46
Holding onto Hell
The second I saw what greeted me I automatically turned around and tried bolting my terrified ass back through the door. But the second I turned, taking my first step, I was faced with a vast burnt wasteland of a Hellish desert. My foot hitting nothing but the dry crust that covered the land with an audible crunch. I tried to think back to what this memory was, as it was there but almost as if tainted by something.
I couldn’t understand it. I wanted to, knowing it was important but I just couldn’t seem to access it properly. As if someone was blocking it or had erased part of it from my memory and what they had left behind was the crumbs of a time stolen from me. I knew this was it, as unfortunately it was a feeling I was all too familiar with, since my time at the colony.
I ended up asking myself was it because I died and came back as a demonic god thanks to the blood in the glass dagger? I knew what happened that night, even though it felt less like me that was living it and more like someone who had just been along for the wild, demon ass kicking ride. But my point was that no matter how much of an out of body experience it had been, I had still been left with the memories. Which was why, when I looked around, I knew this place had been where the last of the Hellish war had been won.
This was the aftermath left from what I had done. I knew that, the second I looked down at the colossal sized crater caused from when I had the power to see Mount Tartarus crumble into an oblivion. A place even lower than what was once thought as the lowest level of Hell. And I did so dragging the Titans down with it, thus putting an end to Cronus and his apocalypse.
Then I had met Lucifer, yes this I remembered. So, I turned around and it all started to play out in front of me as if some unknown action had started to play the past. I heard an echoing crash behind me and looked as the cracked ground crumbled further into dust and rose up forming images from my memory. So, where there had once been a wasteland of death, now the space was flooded with sand demons playing out the last moments of the battle. And they did this just as the mountain was falling into an abyss in the background, taking the emerging Titans with it.
“NOOO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!” Cronus roared at the sight of his defeat and watched as his fallen brothers destroyed the last of his hope for victory.
“I did what you refused to do. I gave them peace and a taste of humanity…oh and I finally buried that bitch Aurora in there with them!” The vision of my warrior self said in response to his grief. We were currently the only part of the vision that looked as it had that day, not needing Hell’s crusted earth to aid in re-enacting ourselves. As it was only the battle around us that looked like sand ghosts had been forced to relive through both their end and their victory.
So, then came the time directly after the war had just been won. I looked down to see where my rabbit was in all this only to gasp at the sight. Because now, instead of the cute furry little creature I had been used to, now all I was left with was a Hellish version instead.
Its fur was now missing and in places patches of his skin. One full side of its skull was bone on show and its teeth took up half its face, interlocking like on a crocodile.
Those once sweet green eyes were now blood red and bulging against the skeletal sockets that barely kept them in place. I jumped back in fright and the second I did, I don’t know how I knew, but it began to look hurt. So, I decided it hadn’t hurt me so why should I be afraid now. After all, I had seen far worse than a bunny that looked more like a zombie version of its former self. Okay so yes, it had those teeth, that by any wild beast’s standard, certainly looked more than capable of biting my hand off. But why would it want to at this point?
So, instead of recoiling again, I simply crouched low and held my hand out to it, knowing the second I did I had made the right decision as it rubbed its bare and rough-skinned head under my hand (the side that had skin that was).
Now, once it seemed happy again, he motioned with a look back towards my other self and Cronus. So, I looked up to see for myself as Lucifer approach just as he did that day. I smiled to myself as the handsome pirate strode forward, that impossibly tall frame eating up the space between him and my other self. I nodded my head in his presence knowing instantly who he was without needing to be told.
I continued to watch as the scene unfolded. This had been when Cronus first had his neck snapped before being brought back only so that the Devil could have fun with him again later. I shuddered at the sight of when he had his minions drag Cronus’ body away. I swallowed down the bile I could taste again, at the thought of the King and ruler of Hell’s idea of fun, one I didn’t think was going to be a night in with Netflix, a bowl of popcorn and nice girl to enjoy both with.
But then, this was when things started to get tricky as one second, he was running a finger down my chin after enquiring,
“So, you’re the one my son gifted my blood to?”
Then the vision changed from what I remembered and instead of it playing out the way it had been in my memories, the scene started to freeze. I frowned, stepping a little closer, maybe now only about three metres away from my other self.
“Why has it…” I never got to finish that sentence as one look at my face and his fingertip that was still lingering on the end of my chin was when everything changed. Suddenly a black decay started to spread on my skin from around his touch as if he had done so with the power of Hell being forced into my body, infecting it.
I didn’t know what was happening but whatever it was, it started to spread out, travelling not only along my body but now also his. It was like a fire was being ignited beneath our flesh, burning us from the inside out, and turning our skin to ash. It started to turn us both to darker shades of greys and blacks, like flaky charcoal. Then suddenly, just as it got darker still, his image burst as if it had been made from dust held together to form of a man with nothing but a glass shell. It exploded outwards the second a figure of a man emerged, walking straight through it.
