Pandemonium

Stage Ten Part III

I open my eyes but I'm surrounded in darkness. The vivid image of death reigns over me. My mother, Hector, and I...we all died. I can sense that. We might not have died in that way or at that time. I might not have died on my birthday. But, we are dead. We're dead. And yet, I'm still here. I'm still thinking. I'm still alive even though I'm dead. 

"You left that dream sooner than I expected," the game master's voice speaks and his image appears before me. His hair and eyes are still burning brightly, lighting up the darkness even though there is nothing to see. Am I still unconscious? 

"Am I...dead?" 

"This game," he begins, holding out his arms to gesture to things that aren't there. "Is one to decide what happens to your souls after you've died. You're sent here without memories of your death in order to keep things simple and then judged based upon your actions. However, many souls need to repeat the process multiple times in order for me to accurately decide where they should go." 

"We were all...already dead," saying the words doesn't make them any more true to me. If that was the case, why did those deaths look so painful? Why did people have to die a second time even though the pain of death was already brought to them before? How many times do they have to go through this torture? None of my decisions mattered, everyone was dead anyway, and yet I still am filled with so much guilt. Why did we try to kill each other? Why was Claude sent on destroying us all for his own benefit? This dread, these feelings, don't mean anything but I'm still experiencing them. I've seen people die. I watched their mental strain. How am I supposed to cope with the fact that all we did amounts to nothing? We won't be able to escape this place. We can't go back to our normal everyday lives...what were we fighting for then? 

"Pandemonium," he begins, folding his hands behind his back. "I am the architect to this building, to this program, because leaving it up to humans to decide where they should end up was far too tedious. All of your religions and differing views. There is no way to tell who is right and who is wrong by those out of control standards." 

"You just like watching us suffer!" I take a step back, even though there isn't anywhere to go in this darkness. 

His face contorts into a sadistic grin outlined harshly by the light coming off of his hair. "I'm a demon, after all." 

His words take a moment to sink in but his image continues to change. Horns sprout from his head as a tail grows from the base of his back. Giant boney wings stripped of all their feathers leaving only a thin layer of skin appear behind his back but I have no idea where they're attached to. The flickering red and orange in his hair is also in his wings, giving the appearance of lava flowing down his bones. His feet turn into hooves and his nails abnormally long. His teeth getting sharper and pointed as his smile remains. 

"My name is Mulciber." His voice changed, sending shivers down my entire body. I fall down even though there is no clear outline of a floor. I don't know if I should cry or scream. Should I run? Or accept my fate? I know that I can't possibly fight him. 

I blink and we are both sitting down at a small table with a tea set in front of us. His appearance looks like that of the first time I saw him in person. His hair all black with the exceptions of a few shimmering sparks. His glasses are back and his suit undamaged. He grabs the cup in front of him and takes a sip. 

"I have no interest in hurting you. That doesn't appeal to me. The only reason I've taken so much of your time is because I want to play with Faust a bit more," he smiles a tad and places the cup back down. 

"What happens now?" I say, not touching the cup in front of me. The tea doesn't look like tea. It looks like the inside of a volcano that would greatly damage my insides.