The droll, mechanical sound of hundreds and thousands upon thousands of bodies echoing in the great pain filled his heart. It wasn't the slightest amount of despair that hit him, but the mere thought of knowing that hell had chosen to go against its rules to take vengeance against something—against someone, had his heart rattling with an indescribable amount of... sorrow? Sorrow, what sort of emotion is this?

Zabulus felt betrayed by something.

A part of him told him; 'Why couldn't I be the one to be the source of chaos and anarchy within the universe itself?', another part of him said, '...What the fuck did I get myself into this time?'

The tunnel held itself firm now; the movement that surged from the underground had an unexplainable strength to them. All in a collective motion, the two extremities of the tunnel became one.

"A common infinity, where all these souls, all these places and these dimensions shall become one. Hell on the outside. Hell on the inside. Inside is Hell. Inside is not Hell. A Möbius Strip, just a simple turn and all is normal... Do not pry open that circle any longer, for only within will a great entity, greater than you are now, come to tear your spine from the head. It is the lord's duty to keep even visitors from peering into the realm of a lesser hell—no matter, one is not defined as being higher nor lesser, but each and all are their own." Her words were those of the epitome of a dull and unchanging book passage, her demeanor completely different from the playful and manic one she used on the previous conversation. The strut and tone she had held a slight air of anger to it.

"...Great, we might have to detour around all that... then again, there doesn't seem like anything we can do to escape this place in a timely fashion, can we?"

"What the hell is this madness? Is this a common sight in your lands?" He brushed his palms over the black soil.

"Common? No. But not uncommon. Well... it gets more common the farther you are away from the center, after all, we are within an Inner Void in Blue. I just told you not too long ago that things would get much worse beyond here, but only because the hospital was close."

"Can we leave... here." He watched, in a combination of horror and amusement, of how one body moved past the other. It's as if they weren't trying to avoid any of their joints or muscle being destroyed.

"Of course."

"Will it really hurt me to find a way out, in your eyes, not mine?"

"Wahaha, what in the name of fuck did you mean by that? Are you trying to sound cool or something?!"

"I mean, you seem like the type that would do everything it takes for her objective... though it is strange that you would find it appropriate to give me any amount of explanation, considering I was your target, and all."

"...Saklas...Sinner...Evil...God...Fell...Deprived...Causation...Oh, Great Etho, why must my noise and heart fall apart over a weak-willed God that knows not his worth nor his past and future? Almighty in the true world, His death shall bring hell's sorrow." A voice from within the tunnel spoke as it walked somewhere on infinity.

The man was long haired, naked and hairy. He was skinny as a pole and he only had a stubble for a beard. His body was all scarred; hell, his very being was only a matter of scars, scars and scars, where there would not be a patch of fresh, new, or healthy skin anywhere to be seen on him. His eyes were pale, hollowed-out and his mind was... empty, or, that's what anyone else would see and hear from a mad man.

"Who is that... That's not... meant to happen..." Astonished, Onofre drew a gasp, but found her legs locked to the floor and she could not run away, no. She felt a need to ask that same, sordid question. "Who in the hell are you, exactly? One would recognize, you're meant not to live anymore, not allowed to be out here. Tell me who the hell you are! How did you make it out of Hell itself?!"

He turned his face ever slowly to stare at Onofre; His skin started peeling and his face's skin turned rotten in a matter of a millisecond.

"Alister... Sachiel... Anatiel..." The man took steps away from the mass to an infinite space as his foot landed clean on an empty bit of land.

"Say it, you shit stain, tell me! I am Lord of- I am the Librarian Onofre! Listen to me or Babel's fate shall bring you despair!" She said as a response of fear and aggression; an attempt to intimidate the madman.

He looked her in the eyes, emotionless and un-determined. "Agoel... Ramuthel... One must search."

"Spit it out, you foul devil! Sinner!"

