Diary of a journey through Hell

by Trudie Collins

I glanced nervously toward the forest. “Should we not put some more distance between us and the flesh eating trees?”

  “No need,” Kris assured me. “The trees never leave the forest. There is a ring of ordinary trees that surrounds them, acting as both a disguise and a barrier. We are perfectly safe here.” If his words were supposed to be comforting, they failed.

  “Why are they even here?” Robert asked as he started to set up the tents.

  “One of the gorgons created them and Frank didn’t have the heart to destroy them, so he found a way to entrap them within this forest, thus stopping them being a danger to anyone.” Frank? Oh yeah, Hades. I had almost forgotten that he called himself that.

  “Except those stupid enough to enter the forest,” Robert said, interrupting my thoughts. Kris had no comeback to that.

  I know that Robert wanted to reach Pestilence as soon as possible, but had it really been necessary for Kris to put our lives at risk by taking a short cut through a forest filled with man eating trees? I’m pretty sure that, had he been given the details, Robert would have agreed that taking the longer route was the preferable option. I felt angry and the way Robert’s shoulders were hunched as he worked suggested he was irritated with Kris as well.

  After lighting a fire, we ate a cold meal in silence and Robert departed to his tent as soon as it was complete. I started to rise in order to do the same, but Kris stopped me by placing his hand gently on my arm. It was a timid gesture, designed to get my attention not prevent me from moving.

  “Have I done something wrong?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  Surely he was kidding me. Did he really not know what the problem was? The look on his face told me he didn’t.

  “You needlessly put our lives at risk.” I know the tone of voice I used was that of a parent telling a young child why what they had just done was naughty, but I couldn’t help it.

  Kris frowned. “No I didn’t. At no point were you ever in any danger. Robert wanted to shorten the journey so I found a way to do that. The forest is only dangerous at night and I made sure we were out before the sun set.”

  “Unless you get too close to one of the carnivorous trees. Our lives were at risk and we should have been warned before we entered the forest.”

  “Would it have made a difference?”

  “Of course it would,” I shouted at him, unable to contain my emotions. “It was a danger we did not need to face and would have avoided it had we known.”

  The look Kris gave me stopped me saying any more. “If you and your boyfriend plan on not confronting any of your fears or the dangers that stand between you and Death, then you might as well give up now and go home,” he said in a cold, emotionless voice. Without another word he stood up and walked away toward the forest and was soon swallowed up by the darkness.

  I continued to stare after him long after he was gone from view. I was still angry, but his words had hit home. Were Robert and I overreacting? Kris was right; we were probably going to face a lot worse than this before we reached Death and Tammara.

  Eventually I forced myself to look away. It didn’t look like Kris was coming back any time soon so I decided to go to bed. I would apologise in the morning. Hopefully by then Robert would have calmed down as well.

  Once in my tent I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. Deciding that sleep would not come, I got up again and sat by the fire, which was still burning low. There was no sign of Kris, though whether he was in his tent or was still wandering around in the dark I had no idea.

  I was staring at the burning embers, my mind devoid of all thought, when I caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. Whipping my head around, I half expected to see the root of a killer tree making its way toward me along the ground and was relieved to see it was just a snake. While snakes are not my favourite type of creature, I have never been afraid of them so I didn’t cry out in fright or pull my legs back away from the fire.

  I watched as it slithered closer, the light from the fire reflecting off its green and yellow scales. It made its way toward the fire, attracted by the heat or the light, flicking its tongue in and out as it moved. Suddenly it turned its head in my direction and I found myself staring into the blackest eyes I have ever seen. I was transfixed, unable to move as it headed toward me.

  I felt its tongue flick over my bare toes and wanted to draw my feet away from it, but I couldn’t. I was not frightened, only curious. I supposed the snake was the same.

  I cringed slightly as it eased itself over my feet. I know that snakes are smooth to the touch, but my brain somehow manages to convince me that it will be cold and slimy so I always dread touching them, not that I have done so very often.

  It was curling itself around my ankle, and I had a momentary panic as I wondered if it was a constrictor, when I heard movement from Robert’s tent. He exited, glanced toward the fire and immediately saw the snake.

  “Rachel,” he cried out in horror. This was the worst thing he could possibly have done. The snake acted instinctively and used the only survival mechanism it had. It bit me.

  I screamed as I felt its fangs inject their venom into me. It felt like acid had been poured on my leg. From out of nowhere, Kris appeared at my side.

