Chapter 2
The man sprawled onto his back as he was struck violently to the floor. The impact causing the base of his head to bounce painfully against the cave floor shooting waves of disorientation, nausea and vertigo over him. He struggled to get on his hands and knees through the spinning world around him, desperate to keep moving. Maybe it wasn’t too late to get away? The man's heart beat thunderously in his chest as he finally pushed himself to his feet. He looked up and a primordial dread took hold of his brain. The hulking thing stood unmoving in the cave’s mouth, blocking his only way out. Its dark shifting body backlit from the amber light of the lava flows outside. Embedded in its elongated head, the creature's red spiral eyes hypnotically stared back at him, unblinking. Their glowing intensity boring tunnels of fire throughout his body and soul.
Its massive body loomed over him at over 8 feet tall. Jagged midnight scales were interwoven over dark crimson flesh underneath. It had the type of body that defied anatomical possibility and could only exist in nightmares of children. Its proportions looked warped and elongated, like the body of a snake as if it had been drawn by a child. Its thin wispy tail bobbed up and down, in sync with the man's haggard breathing. Its frame supported four equally long limbs of skin wrapped bones. Each one ending in hands sporting jagged claws like something out of the Jurassic period. The creature's head was like nothing the man had ever seen. A curving beak-like jaw was affixed with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of black intercrossing strands of stringy sinew to form a dome like shape. The jungle of these various fibers allowing the man a narrow view of the purple pulsating mass of writhing organs beneath.
Thoughts danced like ants in the man’s mind, questions stinging their way to the forefront. What could he do? Did he have anything to distract it? What the fuck was this thing? The man tried to slow his breathing and steady himself. A feat which was easier said than done. He knew he only had moments before it made its move. Grabbing something on the ground to throw was out of question as the last time he had moved, the thing had charged him. He could try running deeper into the cave. Maybe it would offer refuge? No, he had a feeling that this thing would wait him out run. That meant somehow he’d need to slip past it. Maybe he could trick the creature by making out to run left then diving to the right? After a few seconds without any other ideas, the fear and adrenaline finally pushed the man over the edge and he sprang forward. He ran to the left and then crouched low and flung himself sharply to the right. The man landed hard on his right foot sending icy daggers to stab throughout the leg, barely managing to keep his balance. He took one, maybe two steps and was just beginning to see the stream of lava outside the lip of the cave, before one the the creatures' gangly arms whipped out in a blur and yanked the man forcefully back by his throat. The force driving the breath from him as his body was hauled up into the air and brought up before the towering behemoth.
The twin orbs of malice in its head took up the man’s vision as it craned its head toward him. The man fought back on instinct, slamming his fists over and over again into the clawed hand holding him. The skin of his neck gripped tight between black obsidian serrated claws drawing shallow cuts as he writhed. Thick drops of blood fell, echoing off the walls as they struck the stone below. The man thought at first his attacker’s appendages had been for flight or climbing and lacking in strength given their visible lack of muscles. However the vice-like grip holding the man's six foot, nearly two hundred pound frame off the ground, told a different story.
Thoughts again began bubbling up within the man's mind, which he latched onto like a breath of air to a drowning man. The overwhelming terror fueling his need for answers.
Was this some kind of animal? Maybe he had entered into its territory? What did it want? Maybe he had something it wanted? Could a monster be bribed? With what? Maybe this thing could be reasoned with? If it couldn't, he was already dead.
The man babbled as his eyes began to pop out of their sockets. His chattering teeth at odds with the oppressive heat surrounding them.
"Plea, please! I don't know, I don't, what, what you..."
The man sputtered in a breathy voice of shock. The man tried to think what to say.
The creature turned its head to the side, almost resembling the confused look of a dog. Was this thing smart enough to comprehend language? Was this thing sentient? The man relaxed the slightest amount. A trickle of hope worming its way through him that maybe he could talk his way out of this. In a voice more calm and controlled then he felt, the man asked,
"Can you, can you understand me? Please I don't know, I don't know what I did but I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Please, just let me go and I'll leave here. I'll do whatever you want."
