It was a long time before I could stop looking into the endless abyss below. I had to go and I did, but I fought the urge to look back for many steps, my mind still filled with desperate and futile thoughts.

I can climb it! Why didn’t I just climb, it’s not too steep, I’ve caught my breath, I can go down, now, quick, there’s still time! I can do it, I can help, I can, can, I–I can do… something. Right?

No. No, they’re dead. Both of them. The light goes out when you die. I’ve seen it happen before. With the angel.

I felt absolutely helpless. I couldn’t do anything against the thought bouncing around inside of me that there was a chance the person could have survived. And the idea that I could have helped, no matter how stupid and unreasonable it might sound, still made me feel nearly as much guilt as if I’d killed them myself.

Ok, maybe that was an exaggeration and maybe I couldn’t have done anything.

I know that I know it in my head that it’s true, that sometimes you can’t do anything but watch. But my stupid, stupid heart is insisting I just plunge myself off the cliff, into the unknown, to help someone I’ve never met just because I think that maybe, maybe it was my fault they died, despite my head repeatedly telling me that jumping off there without any plan or even knowing how deep of a fall it was would be pointless, mad and, more importantly, would get me killed.

Maybe that’s the point. I–I don’t want to die, and throwing my life away is wrong, but can I live with the guilt of having not even tried to help?

Squeak.

…you’re right George. Better not think about it. Into the box. Cheer up, me. Please. Sigh. I just want redemption and peace.

I took a few deep breaths, noting the distinct taste and feel of dirt stuck beneath my lips. I spat it out, and before walking away, I took one last glance over my shoulder at the cliffs edge.

Nope, no one’s miraculously climbing up. What a stupid thought.

…what about now? Still nothing.

Now!

…

No.

Squeak.

I think even George was getting slightly worried about my wavering state of mind. I shouldn’t worry him. The person was dead. The monster too, hopefully. I had other people who needed me. I couldn’t waste time on the dead. They’d live on in my memory, as a hero.

Maybe they were an angel. Angels glow in the dark, but apparently, since I did as well and I was a demon, that wasn’t something unique to them. I guess the difference is like that between a shining beacon in the dark and a glowing lure. Both give off light, but the purposes couldn’t be more different.

I took one last glance behind me. There was still no one there and at some point, even I couldn’t lie to myself about something anymore.

I choose to believe that even if you were demon, you weren’t all that bad. May you rest in peace, this time. I won’t forget you, whoever you were, and your insane yet hopeless attempt of fighting an actual demon up close and alone. I can admire that, no matter who you might have been.

With reluctance, I turned around, looking again for the large footsteps. They were gone.

Dammit. I shouldn’t have run along the cliff.

I tried backtracking my own footsteps. They were set deep into the wet mud, but with all the darkness around, it took time to find where I had first seen the light on the other side. I did eventually, after losing it only a couple of times, but now it was raining even more. Once had found the tracks, I followed them through the underbrush and past the occasional gravestone.

As I did, the graves became larger and more numerous. It wasn’t long before the trail led right on to a stone road lined side by side with highly ornate sarcophagi. A familiar feeling tickled the back of my mind.

Isn’t this the road I just left? I hope not. That would make me look like an absolute fool.

It is. Darn it. Well, nothing to do now but see where it goes.

I really, really hope it leads to the Warden.

----------------------------------------

Squeak.

George! My boy! What’s that?

Squeak.

Yeah, yeah, your feet are sore from all the walking. Very funny. Y’know, you were really just sitting on my shoulder for most of the journey when you should have been the one guiding me. Isn’t that what the wolf said? That you’re my guide?

Squeak.

You are not underqualified, I assure you. You may be small, but you’ve got guts. You live here after all! See? That’s a great qualification right there.

Squeak.

I laughed because George was a riot, I couldn’t understand a thing he was saying, and I was also going insane. I didn’t feel like I was, my mind being as unclear as was normal, but having my sanity and happiness be so easily restored by talking to a rat was definitely not a good sign.

I picked George up before he could convince me otherwise. I felt the warm press of his fur against my mail. He really liked the nook of my neck. Good thing he was learning how to hold on tight. Hopefully.