"...Sinner? You dare not compare me to that God of fools, I know my sins, for each one had brought an immortal body back to the world to kill, and to create Hell within. That goddess of hell; who so believed in her power to not allow one's own true self to see the truth. Who's self so dictated that one's ego would suffer under the fellow man, in the name of their ego. Hell. Hell. Hell. Oh, why must no one see the way I do? To kill a god is to truly let oneself free, to be free, from the restrictions and their limits... Yes. That's what the goddess, Hell herself, did. That is her greatest sin, that's her greatest fear!" His mind snapped, causing him to wave his arms to the direction of the masses and his voice grew louder and louder until the last second of movement that the tunnel made. "All these sinners, all these evildoers; created out of my free will as god is my own imagination. Only I can see the greater picture. We all walk under a dying star, one that has not perished under the mighty Hell itself." A grasp on his chin could be perceived—Where would I fit into space? "Portraying your reality into your inner self's physical world is one step. Getting back there? What a shame, and... as it guides you by your leg and arm... the mess is already fixed, yet it continues. And even then, for how long would the gap last? ...Does time even matter? It would matter not. Farewell."

His words were of no threat; yet they went in from one ear and stood their ground.

"Do not attract yourself to that foolish god Saklas, you both. I may not know who you are, you may not know who I am. But to portray me is to play the game of fools. I have no time for such thing."

His last words rung across the tunnel as steady as the evening's night, his body contorted as if to a bird, only the wingless and noiseless—and then, not.

"Oh. Hey." She stuttered and breathed, still trembling after the sudden arrival and departure of the figure, as she patted the short cloth behind her pants to feel a subtle bump—it was small and no larger than a stick, yet she gave a sigh. "Fuckin', Babel's Divinity!—Haaaah. Fuck you and the horse you rode on!"

Zabulus laid his palm on his brow, feeling a slight ache in his right eye. Slowly, that palm moved to cover the right eye and block the sun's gaze. "To not kill is to hold power. In any way."

"Sorry? Did you say something? You're doing that thing again—Holding your eye... was the sight of hell's fragment too much? Damn... This has not even been a quarter of it yet."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The tunnel continued to shift; the common infinity of corpses and blood had lessened into a thinner and thinner tube—It laid itself directly adjacent to their paths, having them stare deep into its stomach and throat, just to have the siren's call entice them more to go deeper in the great dark that lay ahead.

"...Hell has always existed. And always will exist. Whether a singularity or multiplying the hell unto itself." He stood up, walked close towards Onofre and lifted her arm off his shoulder—Slowly and painfully. "Not once did I... ask... not once did you ever request to have a higher role within this god-damn place."

He placed his palm atop her head. Her thoughts were of nothing but 'Why, is this person holding his eye, and he's about to-...'.

"I didn't ever think a God would end up making me pity their wretched souls... I, myself, a mere mortal, who may not have lived very long nor as grand as yourself has witnessed countless lives to end within the world of hell... Tell me, which one am I." He crushed his thumb and index finger on her scalp. "Which of the two, would you ever take seriously?"

...

"Boyo, hey, boyo! Don't worry me like that again! That guy must've had some insane amounts of metaphysical power just now—And you got it in your system probably, so, I'll have to piggyback you through the tunnel. Is that alright? Good, let's go already!"

It had only been five seconds.

Did he dream all of that?

Likely.

He looked at his hand, realizing the odd smell and sensation as blood leaked from it. The area in his palm and digits were completely disfigured and maimed, showing him a view of his bones and nerves. He laughed softly—even if I died to this, or, this happened, wouldn't it make things easier and much less... meaningless?

There's something missing. He recalled, perhaps, the scent of the water.

His head hurt just thinking about it; so he cast it aside and let himself be a fool for an easy dream.

There was a certain regret in his mind; A belief that whatever he did before his death, was for naught, and the illusion, no.

An impossibility that was the 'Water in blue'—with a hope he wished that that event never happened in the first place. It wasn't his memory—To be precise—It was just another person who assimilated within his memory who happened to live out the final days in his world.

"Yup—Just you wait, and don't complain; or I'll pull you out to see that man again!" Her playful mood came back in full swing.

A part of that event is missing; it didn't happen as he saw it. Private, but both to be heard and be a witness.

"Man, is it nice to not be alone, hahah! It sure beats being 'stuck' with those coworkers back at Onkhivol."

She spoke to an empty space surrounded by an infinite plane as Zabulus was carried on her back. She was not tired in the slightest; rather, there was simply no pressure or resistance on her body and that felt perfectly normal. Onofre continued her talk, and Zabulus focused his eyes on the gory, endless skies, unable to turn away from it.

His emotions had been dashed apart and mended over again in a repeated pattern and for what, he did not know the answer. The pain of his memories had turned and twisted to the point where a dull knife's cut felt sharper than a razor's clean slice.