The monster’s head remained cocked to the side. Slowly it used its other taloned hand and ran a talon over the man's face. At first it seemed probing, like a baby reaching out to understand the nature of something for the first time. However, the force grew more and more pronounced, the serrated claw catching on his cheek and dragging the flesh taught before continuing to increase in pressure. The man screamed and couldn't help but tear up as a thin strip of his cheek was torn away and casually raised above the creature's upturned head, It opened its mouth, crammed full of 6 inch dark silver incisors and dropped the flesh inside. After chewing for a moment, it leaned over and gently extended a forked oily tongue which licked lavishly at its teeth. The tongue extended outward and lapped at the gory wound it had made on his face.
The man tried to flinch back, but the talons around him were hooks holding him firmly in place. His efforts only managed to have more blood drawn as the razor sharp nails easily punctured his neck with each movement. As the man began to still once more, the creature slowly opened it jaw, and croaked in a voice best encapsulated as somewhere between the sounds of glass shattering and tires squealing,
"Jamesssss". The word dragged out from the beak like it was tasting the name.
The man froze. His eyes bulged out of his head as he stared at evil monstrosity, that now had not only spoken, but had known his name.
"Who? What are you? How do you know my name? What do you want?"
"Questions, questions." The words were painful to his ears as if they were causing wounds themselves.
"I'm sure you have a lot of them. Jamessss."
"No I don't. I don't want anything. I just want to leave. Please I have a wife and kids. Do you want something? Why are you doing this? I just want to see my family." The wide gaping jaws of his attacker contorted and curved. Their features warped into what almost seemed like a human's sadistic grin.
“Aren’t thee but the abused and cursed victim. Oh how I mourn for your unjust pain.” The creature whispered, both somehow menacingly and bemused.
"Tell me Jamessss, can you feel this?"
"What, what are y..." The man was cut off by his own screams as the creature punctured the top of the man’s back and dragged down. The impossibly sharp claws digging jagged furrows into flesh as if moved down his flank.
“Stop, please...” the man moaned in
racking sobs of pain and fear. Desperately grabbing onto the arm holding him for leverage. In response, the demonic creature, whose talons remained embedded in the man, tightened and pushed further inside, explicating fresh gouts of blood to coat the floor below them.
The muscles in the man's back began spasming, involuntarily and unknowingly shredding themselves even more against the foreign scalpel like intrusions.
After a moment, the creature loosened its fingers back, and the man crumpled with a high pitched exhalation of breath. His whole demeanor rendered docile from the immediate relief from immeasurable agony. The barbed black tongue slithered from its mouth to lap up and savor the bodily fluid coating its hand. The monster emitted a huff of bloody spittle which splashed onto the man's cheek, as it began to speak. The tone attempting a mimicry of a soothing parent speaking to their child.
“James, my little pet, are you still here with me?” After a few moments with no response, the being accentuated the question by running a talon again down the man’s carved up back. Thick rivulets of blood flowing freely from the frowning wound as it moved.
“Ye... Yes” the man whimpered lamely. His energy stolen and the breath already long since torn from his lungs.
"Very good. Now do you know where you are Jamessss?"
"This is Hell. Isn't it."
"Very good James. And is there anything I can do to make your time here more enjoyable?" The demon asked in a sing song voice.
"Maybe I can get you a little juice box or maybe a box of crayons? I might even splurge on one of the big ones with the sharpener? I'm feeling generous today."
"Please, I'm sorry. I know I..." again the man was cut off amidst a snap of the demon's hand as the man's right pinky toe was grasped and yanked, flaying it down to the bone. The man, convulsing and wheezing, tried to speak but only managed a dry cough. The demon, giving this no mind, finished with carving away the pulp, and began to whittle down at the bone. Unknowingly to the man, into a miniature replication of an open box of crayons. Specifically ensuring each of the 120 contents were represented.
"St...Sto...Stop..." The man finally managed to moan between his lips.
The demon stopped, and turned its eyes from the man's foot to stare into his eyes.
"What then James? Would you like me to leave you here? Do you want this pain to go away? To be free of all this, unjust, agony and despair?" The word unjust, spoken with a derisive sneer. There was no reply from the man, too fatigued and exhausted to even respond.
