Often, people referred to the demon realm as Hell. Zeke had done so more times than he could count, and he considered himself a decent authority on the subject. However, after taking ten steps past the gate, he started to reevaluate his word choices. Because if anything ever qualified for that label, the environment on the other side of the gate certainly did.
It was an enclosed hall, though it wasn’t made of stone – or any other inorganic material. Instead, it seemed to have been built from the flesh of the damned, and they remained very much alive. Some were intact, but others looked as if they’d merged with the wall.
One of the more intact ones wailed at him, “Free me! Please!”
The man was naked, with his back half having merged with the rest of the writhing wall. Otherwise, he was shackled, with his hands stretched high above his head, and he looked as if he hadn’t eaten in years. Hollow cheeks, haunted, eyes, and enough wounds to suggest he’d been mauled by a wild animal.
Yet, none of them bled.
Nor did he weep, despite clearly being in agonizing pain.
Zeke thought he’d left his heroic tendencies behind, but they came back to the forefront of his mind, and with a vengeance that could not be ignored. He stepped forward, intending to free the man.
“Don’t!” shouted a voice in his head.
“Eveline?” he breathed, slightly confused. She hadn’t spoken since he’d leaped into the Pit, but for whatever reason, he’d not even noticed. That didn’t make sense, either. He’d grown accustomed to talking to her at all times, and the lack should have heralded an alarming situation. And yet, he hadn’t even realized she was gone. “Where have you been?”
“Right here with you, idiot,” she responded. “You just couldn’t hear me. That’s what you need to be worried about in here. This place will affect your mind unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. If you let it, it will worm its way into your thoughts and force you to do – or worse, become – things you never would have otherwise.”
“They’ve been controlling my mind?”
“No. Not exactly. It’s more like a fog,” she answered. Then, she continued, “Don’t stop moving. That’s how you become one of them.”
Even as she uttered those words, Zeke realized that his feet had sunk deeper into the fleshy floor. Panicked, he ripped them free, and much of his metallic skin stayed stuck to the ground.
“Jesus…”
“Keep moving.”
Zeke didn’t need another reminder. So, with an apologetic look at the damned prisoner, he continued on his way.
As he did, the tortured and pleading prisoners became more numerous. Some even reached out to touch him, but he deftly avoided their grasping hands. Then, as he progressed, the hall narrowed. At first, he didn’t even notice it, but soon enough, he couldn’t ignore how close the walls had become.
He forged ahead, and soon enough, he could no longer avoid being touched by the captives. Each one left bloody handprints on his metallic skin, and soon enough, he realized that that wasn’t the only consequences. Every touch – even if it was only a graze – sapped a little of his vitality.
That, combined with the narrowing hall, was enough to cause quite a lot of worry. But Zeke could not stop. Nor could he go back. The only option was to continue forward, and that meant forging ahead, regardless of what it did to him.
Eventually, his resolution was put to the test when the close confines of the hall forced him to shift sideways. Then, even that wasn’t enough, and his chest and back never lost contact with the fleshy and blood-covered walls. Eventually, he let [Titan] fall way, which granted him a few moments of relief due to his much smaller stature.
Yet, it didn’t last.
It couldn’t, he realized. The entire experience was meant to test him. To force him to endure the worst things imaginable. And his power couldn’t spare him from the consequences of his choice to descend.
He could only keep going.
So, that was what he did. Even when the walls once again closed in on him, forcing him to squeeze past hundreds of grasping hands, he kept his mind on the task at hand. Inch by inch, he pushed ahead, and the entire time, he worried that he wouldn’t have enough vitality to make it.
But that kind of thinking did no one any good. So, he focused as best he could, and soon enough, minutes passed into hours until he lost track of time entirely. That wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, and Zeke welcomed the trance-like state that accompanied some of his worst moments.
Thus armed, he progressed.
Through it all, Eveline remained almost entirely silent. That was noteworthy, but Zeke suspected it had something to do with the situation. The descent was meant to be a solitary experience, and it seemed that the Framework wasn’t going to let him cheat that requirement by talking to the mind spirit in his head.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
However, over time, he began to doubt himself. He started to wonder if anything he’d experienced since awakening in those troll caves had ever really happened. Or was it all just delusion meant to distract him from his now-torturous existence? Maybe Earth hadn’t been real, either.
Perhaps pain was all there was.
In those moments, Eveline made herself known, reminding him that everything was real. That helped, at least until the agony made him wonder if she, too, was a coping mechanism.
Like that, Zeke slowly went mad, but even though he couldn’t distinguish between reality and imagined scenarios, enough of his mind remained that he never stopped moving forward. Even when every instinct told him to give up, to give in to the forces trying to consume him, he kept going.
And finally, his diligence bore fruit when he spilled free of the hall and stumbled into a misty glade. For the longest time, he just lay there, quivering in pain and unwilling to do anything else. But slowly, his natural regeneration repaired the extensive damage he had endured. His muscles – which had been torn to shreds by grasping prisoners – knit themselves back together. Bones that had broken from the pressure of the fleshy walls closing in on him were mended. And eventually, his mind returned to some semblance of normality.
