Ch.1.

In life I was called everything from savior to destroyer. In death I am nothing more then a sinner. Stripped of all my strength and left to suffer in hell for eternity torment by the souls of my past. All I had to my name was my cursed sword. At first, I fought them off, again and again but they never relented. After years of fighting I gave in and let the souls have their pound of flesh hopping beyond hope that once they were satisfied they would leave me be and my suffering would end. I would not be so lucky. True some souls had their fill and left but others still ripped at me, tore my flesh from my bones again and again. In hell your body is gone and thus any wound you would take is done to your soul, but a soul cannot be destroyed so all you feel is the pain. Pain that the demons feed off of. Then one day the demons came, they came and they tore at the tortured souls looking to collect them to torture them. I wanted to accept my fate, to fade away into nothingness, but my conscious wouldn’t let me. I knew what I did was wrong looking back, but at the time it looked like the only way. So, as the demons came, I fought them, banished them again and again, then I ran. I ran to the edge of hell where I live today and make a record of my thoughts if nothing else to keep my self some what sane.

A scream reached my ears as I look around at the desolate wasteland colored in different shades of red. The scream seemedodd different. I had become accustom to screaming in hell, there were screams all around me, screams of pain, anguish, and of horror. Yet this scream was different. I surveyed the land around me, I spot the five rivers of hell; Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Cocytus and finally Phlegethon. Surrounding the rivers was a waste land of blood and bone. Demons screeched in the skies and hunted the souls that made it this far out. Yet, their screams were not what I was hearing, the scream was, and that is when it clicked. The scream was a physical scream, all of the screams in hell were to this point ethereal or spiritual. This was something physical which shouldn’t have been possible but it was. I snatched my blade up and ran in the direction of the scream. Branches of wire shrubs and grasping trees tried to slow my progress but I flowed through the terrain like water through a ravine, and there I saw an imp attempt to dig its way into a small crook in a nearby rocky outcropping. The scream was coming from there, the nook, in a single motion I crept up and behead the imp, it fell limply to the side as I peered into the whole where I saw a young girl. She couldn’t have been older than 6 and was covered in so much dirt and blood I could not tell the color of here hair or skin. Really blood too, not the ooze that constantly permeated the realm. The child looked at me with pure terror, and began to babble question after question at me. It took me a moment to place the language. It was Threa a common language in the land though it had changed a good bit since I had last been up there. She continued to babble off question after to question at me as I starred dumbfounded at her. A screech from behind brought me out of my stupor as a gargoyle demon tore at my back. It created a burning wound down my back that leaked blood for only a second before healing. The pain of the wound stayed but was numbed by the literal thousands of other wounds I had accrued at this point. That single strike was all the demon got before I brought my sword underneath it’s right armpit and took it’s left arm out as well as half it’s head. As it’s body fell I saw more coming my way. Without thinking I turned back around and ripped the girl out of her hiding hole while formulating a response.

“Danger, we run” is all I said as I took off. The girl tried to scream again, but I clamped her mouth shut with my other hand dropping my sword. I ran and ran until I reached one of my hide holes. Where I sat the struggling girl towards the back of the cave with my back towards the entrance cutting off her escape. The second my hand left her mouth a flood of questions came spilling out.

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“Who are you, where am I, what is going on” were just a few I could make out from the other babble that was spewing out. Though the second my sword reappeared by my side she quieted.

“To answer your questions, I am…” my mind blanked. Should I tell her my really name, it could very well scare her and have made matters worse so I choose a pseudonym.

“You can just call me END and well to answer your next two questions you have some how ended up in hell” and with that she fainted, which to be fair was a very reasonable reaction to such news. With a sigh I moved her body to a more comfortable position and reviewed her injuries. She was covered head to toe in the red dust that existed everywhere in hell. With great care not to wake her I check for wounds, physical wounds. Hell was no place for the living, for those souls yet to leave their mortal shackles. With a grunt of effort I drew a complex magical rune circle in the air around the girl, the spell washed away all of the dirt, blood and grime from her clothing and skin. She had a few gashes but nothing major. A deep pain ran through my body at that point. Magic is based off the strength of one’s soul and hell perpetuate weakens a persons soul. To cast a spell in hell is like trying to run on top of lava. It’s technically possible but most likely deadly. Luckily for all us denizens of hell we can never die so we got that going for us. I digress, the young child could be no more than 6 years old, with brown eyes and hair and tawny skin. Memories from days long since past flashed through my mind but it quickly reverted to the girl when her wounds began to drip blood. Now that she was no longer caked in blood I saw dozens of demonic ruins carved into her flesh as well as several talon marks from the imp. The blood began to soak back into her simple linen clothes, the clothes of a sacrificial offering. Another spell circle flashed to life in my hands but it failed shortly after as pain ripped through my body. Cleaning and healing are to completely different categories of magic, one being significantly harder than the other. After several more tries and formulas and painful spasms on my part I was able to form a spell that mended her wounds. She looked like she was resting easier now but what was I to do. A living being should not be able to enter hell alive, and those that could would go mad or immediately die. Nines’ there wasn’t even any food that the living could dine out and the water from the 5 rivers was most definitely toxic to living beings. Plans began to form in my mind over and over about how I could save this child when eventually a terrifying thought occurred to me, why should I? What was the point in me helping this child? It was impossible, simply impossible for a living being much less child to survive down here. I could have just left the child, it wasn’t my problem, no one would have blamed me and even if they did what could they do I was already in hell. But as soon as those thoughts had entered my head memories flashed through my mind of my past life to my fiancé and the children I had taken care of. I couldn’t leave the child to fend for themselves, my conscious wouldn’t allow it. With surprise I burst out laughing at the paradox of a damned soul having a conscious however my laughter awoke the child who sat bolt upright and stared at me. Before looking down at herself then back up at me.

“This is a dream right” she asked me in a small voice. With a sigh I said “Maybe a nightmare” as I shifted where I was sitting so she could see the world outside the cave. Her eyes went wide,

“This can’t be happening” her words a prayer.

“I don’t know how it happened but it happened. What’s your name kid?” I asked.

Her eyes snapped back to me like she had forgotten I was there.

“I am, I am Kara, Kara of House Louisa, daughter of…” I cut her off before she could continue.

“Nice to meet you Kara, as I said earlier I am End. Could you tell me what happened before you arrived here?”. The color drained from her face and I could see the terror in her eyes. Then she began to speak.