“Let me ask again to ensure I am understanding you correctly. You have no power, no control, and you want me to stop hurting you?” The demon finished speaking and began to tear a canyon like gouge in the man's chest.
The man tried to answer, but all he could do was pant and scream silently as he was cut. His mind began to flee from the pain into the dark recesses of his mind. Absently wondering how he was still alive at this point as the cave floor below them practically was covered with his lifeblood. His body should have been incapable of functioning at all with so much damage and blood loss. How was he even breathing or moving, let alone staying alive with a mangled spine? He would be dead soon and all of this would end. No more, no more.
“Hmm, no answer? I think I see the problem, let me just give some additional motivation. ”
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The demon grabbed ahold of the man’s right leg and with a blurred flick of its spindly arm, ripped the limb off from below the kneecap and threw it across the chamber. A trail of gore and blood began spewing as pressure pushed arterial spray out from the fleshy stump. The man's skin was as white as his cracked bones protruding into the air. The sheer amount of pain forced the man to arch what remained of his back up as bloody spittle flew out from his dry flaking lips. His blood vessel burst eyes red and bulging.
After a moment, the man uttered a dry mouthed unintelligible rasp. The monster screeched in what might have been a mocking laugh.
“Now, now James. You didn’t care when it was you on the other end of this, did you? Why don't we ask those girls when they cried out to you asking for mercy James? Did you listen to them? I truly cannot remember James, will you enlighten me? This is usually the part where you prattle about how you're not a bad man. How you just did bad things." The demon flung the husk of living meat onto the floor. Squelching as it landed.
"Sodomy, rape and murder are the textbook definitions of evil. It's one of the few things most mortals can agree on. Hells, I'm a demon Jamesss and even I can hardly imagine much worse. But you being a hypocrite on top of that James? Now that truly is disgusting and unforgivable.” With a fanged smile, the demon clamped down on the man’s spine. The touching causing the man to convulse, which would in turn cause the demon's claws to scrape along his spine, which would lead to convulsions in a cycle of torture ad nauseam. The demon sneered with derision at his spasming playtoy. After a minute, he withdrew his talons, and James collapsed into a boneless heap on the ground. The demon maneuvered to peer straight into the man’s unfocused hazy eyes.
“In my infinite mercy, I’ll give you another chance ape. Do you profess regret in your actions? Do you deserve to be forgiven by those who you have sinned?”
The man weakly rocked his head minutely. His chin shedding flecks of dried ruby blood as it was scraped atop the rocky ground.
Leaning down, almost nuzzling his ear, the monster purred, “I need to hear you say it or I can’t absolve you.” The man’s jaw moved lamely as he struggled to even mumble out unintelligible grunts. Bubbles of blood slowly pooling at the corners of his crimson lips. It was too much for him, and between the skin and helplessness, he began to weep.
Thick black tear drops left stained trails from his eyes as he tried again to scream, to answer, or to do anything, but his body and vocal cords were too torn and ragged to function. The prolonged pause ended after a minute of no reply coming from the man.
The fiend, seemingly still lost in thought, inserted a talon into the man's abdomen. Puncturing the man's liver and slowly beginning to stir the man’s liver into a slurry.
"Remember that third girl. What was her name again? Terra? Tammy?" The creature snapped its claws in a mocking approximation of human behavior. "Tawny! You remember, the auburn haired girl? She was so shy and cute and innocent, wasn't she? And when you cornered her away from her friends, knocked her unconscious, crammed her body inside your trunk, and held her down, you felt so good didn't you? Like you had won at something only you were allowed to play? I'm sure you want me to stop James, but let me ask you a question. When she was screaming, her lungs out, when she begged you to stop, did you even consider it? Did you even think of her as a person enough to listen? It's interesting, how is this really any different?"
The man's muscles tensed, snapped and spasmed as the demon reached into his chest and almost, sensually ran a claw through the man's chest. It rooted around inside for a few moments before cracking one of the man's ribs and pulling it out of his body.
“I know some may claim this is a cruel and unusual punishment. And remember I’m not doing this just because I enjoy it. In fact you and so are very much alike. I sympathize. I really do. It's just both in our nature." The demon leaned down and whispered in a conciliatory tone. It's foul fetid breath barely managing to reach the man through his miasma of pain.
