One Hell of a Story

Orange is the New Rainbow

I thought it would be funny. I mean, the most likely thing I would find in Hell would be a bunch of emo kids, some goth nerds, or fellow sarcastic fools like myself. That's what I thought.

The longer I walked, the more bushes, weeds, and brambles tried to block my path. It got so bad that I actually did get stuck for a while. But with a little ingenuity and a whole lotta thrashing, I got out and was able to continue my stroll down to hell.

Except, I wasn't walking down.

The ground began to take an upward slope. It got to the point where I was basically climbing a hill on my hands and knees. By the time I got to the top I was covered in dirt, scratches, and twigs. Spots of blood smeared on my arms and legs. My hair was probably a mess too.

Anyway....

The top of the hill seemed to be the only clearing in the whole forest. Green grass littered with dandelions and red and orange snapdragons covered the ground. In the center, an old well stood with no bucket to lower into its depths.

I slowly made my way to the well, picking a few of the flower as I went.

Hell is supposed to be far beneath the ground, so it kinda made sense that the entrance was a well, but it seemed too basic for the entrance into the underworld. I expected skeletons and fire, red skies and hot, burning lava, not flowers and "sunlight." It all seemed too docile, too calm, too... friendly.

The well seemed to be the entrance as it's opening was big enough for a person to fit through. Or fall through.

There was no bucket, not rope, or anything else to lower myself down safely with.

However, that also made sense. No one should be able to escape their eternal punishment.

Figuring that since I was dead, there would be no way for me to fall to my death, so I jumped in feet first.

The nauseous feeling of falling filled my stomach right before I hit some water, instinctively closing my eyes. Which was helpful in making it go away.

It came back as soon as I forced them open again. All around me swirling colors formed, rushing up as I flew down. I wanted to vomit in as many colors as I saw. Luckily, I had nothing in my stomach to vomit in any colors at all.

Eventually, I fell out of the water, bum first, onto a very firm cobblestone floor. Correction, it was a road.

Yeah, that's right. After trudging through a whole forest full of thorns, thickets, and twigs sticking out at unfortunate angles, I end up flat on my bottom after plummeting for like three whole minutes.

It hurt.

After sitting on the ground wincing in pain and wondering which crack-head designed the entrance, I finally got up and got a good look at my surroundings.

As I mentioned earlier, I was standing on a cobblestone road running between various elegant mansions.

Elegant, blood orange mansions.

They were all painted the same color.

Every. Single. One.

They were all different sizes and styles, but they were all the same shade of blood orange.

This may be what they call a personal hell.

So I began to take a nice stroll through the neighborhood.

Alone. There seemed to be no other people here. I knew that there was no way I was the only person in hell. So the first thing I did was "wander" into every single blood orange mansion.

I checked every room, closet, basement, and attic with no luck in finding any other intelligent humanoids. I found a watch, a cool, green rock, and a pair of glasses that made me look twenty percent smarter. It wasn't too much smarter, but it was enough for now.

I eventually got bored of "wandering" through empty houses and decide to just follow the road to wherever it led.

Honestly, it was pretty nice in Hell. The roads were clean, it was fairly well lit, and it wasn't nearly as hot as they say it's supposed to be.

Given that, it was extremely quiet. I slowly became aware of my breathing, walking, and even the sound my jeans made as I walk down the street. Being the only source of sound in the immediate area is chilling. I felt like I was walking through a horror movie, or one of those comedy shows where the protagonist wakes up one morning as the person on Earth.

But I wasn't on Earth, I was in Hell, so I at least expected rap music and the deafening screams of the Damned. Instead, I got nothing but deafening silence and an intense feeling of isolation that rivals that of an astronaut adrift in space, or a diver lost in the murky depths. Nothing to stimulate the senses but me. Nothing to snatch what feeble focus I have from myself but myself.

As time went on and my existentialism got about as bad as it could get, I realised that there were no more blood-orange houses and mansions. Instead, the surrounding area was completely covered in crimson flowers. Roses of course, but also tulips and daisies. There were even crimson violets and forget-me-nots.

Not gonna forget that.

Anything that goes against what you know to be true is hard to forget, but as the cheesy poem starter couplet says, "Violets are blue."

Okay, they're purple, but you get what I'm saying. Considering that I already had some flowers from the hill with the well, I decided to pick some more.

Just a few.

Okay, maybe more than a few.

I picked a whole crimson bouquet, highlighted with dandelion yellows, and orange snapdragons. It was quite lovely if I do say so myself, and I do.