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Chapter 1: Void

The young adult had short black messy hair, dropping down to his forehead. Clothing was limited, only wearing old beat up rag for shorts and was shirtless, exposing his frail, weak body with ugly bruises, and scars that it had attained in this torturous prison.

Jonathan or what he liked to be more known as Jon, for so long had ignored the pain from these injuries. For you see, his mind was all but lost, blank as it could be, his eyes no longer see anything of use. He withholds his screams of agony, grunting at most from the worst of pains. Instead, he bottled them up and carried out his torturous duty by carrying a moderate size volcanic rock across miles of the rough and burning texture of the obsidian ground, barefooted.

  Every step he took was like walking on burning needles, his legs were sore as they could be. Of course, having to walk and carry a rock every single moment would eat away his stamina in no time. The skin tissue on his body wasn’t in great shape either as he gained a higher degree of burning flesh from every second he held onto the rock. Hobbling across the scorching land for over 10 meters until he came across a large pool of lava. Halting, with weak, frail arms, he lets go of the large rock and watch as it sunk further down into the molten pool.

The human crouched to get a few moments of rest, closing his soulless eyes to gasp for air, relaxing as his body began to heal. Not quite fast but slow and steady in the process. Every wound and burns his skin had faced in this torture were gone, even the pain from his injuries dissipated into nonexistence, for now, that is. Jon’s body looked perfectly normal as if he never undertook any extreme punishments.

The human, however, knew better, the minor regeneration had flaws specifically design and implemented by the hellish creatures themselves. His wounds were healed, but his body was still very much exhausted, gritting his teeth at how sore his legs and arms still were. He cursed under his breath, for the demons were devious enough to not let any sustain bone injuries such as his fracture ankle or his stamina to never heal. Every sinner in hell had this minor regen, it was tailored to the mortals as a way to make them feel the same pain repeatedly without outright killing, a brutal method indeed.

A minute of rest was all he received, without warning, another volcanic rock emerged from the pool of heat from the left of him. Sighing once more, he reopened his eyes and stood up to walk behind the rock. His body was reluctant to move any further, pushing forward, he crouch and wrapped his arms under the object. The mortal grunted as his arms Instinctively moved away from the burning heat still radiating from the object. Tightening his fist and clenching his jaw, he forced his arms around the boulder, he could feel his skin tissue sizzling like a slab of meat on a grill. With his ounce of strength left, he lifted it up

The weak human continued onward to his other destination. His nervous system bothered him to no end, but no scream was let out. He refused to let the cry escape his lips, keeping everything bottled up inside, his eyes were cold as ice, for the human had already gotten used to the pain.

Jon traveled for 20 meters until he halted in front of another pool of lava, an exact copy from the last one. Not paying much mind, he mustered up his strength and lightly toss the rock, or tried too... Unfortunately for the sinner, his arms didn’t budge as they exceeded their strength limiter.

“Great…” He muttered under his shaky breath, his voice deep and raspy as he lessened his grip on the rock, letting it fall towards the ground.  With a heavy sigh, Jon raised his leg and push the object forward into the lava pit. He only had a minute of rest before a new one also appeared liked before, continuing this tedious cycle again for all of eternity, until he was assigned to a different position of course.

But the broken human knew that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. While he continued his chore, Jon couldn’t help but feel a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, a dark, eerie presence emerged.

 “So, how is it going with your rock carrying session, Jon?” An unsettling yet playful voice said. It was a pleasant voice description of what a psychopathic killer would sound like to the ears of a reasonable person. Just from hearing it in your head would send chills down their spines, but also the eerie malicious presence adding into the factor would make your heart stop in fear for your life, even if you’re already dead. However, for Jon, he didn’t waver one bit. In fact, the human was well acquainted with the voice in his head.

 Unamused, he rolled his eyes from the annoying comment. Instead, he answered with a simple “Shut it.” before continuing to carry the rock a 500th time to the same destinations.

“Aw, don’t be like that buddy of mine. We’ll go through this together like two minds thinking like one! Am I right?”

“Huh? Don’t make me laugh” Jon struggled to talk, but he maintained his composure, “You’re more like a nuisance than anything.”

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“Well shoot, I thought we were finally bonding in this whimsical place, but I guess you’re still a demoralized soul.”

“Explained to me how I’m demoralized?”

“Oh, do I have to tell you this? HeHeh oh well I guess we have an eternity in here, might as well.”

The human pressed his lips together, “Please do tell.

“Well it’s obvious since the beginning of our time in here, you’ve been emotionless. Your attempts of containing your cries of suffering lead me to believe that you lost your confidence. Trying all your hardest to regain that lost piece back into your personal keep by not being a little crying baby.”