“I mean, if it were up to me, I would release you. Let you go. We both know you have suffered enough. The amount of flesh I have stripped off your body in our countless rotations would shatter what remains of your mind. And all in all, you seem like a pretty nice guy James, all things considered. Maybe they really did make a mistake sending you here. You know like you always say when I let you talk. Your babbling does occasionally make me laugh after all.”
James tried desperately tried to move, anything to make the torture stop but his body was held tightly in a rictus of agony so great it was beyond comprehension. Against his last hope, he still remained alive, unable to die or fall unconscious. With a sad and almost sympathetic frown, the demon sighed and continued in its best approximation of a comforting cadence.
“Poor little James, always getting the short end of the well… claw.” It concluded, slicing a piece of fat off the man’s back and holding it up to wiggle in front of his face.
“I really do want to believe all those things you've told me. How your mother beat you almost every night. How the belt hit you so hard one time you could not attend school for a week or they would have taken you away. How women would always laugh or act uncomfortable as you grew up when you would try to express interest. How you were ostracized by others who always felt weirded out by you. I know you feel like you didn't get a fair shake at life. Unfortunately though, you were blessed with the curse of free will. And you used said gift to bring about so much pain on others. And they were mostly innocents too. I don't usually say this, but that is some quintessential damnation material. So, given all of that, I hope you understand I can’t really take it easy on you. I’d get in trouble with my boss, you understand. And at the end of the day, unlike for you, it’s just a job. Even if I wanted to, I can't help you… Maybe I... Well, no I don't think I could... Unless...” the demon mused, tapping its chin as if pondering in deep thought.
The man faintly whispered one word, seemingly using up his last vestige of strength as his body trembled from the exertion. The shaking nearly quintupled the agony as each nerve screamed out that things were terribly wrong with his body.
"Oh, I'm sorry, what was that James? Did you say something?" The demon purred as it lifted his dangling head up by the hair
“Please…” the man reiterated, the effort to speak once again nearly knocking him unconscious.
"Please, what James? Would you like me to help you? Would you like to atone? Would you like that juice box? Please what?" The demon finished with a bemused intrigue. After a moment, it sighed and asked, as if it was throwing the man a bone,
"Do you want redemption James? For me to save you from this agony?".
It took another long moment of feeble attempts before the man rasped in a ragged voice.
"Yes."
All the feigned kindness drained from the beast face as it glowered down at the pot marked and bloody body before it. Its disgust radiated like a physical thing. Hate, loathing, and contempt were what came across as it spoke with a mocking clap.
"Well, that was a stunning attempt at repentance. A genuinely plausible display that almost makes me feel sympathetic. James I think you may have missed your calling for theater. That performance was so deep and grounded, you might even deserve a chance to try begging me again." The demon rose and, with a wave of the demon's hand, golden light began to suffuse what had once been a man. Rapidly the man's body began to mend. New skin, tendons, and orgs forming where they had been savaged moments earlier. The bone in his leg popping out as a new leg began to grow in its place.
The man's eyes opened wide as his body knit back together. His healing body allowed him to truly feel pain almost as terrible as the damage that had caused it. Suddenly it was done and the man stared at his outstretched hand in disbelief. The man began to weep and moan as he moved his hands over his body. He was whole and this trial, this ordeal, was over. Somehow he had passed a test he didn't even know he was taking. Thinking back to the demon's words he threw himself to the floor and bowed on his hands and knees. Any chance he had, was predicated on this thing's judgment. He planted his head firmly on the ground below his shoulders like he had seen done in Asian movies, and spoke rapidly
“I repent, I repent, I repent” the man chanted over and over again. "Please lord, I'm sorry for what I've done. I was an animal. I promise I'll do better. I swear on everything I am. My family deserved better. I was a stain on..." the demon rolled his eyes as the man kept babbling, repeating and stumbling over his words to come across as some religiously devout man. After a minute the demon stopped him.
"Okay James. Clearly I can see you are a changed man. I'm glad to have been able to help you." The creature said as it rested a massive hand on the man's shoulder. It's claw curving to rest on the man's back.
"Let's work together on getting you all atoned up and ready to go pass through those pearly gates you've heard so much about."
