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Pt.2 The Catholic Church knows the truth about Hell, but the documents are burie

If the surviving Petrans didn't possess such reverence for the Church, they would've crucified me for inflicting such profound suffering upon them. I had promised them magnificent visions of Heaven, and yet my potion had transported them to the deepest pits of Hell.

Whether this was as a result of some unknown defect within my concoction, or sins on their own behalf, I did not yet know.

After giving the survivors time to recover from their pilgrimage-and mourn the dead-I ushered them in small groups to the picturesque church on the hill behind the village square to begin my interviews. Despite the massive tragedy wrought by my experiment, I still needed to procure what information I could from the Petrans about the afterlife. Emperor Constantine fervently awaited my report; he is an impatient man, and one that I didn't want to anger.

These interviews continued for days, and took such a toll on my mental and physical health that I aged ten years. Never before had my faith in God been tested so rigorously; despair descended over me with each word that tumbled from the Petrans' mouths. The picture of the afterlife they painted was not only bleak, but cruel, and defied everything that I thought I knew about the Christian faith.

Although I took extensive notes over the Petrans' revelations, organizing (and then transcribing) these notes would take months. Given the importance of the information that I have to share, I have decided to only convey the high points (so to speak) of my interviews, which form a common narrative.

May God have mercy on our souls.

---

In the immediate moments after their hearts stopped, a red light overcame the Petrans' senses. They described this red light as originating from inside them, and shuddered when I asked them to elaborate. Rather than give me the detailed description that I desired, all they would say was that the light felt evil. Not only did it send their nerve endings exploding with white-hot pain, but it also inhaled thundering, raspy breaths while yanking them into the abyss.

As their life forces flooded from their bodies, they felt their minds (or possibly souls) detach from corporeality and descend into a dense, black plain. Given that they were now body-less, they were completely immobilized in this plain and subjected to what might best be described as infinite nothingness. According to them, time slowed down almost to a stand-still in this darkness; they went through great lengths to persuade me that they spent the equivalent of dozens of lifetimes wallowing in this abyss, like rocks submerged in a murky lake.

Just as they feared that what remained of their consciousness might tumult into insanity, a cacophonous tearing sound erupted over the plain, bringing with it the intense red light.

What happened next I can hardly commit to paper-for it defies everything I thought I knew about the natural sciences and Christian metaphysics. Given that Emperor Constantine himself is waiting on this report though, I will do my best to relate the entirety of the Petrans' experience.

Following this immense tearing sound, the Petrans' souls were transmogrified into seeds a flesh-for I know not what else to call them. These seeds were about an inch in diameter, and covered with minuscule orifices. They languished in despair as their consciousness' were tethered to these seeds, which possessed no faculties for movement. All they could do was exist inside their newfound bodies like the prisoners chained to the walls of Plato's cave.

Before they hardly had time to adjust to their fleshy cages, these seeds rapidly expanded in size. This expansion occurred at such an explosive pace that they were ignorant of its cause. Soon their orifices resembled gaping holes, which borrowed deep into their wrinkled flesh like dank crevices.

Out of these orifices first sprang a torso, followed by limbs and a head. Such pain accompanied the sudden growth of these appendages that the Petrans visibly trembled as they recounted the experience. Their new bodies contained similar proportions to human beings, but possessed gray skin and were entirely sexless.

Now that the Petrans had regained sight, they could gaze upon the hellish world that they had been resurrected into.

A putrid yellow lake of boiling acid stretched as far as their eyes could see. Spanning this lake was an obsidian bridge, black as night, which began at the rocky ledge on which they now stood and ended at the entrance of an equally black city. The spires of this city ascended miles into the cloudless, red sky, and were sharpened into rough, jagged edges.

Trundling along the bridge and into the city were millions of the recently deceased. Each one possessed a similar gray body as the Petrans, and brandished intense looks of despair.

The bridge groaned under their collected weight. No matter how many bodies were crammed onto its formidable surface though, it held strong, and rippled malevolently in the rancid yellow glow of the lake.

Occasionally somebody would trip and go plummeting, head over heels, into this lake. They sent forth blood-curdling screams as their skin was scalded by its acidity, and were left flailing in the viscous liquid for an eternity. As a result, the lake was over-brimming with gray heads, which drifted along the desolate surface as their bodies slowly dissolved but never entirely disintegrated.

The Petrans were compelled to approach this bridge by an invisible force so powerful that it stole the air from their withered lungs. Their feet moved against their will, and before long they were crossing this bridge along with the endless sea of other unfortunate souls.

When they reached the city, they were crammed into the bottom level of the spires like vermin. Before they could even assess their new surroundings, they were lifted and locked into harnesses, which bore them slowly towards a massive red door.

No matter how aggressively they struggled against their harnesses' chains, they remained ensnared. The guttural cries of the dead frenzied into a crescendo as they were swept through the red door and disappeared into the room beyond.

It was while in this room that the Petrans first encountered the denizens of Hell.

••••••••••

The Catholic Church knows the truth about Hell, but the documents are buried deep within the Vatican Secret Archive. (part two)

By: u/TheVaticanArchivist

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ejgl58/the_catholic_church_knows_the_truth_about_hell/