But even as he picked himself up and looked around, he knew what he’d just experienced wasn’t normal. He should have been broken. His mind should have been torn to pieces just like his body had been. And yet, he felt only mildly uncomfortable. He remembered the hellish experience well enough, but those memories felt like they belonged to someone else.
“What the hell just happened?” he wondered aloud.
“It will get worse,” came a voice from nearby. Zeke looked in that direction, seeing that Eveline had appeared. “I didn’t think the Hall of Torture was real. I’d heard stories, but…”
“How am I not mad?” he asked.
She shrugged, visibly shaking with the effort. “I don’t know. Perhaps it is your unique constitution,” she guessed. “You are still partially divine, even if it is locked way. Maybe it’s that.”
“What is this place?” was his next question. He looked around, but he saw only a dense bank of fog. If he strained, he could see vague shapes here and there, and to his discomfort, some of those were moving. But it was such a departure from what he’d just experienced that he allowed himself to think it would be better.
“The Plains of the Forgotten.”
“What?”
“It is the first circle,” she answered. “I…I remember it now.”
The return of her memories wasn't abnormal. Due to having her soul shattered and put back together, she often didn't remember things until they were staring her in the face. It seemed that their recent experiences had jogged loose some memories of the Pit. And Zeke was eager to find out what was in store. So, he asked, “You know what to expect here?”
She shook her head. “Only vague ideas,” Eveline answered. “But I remember the tales I heard about the descent.” She looked away, then said, “I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I never should have suggested you come here. You will never make it.”
“Wow,” Zeke said, feeling more like himself with every second. “I really feel the support.”
“This is no joking matter.”
Zeke was unused to that side of Eveline. Usually, she gave as good as she got when it came to sarcasm and jokes. So, he asked, “Okay – what should I expect, then? The more I know, the better chance I have of making it, right?”
“You have no chance.”
“Well, we’re stuck here, so at least tell me what’s coming. Like, you called this place the Plains of the Forgotten? What does that mean for me? What am I expected to do to get through it? Is this the last test?” he asked, the questions coming out rapid fire.
She didn’t respond like he expected. Instead, Eveline let out a laugh.
“The last test?” she asked. “What you have experienced so far is the price of entry. You haven’t begun to be tested.”
Zeke processed her statement for a long moment before asking, “What have I gotten myself into? This is a solvable problem, Eveline. It has to be. Other people have done it.”
“With the help of gods. You don’t have that,” she pointed out. “Even with divine intervention, descending through the nine circles is a dicey prospect. Most perish before their patron can step in. Only the strongest make it.”
“I’m as strong as anyone else out there,” Zeke maintained. “Stronger.”
“Granted. But you will be forced to endure nine circles of Hell, each one representing a fundamental sin,” she stated. “This is the Plains of the Forgotten, where lost souls roam, purposeless and ignored. If you manage to escape limbo, you will be thrust into the Tempest, where lustful souls will entrap and use you for their own ends. Then, there is the Mire of Hunger. The Hoard. The Bloodlake. The Pyre. The Crimson Wastes. The Spiral Labyrinth. And finally, the Frozen Depths, where treachery knows no bounds.
“If you make it through all of that, then you will have proven yourself as worthy as any archdemon. Still, you will be forced to sacrifice something you love,” she stated evenly. “People do not descend the Pit. They leap in and are never heard from again. They are consumed by it. Forced to confront the most vile parts of their souls. It is unconquerable.”
Zeke looked away, unsure how to respond to her rant. She’d only given him a few hints as to what would come next. She’d referred to his current location as limbo, which wouldn’t help him navigate the fog. He didn’t even know what the goal was, much less how to overcome it.
But he was not deterred.
She’d called it impossible, but that only served as motivation. Others had traversed the various challenges of the descent. Eveline might not know their names. In all likelihood, that sort of thing wasn’t advertised. Zeke could think of hundreds of reasons why that might be the case, but they mostly came down to benefiting the powerful demons in the next realm. They wanted to tie the powerful to them, and there was no better way to do that than to offer to help them descend. But what prideful demon would accept such help when it came at the cost of their loyalty? None – unless there was no other option. So, spreading the rumor that it was impossible without divine intervention was just good business.
Or maybe he was entirely wrong, and Eveline’s warnings were valid.
“They are.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he stated. “It can’t matter. We’re here. We can’t go back. There’s only one way to go, and it’s forward. Wallowing in self-pity and convincing ourselves we don’t have a chance isn’t going to help anything.”
“I don’t think you understand what you have in store, Ezekiel.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t, but I’ve overcome long odds before. I’ll make it through this, too. I have to.”
And it wasn’t just because he wanted to progress. That was a big part of it, but he also wanted to take the fight to his enemies. For too long, so-called gods like Oda, Aja, and Shar Maelaine had been interfering with his life. They’d caused him so many problems that he couldn’t help but want revenge.
Perhaps that would fuel him going forward.
“Cling to that,” Eveline advised. “You’re going to need something to keep you on track.”
“That’s why I have you.”
She didn’t respond, but when she disappeared from sight and took her customary place in his mind, Eveline radiated a sense of purpose to rival his own.