It had detonated into a black mist of particles that seemed suspended in the air, moving so slow, it was as if our bodies were stuck in another time frame. Then the moving figure, still shadowed by the black cloud, did the same with my other self’s body as it had with Lucifer’s. A smaller ash bomb burst this time as the man destroyed the last of the memory before I could even really make sense of it.
Then as the figure stepped from the floating dust I only needed to wait a second longer before I could see who it was, making me gasp at the sight.
“Lucifer.” I uttered in disbelief as it couldn’t be possible. He started shaking a finger at me, making a deep tutting noise as he did as if I had been caught doing something utterly forbidden. I tried to take a step back but suddenly found myself on the edge of the canyon where I hadn’t been before. Therefore, I had nowhere to go and nowhere to run. I didn’t understand what was happening as this was only ever supposed to be a memory…wasn’t it?
Well, now facing the Being that was said to be the most powerful in this realm than any other, I had to say that doubt had quickly turned into a certainty that what faced me now was as real as they came. And one thing was clear, he was not happy.
He stormed towards me only stopping when his massive bare chest was only an inch from mine. This time he was dressed in a long black jacket, torn jeans, with a spiked belt and biker boots, looking more this time like a Gothic rocker. His face, however, was all serial killer. A face of hard lines and features set in stone. Red fire in his eyes that you could feel the burn created when he looked at you, as though he was leaving a brand on your skin just from glancing your way.
This was when I felt the pain scorching my skin on the back of my neck, like my birthmark was burning through my flesh. Almost as if something beneath it was trying to get out and reach the surface. I felt as if it was somehow responding to being down here and now, in front of Hell’s master, it wanted to show itself and its hidden power. I don’t know where this thought had come from, but it lingered there in my mind like black oil on clear water.
“Oww,” I moaned putting a hand to the back of my neck and his steely gaze took in the sight of my pain, now looking pleased.
“Clever little youngling,” he said, confusing me as to why. So, I frowned telling him silently that I didn’t understand, and this seemed to make him even more pleased.
“Ah now I see, for you are merely searching around in the dark,” he said seemingly musing to himself before raising his head up, meaning that all I saw now was his chin he was that tall. Then his skin started to change on his neck, becoming rougher, like the texture of scorched sand covered scales.
“Then allow me to shed light, where there is none,” he said still looking up and now cracking his neck to the side as the power of the change rippled through him, now covering his neck and chin. I squinted my eyes trying to make out what the shadows were that were now growing above his head. But then I felt the rabbit down by my feet trying to get my attention.
I looked down only for a second to see it frantically trying to tell me something. It’s panicked little jumps, and stomps on the dead crust of Hell’s floor were almost frantic. But then I felt a clawed finger under my chin before it was being pushed up forcefully. Meaning now the second my head was back far enough, Lucifer then looked down, now showing me the real meaning of the name…
The Devil.
And with it, his true form.
“AAAAHHH!” I screamed as this horned God looked down at me now as if I were nothing but an ant that needed to be crushed and one done so for his pleasure. His skin was now that of a beast, like red worn leather stretched over an abnormal amount of muscle on his torso. His head however, was a different matter. Either side of his face was cracked skin. One glowing with molten fire beneath and lighting up his veins. This followed the line under his high cheekbones down to both sides of his chin, as if parts of his face were cut into sections. Smaller spiked horns ran along his jawbone curling back towards his neck with a roll of hard skin framing each one at the point it emerged from his face.
This was the same for the two horns that also came from his shoulders but instead of being framed by hard skin these were surrounded by rows and rows of smaller spikes. However, the biggest difference had to be the shadows created behind his head for the two biggest horns I had ever seen on a demon. They started at the base of his neck and flattened to the back of his skull before splitting and curling around to the front of the sides of his head. Then they twisted up, so the deadly points were raised above him.
Like this, he now looked every inch the Devil.
I tried to step back, quickly realising my mistake as my foot felt nothing but air. I was about to fall, that much was certain, and I could only hope that it would be enough to jolt me out of this world of the past before I hit the ground. My only hope also being that it wasn’t like that urban legend that when you landed from a fall in your dreams it actually meant you died in the real world.
Thankfully, I never got to find out. I might have done, that was if Lucifer hadn’t caught me. He banded a massive arm around my waist and then snarled down at me as if this action and what it could have led too, annoyed him.
“This memory doesn’t belong to you!” he snarled making me flinch away, bending my back as much as I could over his arm in a desperate attempt at putting space between us. Then, if I thought his demonic voice was powerful enough to make me pee myself, his roar was the stuff of nightmares!
“IT IS MINE, NOW LEAVE!” he bellowed making rocks and mountains around us break and crumble, causing landslides in the distance. I cringed, shivering in fear in his hold as I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to come, but when it did, it did it in the strangest place.
The second he said this I felt a sharp stab in my palm and when I looked down, I could now see the demon rabbit hanging off my hand where it had jumped up to bite me.
I had barely a chance to open my mouth before the world around me suddenly disappeared and I felt myself being yanked sideways. It felt as though I was falling forever and finally when I landed I did so in a world…
I finally needed to see.