George is a smart rat. I think he might have belonged to someone before. He definitely behaves like a pet. Very friendly, very polite. Didn’t even bite me once.

I came past what looked to be more corpses, this time of bugs. A variety of fleas dotted the road and as I looked at the bugs, my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday morning. Which was probably not as long ago as it might sound, but my body would have liked to protest that.

The bugs didn’t look very edible at all. Unlike the spiders, there was not much meat on their legs and their armored hide was just too damn tough. They had also drunken blood, most likely human blood at some point, and I didn’t want anything like that near my mouth. It was unclean.

If these fleas were full of blood of someone who had, I don’t know, lung…rot? That’s a disease, right? Anyways, if it was full of lung-rot and I chose to eat it, then wouldn’t I be full of lung-rot as well?

Memory says yes, lung-rot is a disease and yes, eating things with lung-rot was bad. Thanks for being helpful, memory. For once. But what if I eat their souls, do I get lung-rot then as well? Ugh, better not stick around and find out.

I stepped past them, trying not to put too much pressure on my left leg which was starting to a bit cramped up. It worked and I could walk, but I didn’t think even the wyckwax would hold long in another fight.

Better try not to get into one then. Although, it’ll probably rip off as soon as I start running and I can’t really hide at all for obvious reasons sooo…

I just hoped I wouldn’t have to fight another person. I was too hurt and tired to beat myself up about wrong and right, good and bad, weighing one life or death against a few others. I just wanted to help the people I’d met because they were nice to me. I wanted to work towards and achieve, I don’t know, something but every chance I saw to do anything I failed because I just couldn’t do anything.

I’ve just about had it to here with this stupid place, and these stupid people and bugs and fish and everything is just stacked against me because even trying to do just a little good in the world is apparently too much to ask for.

If people were going to attack me for being a demon, then fine, that was somewhat reasonable. But I couldn’t even remember where to start redeeming myself because the only way I remembered anything was through vague dreams after waking up from sleeping or being knocked on the head too hard. Again.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

So why did I still feel bad about defending myself from attackers assaulting me who didn’t even think of giving me any chance to talk it out? Wasn’t that justified self-defense? Wasn’t I in hell, where everything has sinned or was just a demon by nature? Why then did I regret killing those three people so, so much when all they did was show me exactly why they were put in this godforsaken place?

Am I an idiot? Is this the punishment that I have to endure for whatever sins I committed? To feel guilty even when doing what is right?

Is this just how I am? I can’t answer that. I don’t know enough about myself. Hells, with the knowledge I do have, whoever I keep on seeing in my dreams might as well be a complete stranger to me. But I know that It’s me. The past me.

Does that mean the me now and the me then are two different people?

I looked down at my boots, George squeaked in my ear, but I ignored him. He was just a rat. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t help. I had nice boots, but they couldn’t help with my crisis of conscience either.

They did make me feel a bit better though. I noticed a deep gash along the side of one of my boots.

Great. I didn’t think my day could have been ruined any further, but there you have it.

I was about to complain to George about it, when the oddest sound drifted in from beyond my dim light. It was the sound of wood creaking, gently, in a slow back-and-forth rhythm. I of course didn’t trust this shit as far as I could fling it, fully expecting this graveyard to throw some sort of living tree-monster – tree-monsters exist, I think? Maybe just in fairytales – at my face because it always threw stuff specifically at my face.

Instead, as I readied my weapon and shield, settling my body in a way my wounded leg really didn’t like and waited for whatever hell had decided to cook up for me today to approach, nothing happened. I looked around, unsure whether I should go towards the sound within utter the darkness or just go into any other direction.

Tentatively, I decided to walk forward towards it. It never really got loud, even as I approached to within light’s reach.

The creaking was right in front of me now. I gulped, but my throat was dry. I took one step forward, and there it was: a human shape in the dark.

In front of me in the middle of an open part of the graveyard sat a huge old woman in a wooden rocking chair. She didn’t seem to be wearing anything besides a dull and thin linen cloth that covered her from shoulder to toe and a slightly less thin shawl over that. Her face was old. I’d think her a corpse if I hadn’t seen glimpses of my own face in the water. This was just how people coming back from the dead looked like, I guess.