The scene of mutilation, tearing and disemboweling torture had continued for a literally indescribable length of time. Which why it was so jarring for all parties envolced when the literal painstakingly created atmosphere was broken by a cheery repeating ringing tone.
*Budum bum, bum badum bum*
Mid-vivisection, the demon paused and looked for the source of the continuing interruption. Tilting its head as it had earlier, the demon reached out a clawed hand to the side, its limb disappearing into a spacial tear in reality before withdrawing a small black curved device which it placed into a grotesque ear.
The demon's mouth transformed, its jaw retreating and teeth retracting into its gums to a more manageable size for its new shape. It cleared its throat, and said a tongue twister, its pitch equalizing into that of a normal, if raspy male voice. After a second, the demon pressed a button on the device and spoke in a light, down to hell tone that had taken nearly a century of practice to perfect,
"Hey, you've got Baphomet, first scion of the..." he paused and waited as a muffled voice screamed through the earpiece he wore. The demon tapped its clawed foot as if it was trying to remain patient and composed.
"Yes of course I... No I..." the demon began but was cut off almost immediately twice. Shaking his head, and rolling his red spiral eyes as the demon's pause continued as he listened.
"Right, that's..." again this demon paused and what remained of the pile of meat beside him could just vaguely hear a second muffled voice yelling something about time punches and clocking out. The demon looked at the mutilated, dismembered and dissected pile of still living flesh that he had painstakingly arranged on the floor and cupped a hand over his ear to whisper to it conspiratorially,
"Sorry about all of this, I know it's very unprofessional of me but I had to take it. It's a work call. You understand right?" The last comment said as a statement, not a question as the demon gently patted an exposed pancreas on the ground with his tail reassuringly. The demon swiveled his head from the man giblets and turned his attention back to the call,
"Alright I understand, I'll leave for his lord's office immediately. Just let me finish what I'm..."
Again there were some muffled words rapidly and loudly exclaimed before a little whooping trill signaled that the call had ended.
The demon chuffed, with an exhalation which sounded somewhere between relief after a hard day's work and a lustful moan. Its head looked up to the red smoky sky, its true feeling forcing a malevolent grin to show its three inch incisors. The demon thought languidly about its future. It had always savored its work as there was truly something captivating about interconnected systems. How each piece played into a larger whole. How enjoyable it was to take apart a structure, piece by piece. However, you could only break something so far down before it lost its cohesion. Still, the hells were a place of the infinite. In theory, there was not a lower limit to how many component parts something could be broken down too. Though, the demon reflected, at a certain point, things just grew redundant.
The demon stood, turned back and looked down at his latest project.
“You’re in luck James! It appears our work together for this go around will be shortly coming to an end." The demon purred the words like a cat with a new toy.
"I've truly enjoyed our time working together and I do hope that you feel you've learned a valuable lesson from these experiences."
The demon bent down and shook the extracted nerve strands which had once been in the man's right hand.
"I don't know who they'll assign to backfill me, but don't think you'll get off so easily in the future as you did with me. I'm almost a soft hearted schoolgirl compared to some of my other kin."
The demon took a few steps away, turned his head up to the air, and inhaled deeply. As many times before, he took a few moments to gather energy in his core before exhaling a geyser of hellfire from his mouth. He watched callously as the flames engulfed and immolated what remained of James Malar. The man made no noise as he burned, only the crackling of his fat and bones popping which, the demon reflected, was satisfying in its own way. The demon turned, walked out of the cave, sprouted large leathery wings from his back, and without looking back, ascended into the sky.
Within the realm of the hells, time was not a constant. After all, it was a period outside of the mortal realm where reality was shaped by thought, feeling, and intent more so then any natural laws or logic. A fact that the pile of ash that had once been, what some might favorably call a man, dissolved into the cave floor. Somewhere, on a demonbase server, an entry had been added stating the early departure of the client's representative for a supervisory meeting with his leadership circle. Alongside a myriad of other extrapolated data, which included, but was not limited to, a count of times the man had cried, begged, and what he had promised in return for his release, was a value denoting the man's current session. The red digital 1683rd displayed, bumped up to 1684, which the man would soon experience again, for the first time.