards Hell was a reminder of the task I had to do to set both me and Ajax free. 

I closed my eyes, leaning back in my chair. My conscience whispered at me: You can't do this. It's going to harm Lucifer. 

I have to. They were keeping Ajax in a dungeon here, locked up and tortured. Wasn't that what the image had shown me? But yet...maybe I was thinking too far. To my relief, no voice screamed in my head this time, but I was still on full alert. I decided to focus my attention to Hell. 

The train slowed gradually, and by that I mean slower than the rate it was already going at. I ran to the window and ripped open the curtain, eager to see a first glimpse of Hell, just as Lucifer started to say "No,stop it-"

I shrieked and fell backwards, only to be caught by Lucifer. He pushed me back up and into my favourite cosy chair. "I told you to close the curtain!"

"It wasn't even bright outside!" I retorted, still shaking with fear and repulsion. I had just seen...a horrible thing. No descriptions would depict the extent of the creature's, well, flaws. Fangs. Saliva dripping. Blood. Wounds. Scars. Fur hanging off it's body.

"Would you have believed me if I told you there were horrors outside?" he demanded, still clutching my arm tightly.

"N-no," I admitted. My inner voice berated me. Stupid girl! Stop looking for trouble. 

He sighed. "When we alight, stay close to me. You will not be harmed if you listen to me."

I nodded meekly. 

The train drew to a stop. We got down, me scrambling to pick up my two big bags with the spirits inside. (Not wine, but Ianthe and Gadina. Although if they had alcohol in the afterlife it would be amazing.) 

I stepped onto a marbled tile. The entire platform stretched out before me and disappeared into nothingness, a swirl of gray and black ahead of me, like a portal to somewhere. It was tiled in white and black marble, and honestly I thought the marble was pretty. All around, people in different coloured clothes milled to and fro, chatting excitedly and reading newspapers. 

To my left was a bunch of stations with people in suits working. I assumed that was check-in. Check-out of Hell was to my right, where there was only one tiny station and no queues at all. I guessed people didn't leave Hell so easily. Dread prickled the back of my mind. I couldn't stay in Hell all my life. Who would want to?

The good thing was that it was actually quite bright. Although the walls were covered with black tiles, the lighting of the platform was okay, and I didn't feel like I was in Hell. That was weird, really.

Of course, that didn't take long to change. As I observed closely, I realised that there were spirits and ghosts, too. They just needed some observations to see clearly. Some resembled wisps of smoke, passing through people easily, some floated around with blank expressions and their arms stuck firmly to their sides. These ghosts had flickering forms, and were not easily noticeable. Some even blended perfectly into the marbled tiles, or the black walls.

Adjusting my bags, which were slipping down my arms, I struggled to keep up with Lucifer's massive strides. He was walking straight towards the portal-like thing, and as he walked people bowed to him reverently. I imagined that they were bowing because of me, and not him. It was blissful to think that.

We got down and I again struggled to keep up with his massive strides. I thought about the horrible creature I had seen, that monster...it had really scared the living daylights out of me- oh. Argh! I was in Hell! I had to drum that into my thick skull! In order to adapt to my new environment, I should say that the creature had scared the dying nightlights out of me. Ah, that sounded like a Lucifer-worthy saying.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn't see the ghost. It hovered right in front of me, with pale yellow eyes, and it leered at me. It's mouth formed the shape "BOO". Green goo dripped down it's hair, which hung limply in strands from it's head. I screamed and scrabbled backwards, promptly dropping all my bags. They fell to the ground, and heaven forbid- they burst right open. 

At the same time,  my back landed in a wet puddle. I knew that because of the sickening cold feeling my butt had which spread to my whole body. It was disgusting. I gagged. 

Unfortunately, I had other problems to deal with.

Ianthe and Gadina spilled out onto the ground, barely conscious. And Lucifer was glaring right at me.

Ooooh, shit's going down, huh? Please vote and comment if you liked it. Thank you! <3<3<3