Her feet became soaked into some mushy and heavy liquid, no doubt belonging to some other carcass, leaving a trail of crimson footsteps behind them. "Ugh! I'm going to have to... get a change of clothes soon... Can't go out in town looking like a murderer, especially with that shit back there. I won't be able to have peace and quiet even for just a day. Too damn busy... for someone like me."

There was a chill upon his bones, even if they didn't even exist at that moment—Zabulus sighed.

His neck bobbed and the fingers were draped to either sides of her chest, itching to scratch something.

"Wait. I want to walk with you. Put me down." He said, eyes droopy and tired, tone with a lack of motivation or desire in the slightest, just... indifferent.

She was unconvinced and only seemed to focus on walking, her pace fastened for a few moments, and she loosened it once Zabulus appeared to fall back into a comatose state.

"What, was it really just a random jumble of words? Boyo, you sure have a big imagination. Maybe a little bit too much, ha!"

He was fast asleep. Yet again. Yet... again!

This guy keeps falling asleep!

...

As she walked on the fleshy bridge that crosses all of hell, above her; as if a dolphin jumping out of the waves to fall, was a large-scale half humanoid creature. Screeching like the souls of a thousand sinners in unison, it landed back into the sea of gore with a great splash.

Onofre coughed out the water and fluid that got into her mouth, almost regurgitating.

"Legion... So you do exist after all." She pondered. "You were not even here a couple years ago when I visited this place."

Another jump and dive into the meatpiles and it shrieked once again, its voice just barely piercing the tunnel, as her ears would not let it echo throughout, they would not—Yes, that is true!

...Anyways.

Every layer of hell made itself apparent within these tunnels, despite being a fragment.

A man who destroys himself through touch.

A man who destroys himself after choosing his own fate.

A man who destroys himself after becoming god.

A man who destroys himself through consumption.

A man who destroyed hell, destroying himself in the process.

A man who destroys himself forever onwards.

A man who destroys himself through tricking himself.

A man who destroys himself upon entrance, every. Single. Time.

A man who was already self destroyed in every sense.

A man who will only see destruction no matter his choices.

A man who cannot stay dead no matter the destruction of himself, repeatedly.

A man who looks for a reason to keep himself alive.

A man who destroys himself by becoming someone else.

The visions of hell came closer, and closer as each minute passed for an eternity.

'If he was awake to see this... what would his face show? No doubt a pale and cold-hearted one.' She shook her head, a smirk coming up her lips. 'If he didn't come along, it would be fun to play with a lesser soul, but he was someone who decided he was 'one of the many'! And since he's just so perfect, doesn't that make him imperfect, in the least?'

Arms reached out to Onofre, perhaps sinners that failed to escape the common infinity of hell, but their grasp failed to reach the heels of her shoes. She did not move forward nor backward; instead, she simply stared back at all those whose arms are, or have broken at the elbows from reaching. She blinked at them all.

"Shoot, are ya guys really that starved? Ehhhh... Hmmmm..." She took a glance towards the hands and arms of those that grasped and yanked with vigor. Their fingers had muscle degradation in their state, but their bony fingers could barely have the grip to strangle anyone alive. "Right! I'll give ya somethin' for now! I'm not a person who'd give much thought on ya guys, especially the likes of you—Welp. Here goes."

A subtle surge of energy circulated through Onofre and out, reaching a hand out to the souls who yearned and struggled to grasp life, as if the sheer effort of the actions would give them a reason for a need of food.

Energy flowed out from her fingers as it invigorated and re-filled the sinners arms with muscle and tendon—Veins began to pop out of the hands and they were well and lively and the muscles flexed and were active, moving at the joints as well, as it pulsed in and out. Their hunger had disappeared, seemingly sated with a piece of a limb given and lost for their sanity. The biceps twitched, a faint spasm was visible and angered.

"Shoulda done this long ago—No! these are sinners, what am I thinkin'? Ahahaha! How stupid!" She shook her head, fully aware how 'strange' that act had been.

Her hair wavered as the sound and the air became denser, the invisible particles and the aura, all swirling together to become the perfect cocktail of chaotic energies.

"Still, who is Saklas, and that man from earlier...?"

Her pondering began as she walked slowly towards the exit of the tunnel—Zabulus on her back and sleeping, again!