But still, the whole experience didn’t feel real. Seeing the demon attack the person on the other side of the cliff had felt like that as well, but in a different way. There was some disconnect there between what I was seeing and what I knew was possible. I wasn’t scared looking at her and besides the unhealthy discoloration and texture of her skin, she didn’t look all that different from a normal human. She was tall though, taller than me even scrunched up in her creaking rocking chair.

Please be normal, please be normal.

She didn’t seem to notice me or my light, even as I closed to within nine feet. I cleared my throat, but even to that she didn’t react.

Is she dead?

“E–excuse. Me. Ma’am?” I croaked out. Her head turned towards me in slow, short jerks. She opened her mouth, but for the longest time all I heard was a quiet wheezing sound.

“HHHellllllOOOoooo there young Elias. Beautiful weather, isn’t it?” I flinched at that a bit.

It’s raining. I’m also not called ‘Elias’, but I’ll ignore that. Even if that is way too close to part of my actual name to be some form of coincidence. Elias is probably just a very common name. Yeah, let’s go with that for now that for now. Also, weird accent.

“Uhh. Y–yes. Ma’am?”

“WEEEElllllll, what brings such a wee lad to visit such a grave place? Hah-HAH!”

“I. Uhh.” Do I tell her what I’m looking for? She doesn’t seem threatening, at least. Well, here goes nothing.

“I’m. Looking. For. The. Warden.”

“OOOOooooohhh, yes. The Warden. Well, you’ve found me, I’m right here.” My body tensed up at that.

Wait, she’s the warden? She’s not going to attack me, is she? Is this a trap, an illusion or something?

No, no, wait, she doesn’t match the description. She’s tall, especially for an old woman, but she doesn’t have a beard. She’s not wearing armor, though she could just be hiding it under her tattered robe. No, no, I’m being paranoid. I’m missing something here.

Squeak.

“You’re. The. Warden? I. Thought. You. Were. Bigger.”

She let out a cackling laugh at that and I jumped back a step.

“OOOh deary, it’s been a long, long time since someone dared call me small.” She continued chuckling, mostly to herself.

“So. You. Are. The. Warden.” A bit of relief washed over me at her generally friendly attitude. But I wasn’t fully convinced yet. Still a bit paranoid. “I. Need. A. Key. Please.”

She sat there, rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly. After a moment, her face suddenly brightened up.

“Why, of course. Now, I’m sure you’ve mistaken me for me son, William. Will’s such a good lad, he took over the wardening business after his poor old mothers back became too rusty to chase away pesky thieves and dig out a grave. HAH! The look on his face when at his first dig I stood there, shovel in hand, asking him If that was mine or his.”

She cleared her throat, before continuing on. “I bet with him that I’d get me half of the grave dug out quicker than he. He didn’t believe I should even be out there in the cold, wearing nuffin but me robes and necklace.”

She stopped talking again, a silence falling over us both that soon turned a bit awkward. It’d be rude to tell her that her story had nothing to do with me or with getting the key, but just talking to somebody else was relaxing and she seemed nice enough that I didn’t want to interrupt her.

“Who. Won. The. Bet?”

“HAH! Nobody, of course. He carried me on back to our hut, fussing and worrying about me along the way. Takes after his father, that one. Always looking out for the lady first.” She let out a sigh, long and thin.

“He. Sounds. Like. A. Good. Son.”

“That he is. A gentle soul. Couldn’t hurt fly. Not even trespassers or those despicable graverobbers whenever he happened to catch them.” Now that caught my interest.

“But. What. Did. He. Do. To. Them. Instead?”

“Locked em up. Couldn’t bear to do judgement himself, so he condemned them to wait and let our blessed Ruthe sort them out.”

Alright. That was good news and bad news. I didn’t exactly know who this Ruthe fellow was, but by the sound of it, he was a lot less friendly than the Warden – William – himself. Probably a dog. People usually have dogs in far-off places like these. The problem was, now I had to somehow convince them that the wolf was someone who didn’t deserve to be stuck in a hole in the ground.