  “What happened?” he asked in concern.

  “Snake. Bite,” I managed to gasp.

  Kris looked around, but my attacker was nowhere to be seen. “Describe it,” he said.

  “Long, thin, green and yellow,” Robert informed him as I was in too much pain to talk.

  “What about its eyes?” Kris asked. Robert shrugged. He had not been close enough to see. “Were they yellow or black?”

  “Black,” I managed to say between my clenched teeth. The pain was getting worse. I was having trouble breathing and was beginning to feel light headed.

  “Is it poisonous?” Robert asked. He meant venomous, not poisonous, but I was in no state to point out his mistake.

  Kris nodded his head. “Deadly.”

  Day 5

  Sorry to have stopped writing where I did, but I was feeling too tired to continue. Robert and I have now been in Hell for a week and we have yet to reach Pestilence. I am making this entry as Day 5 as that is when the events I am about to describe took place.

  Well I survived, obviously. If I hadn’t, I could hardly have been writing about them could I.

  As soon as Robert heard that the snake which had bitten me was deadly, he took off his t-shirt and tied it around my leg as a tourniquet. Then he lay on the ground, put his mouth against my wound and began to suck out the venom.

  When he turned his head away and spat out the contents of his mouth, I could see a bright blue liquid mixed with my blood. Again and again he repeated the manoeuvre until he was drawing only blood from my leg. Kris kept trying to stop him, saying that what he was doing was not necessary, but he would not listen.

  When he had spat out just blood three times, he stopped and collapsed onto the ground beside me. Kris undid the t-shirt and threw it at him. Instead of congratulating him for saving my life with his quick action, he shouted at him.

  “You are a complete idiot. By now the venom you sucked out of Rachel has been absorbed through the cells in your mouth and into your bloodstream. It is happily being pumped around your entire body and will kill you in only a few hours if nothing is done to save you.”

  “Rachel would be dead by now if I hadn’t done anything,” Robert yelled back.

  “I could have healed her,” Kris said in an exasperated tone. “You saw what I did to her face. Didn’t it occur to you that I could do something to help her?”

  Is it just me or was that a stupid question?

  Kris continued. “Now I have two of you to cure and I’m not sure I have the strength to do it.”

  “Well if you hadn’t made us camp by a swamp full of deadly snakes, Rachel would never have been bitten,” Robert snapped, obviously not prepared to admit that his actions, though courageous, were a bit rash.

 
; ‘I wouldn’t have been bitten if you hadn’t shouted and scared the poor snake’ I thought, but kept my mouth shut. Now was not the time for playing the blame game.

  “Sit there and shut up,” Kris said, pointing to the ground near the fire. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  He turned his back on Robert and I could hear him mumbling. “Why did I ever agree to this? These people are more trouble than they are worth.”

  Without speaking to me, he grabbed my leg and placed his hand over the puncture marks. Blood was slowly trickling down and it hurt like h... no I won’t say it. It hurt a lot, OK. The pain diminished as soon as I felt the warmth of Kris’s palm against my skin. He closed his eyes as though concentrating on something and a soothing heat began to work its way up my leg. A few moments later he opened his eyes and looked at me.

  “All of the venom is gone,” he said. “The wound is sealed and your leg will be as good as new by morning. Now to work on the pain in the ass.”

  The last sentence he said quietly enough for me to hear, but not Robert. I couldn’t help grinning.

  I glanced over at Robert and was shocked to see him lying on his side, groaning. He looked decidedly green. I have no idea how a dark skinned man can look green, but he did.

  “Is he going to be alright?” I asked Kris. I was worried. Kris obviously wasn’t.

  “He’ll be fine, provided he does what I tell him and doesn’t do anything else stupid.”

  Ignoring the low moans coming from his patient, Kris took a cup from his backpack, filled it with water and placed it in the fire. He added ingredients from various containers then allowed the mixture to simmer. When it had turned a murky grey colour, he picked the cup up.

  “Sit him up,” Kris said and I sat behind Robert, who was noticeably trembling. I pulled him up so that he was half sitting, half leaning against me as he was not able to support himself. As I held him in place, Kris tipped his head back and poured the contents of the cup down his throat. He had the option of swallowing or choking. He chose the former.

  “He’s going to sleep for a while now,” Kris said. “Lay him by the fire then get his blankets from his tent.”

  I did as I was told, placing a pillow gently under his head before covering him up. “He’s burning up,” I gasped, pulling back the hand I had placed on his forehead.