 A loud exasperated sigh escaped his lips as he dropped the rock down an inch from his feet. Limping his way to the right side of it and without a care in the world, he fell back first on the ground…heated obsidian ground.

His eyes widen from the few cracks he heard, which caused massive amounts of pain to surge throughout his body, but chose to ignore it “Great, is that all you’re gonna tell me? I really want to get some rest, so spit out anything from your nonexistent mouth before I do.” He said, closing his eyes.

“My, My, what an attitude you’ve picked up. I suggest you wipe it away when you’re speaking to ME little boy, don’t forget IM the reason for your unnaturally high pain tolerance HehEHEH! If I wanted to, I could deactivate it and watch your confidence dwindle like a spark of fire in a blizzard.”

The maliciousness in its voice was apparent, Jon could feel his entire body was being gripped by powerful invisible aura around him. He knew the creature in his head was a malicious spirit of some kind, possibly a demon that entered his mind when arriving in hell. For all intents and purposes, this demon was in his thoughts to monitor his torturous duty or another case he could be losing his mind and only imagining the second voice, but Jon knew those two couldn’t possibly be the case.

Whatever this thing was in his mind was there from the very beginning when he arrived in hell. Maybe even dated back when he was first alive. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember anything of his past life. Possibly due to some magical bullshit of some kind, he didn’t know. But for one thing he knew the malicious creature in his head was helping him in the long run, it seemed to know a lot about Jon himself, and its name, Void, sounding very familiar to the tongue, like Jon had spoken that name a few times before his arrival.

 Whatever it was he knew to not trust it thoroughly, and not to fear it. “Psh, I doubt that even you would want to hear me scream from every second during my ridiculous chores.

“Hehe, You’re right. I like seeing mortals and gods in agony but hearing it at every constant second would infuriate me. Hell, I consider your body mine, so I don’t want to see my own body torture.”   

The response eased the human’s mind. Jon wasn’t particularly afraid of the demon in his head; instead, he only feared at the possibility of losing his high pain tolerance, it’s what kept him from being overly aggressive to the spirit. Voids powers were a mystery to him, mysterious and troublesome. From what he could recount, the entity was the sole reason he was relocated to the isolation layer. It boggled him to this day since he remembered being unconscious, yet he could feel his body moving on its own like it was possessed... This Void was psychotic, and factoring in its puzzling powers only made it worse. The only thing he could do is be cautious, and wearily around the malicious spirit, it was the only method.

With Void’s compliance, the human began to relax and rested his eyes. “Your personality shift is so interesting heheh I remember you only being such a quiet, shy little cry baby… Well, that quiet part still stands.”

 The spirit successfully captured the mortal’s attention, annoyed by the comment, he responded: “I wish you could stop fucking around and tell me about my past life."

 “What’s the point? It wouldn’t matter if you knew or not. Let me remind you that we’re stuck here forever so knowing your past will only haunt you till your revival, which in all honesty is out of the question, and not to mention your faith in me is low. I doubt you’ll trust everything I say is the truth.”

The sinner had to admit the answer was valid, “Tsk, I guess you got a point.” he hated himself for agreeing.

“Heheh Also, don’t slouch for too long or else something spectacular is going to happen.” Ignoring the warning, the human relaxed as much as he could. A grin appeared as he could feel his muscles recovering from its tedious duties.

The human didn’t intend to sleep, I mean how could he sleep when he heard screams of sheer agony entered his thoughts. It was nigh impossible to think clearly when he saw visions of the most inhumane torturing of all different kinds of people appear in his head. He could see the faces of people with their limbs chopped off one by one, blood sprinkling everywhere to soak the ground in all its glory. Those same cut off limbs were fed back to their original owners with force. Choking and vomiting on the ground, mixing it with their blood. These scenes replayed in his mind, the worst being it was the least horrible and disgusting method he had seen. Not even in the top 100… His could feel his thoughts going rampant, enough where he needed to reopen his eyes and look up at the black sky.

Before he could admire the dark, beautiful beauty of the sky, a loud booming voice from behind reach across the land to his ears.

 “HUMAN!!!”

Jon flinched from the voice, sighing in defeat. “Tsk. So, this is what you meant for a spectacular moment.” he turned around, and not a moment noticed a giant hand enveloped around his head. The muscular arms lifted Jon up in the air.

 “What are you doing little mortal?!” Asked by a demon of sorts. The human couldn’t really see with the hand covering his eyes but judging from its menacing voice he presumed to be a very thick-headed fiend. I guess it wasn’t saying much since all demons were thick headed.

Jon could hear Void being an ass, “Ooo, you got yourself quite in a predicament Mr. Reid. Told you so Heheh.”

Only four words came to his mind, Shut the fuck up.