The issue with that was that I knew next to nothing about him and that I was starting to think he was not exactly the most… innocent of folk. Not that anyone down here in hell could truly be innocent, but going by the old Warden’s story, he was a trespasser or a graverobber. Or someone even worse.

But I promised him. I promised that I’d free him and without his help, I can’t free Pim from his coffin either. The stone lid is just too heavy for me to lift alone. So, I guess I have to pray that what I’m about to say next doesn’t put me on the to–lock–away–list.

“So… Could. I. Have. A. Key? My… Friend. Is. Locked. Away.”

At that, she just looked at me, straight in the face. Her stare made me feel uncomfortable, but I tried my best not to look away. I gave her my bravest face. I probably looked horrible, with my face being smashed by clubs and torn by giant fleas.

She laughed. “Oh deary, no worries, no worries at all. Just tell Will where your friend is, and he’ll help you get him out.”

…I–I’m not exactly sure what to say to that. Yay? Is it really that easy?

It can’t be. It never is. I’m in hell, there’s a twist, I’m sure of it. This old lady may seem nice to me now, but she’s here for a reason too.

But what’s the cutoff point? How much do you truly have to have tainted your life with sin that you were now down here? Are murderers and rapists down here with tax evaders, liars, thieves, smugglers, swindlers, and disobedient children like some horrible stew of sinners big and small? Or are there layers, like a cake, with one layer for each specific type or weight of taint? I don’t know.

“W–what. Does. It. Cost?”

“Nothing at all, deary.” That left me completely flabbergasted.

Nothing? Not a piece of my soul, not the soles of my boots, not my sword, my helmet, or my friend rat? Aren’t demons all about “Oh, I’ll give you whatever you desire, but in return, I will take that which is dearest to you”?

I didn’t understand it.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what, deary?”

“Why. Help. Me. Just. Like. That?”

She cackled to herself again, laughing at a joke somewhere in her head that only she could hear.

“If whatever bugger Will’s put in a pit has such a friendly, loyal and polite friend like you, I’m sure they can’t be all that bad neither.”

Once again, I was left struggling for words. The incomparable… I don’t know, normalcy? Friendliness? Something definitely overwhelmed me. Maybe it was just the sheer disconnect of watching someone plummet off a cliff fighting a demon in one minute, then having a calm talk with an old corpse lady in the middle of a graveyard shortly after that was getting to me. It probably was and I still thought it to be too good to be true.

Just… take it, Rye. It’s a nice breather in this grinding marathon of suffering. One step closer to redemption! One step closer to someplace that isn’t a swamp.

I cracked a smile.

She smiled back. “On you go now. He’s out back, behind the hut.”

“Th–thank. You. Ma’am.” I said, giving a small bow before moving on, a light skip in my step.

“Goodbye, Jeremy! Tell your mother I said hello!”

“O­–ok?”

That was… an odd encounter, but it was nice. Really nice. Now I’m just hoping that William is at least half as friendly as his old mother. I would really appreciate the change of pace. Am I expecting too much by getting my hopes up over this small, pleasant meeting?

I looked up at the sky, rain drizzling on my face. The cold streams forming drops, rolling off my cheeks and soaking what little clothing I had. It didn’t matter, in fact it made me feel just a little bit cleaner.

Thanks, rain.

I stepped onwards, past the woman in the rocking chair and past what looked to be the ruin of an old wooden hut. The roof had collapsed and one of the back walls was crumbled into nothing. I was surprised to find a glowing blurb of haphazard text on a nearby boulder, reading:

Friend ahead, therefore, time for soup!

With the state the house was in, I wasn’t expecting any hot meals anytime soon. Or any meals at all. But still! The old warden and her son were living their lives out here in spite of all the hostility, all the darkness and monsters out there. Maybe this place wasn’t so bad after all?

Maybe, and this is a big maybe, I’m not in even Hell?

Hah, yeah, fat chance of that. At least I’m almost at the end of my adventure. Just a bit more and I can finally go back.

If only the rain would let up somewhere along the way.