  “Good,” Kris said unsympathetically. I glared at him angrily. “The only way to get the venom out of his system is for his body to burn it up,” he continued. “He is going to have a very high fever for a while. The potion I have given him will enable his body to become hotter internally than it naturally would, thus killing the venom quicker and more effectively.”

  I nodded. So his ‘good’ comment hadn’t been as callous as it had sounded.

  “Why can’t you cure him the way you did me?” I asked.

  “Two reasons. The first is that only your leg was infected. Despite the blood, the bite had not actually punctured your veins so the venom had not entered your bloodstream, whereas, thanks to the thin and relatively permeable layer of skin in the mouth, it is coursing throughout his entire body.”

  He was rummaging through his bag again as he spoke and pulled out a jar full of brown granules. “Coffee?” I nodded and he began to boil more water as he continued his explanation.

  “Secondly, though it may not have seemed like it, healing you took a lot of my energy and healing him will take a lot more. I am just too tired to even try.”

  I tried to find a logical argument against his reasoning for not trying to heal Robert the same way he had me, and I’m sure he would have attempted it had he not been pissed off with him, but only Kris knew how tired he was, both physically and mentally, so what could I say? All I could do was nod my head, in understanding if not in agreement.

  “He’s sweating,” I said. “Is that a good sign?”

  “It is to be expected. You can keep wiping his brow with a cool damp cloth if you wish, but it is not necessary.”

  Wanting to do something other than sit and watch Robert’s body attempt to battle the venom, I held out my hand. Smiling at me, Kris extracted a clean cloth from his bag and a small bowl, which he filled with water before handing it to me.

  “So what is the story between you two?” he asked once we were both sitting beside the fire, drinking coffee. “You obviously care for each other.”

  “We grew up together,” I said. “I see him as my brother.” Before I knew it I was telling Kris my entire life history.

  “My father was the CIO of a relatively small company, but one which was expanding quickly. As the company grew, so did his salary and we ended up moving into a brand new four bedroom house on a new estate on the outskirts of the city. A few weeks later, Robert and his family moved in next door.”

  I smiled as memories of Robert’s father stepping out of his shiny black Mercedes filled my mind, along with my father’s reaction. “My father was a wonderful man, but he had his faults. One of which was that he was a racist. The moment he saw that Robert and his family were ‘darkies’, as he put it, he vowed to have nothing to do with them. ‘They are not our sort of people’ he announced. Of course, I ignored him and introduced myself to Robert at the first opportunity that presented itself. I was an only child, as was Robert, and not many families had moved in yet, so it was natural that we would want to play together.”

  “What was his father like?” Kris asked, pointing at Robert.

  “He was a lovely man. Warm, kind, friendly. He was a paediatrician so was naturally good with children and made me welcome whenever I managed to sneak away from my father and go next door. My mother got on really well with his wife and they often met up for coffee and a good gossip, but not when my father was home, of course.”

  “Robert and I got on so well we spent every moment together that we could. But we were only ever friends. He had numerous girlfriends when we got older and he often would let them see us together if he wanted to dump one, making them believe that he was cheating on them with me. Of course, I put a stop to that as soon as I found out, but it took a few years, and a number of breakups, for me to realise what he was up to.”

  “Yet you stayed friends with him,” Kris said, clearly not understanding the depth of our friendship.

  “Of course. We understood each other. We could confide in each other and talk about anything and everything.”

  “Yet he still lied to you.”

  I pondered what Kris had said for a moment, making sure I knew how to say what I wanted to before opening my mouth.

  “No, he didn’t lie. He just didn’t tell me everything. There is a big difference.”

  “He used you,” Kris countered.

  “In a way, I suppose,” I reluctantly admitted. “But not in any way that mattered. Besides, after what he went through, I would have forgiven him almost anything.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were in our second year in high school when his mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He had to watch her become sicker and sicker. It took her six months to die.”

  I stared at the fire as a tear trickled down my cheek. She really had been a great lady and all of her family and friends still mourn her passing. Kris remained silent.

  “My mother took care of her when she became too sick to look after herself,” I continued. “She also became almost like a second mum to Robert, making sure he was fed, did his homework, had clean clothes etc. She ended up spending more time at his house than her own home. It caused huge arguments between my parents, as you can imagine. My father couldn’t stand her having anything to do with ‘those people next door’. One evening I overheard him yelling at my mother, asking why they couldn’t find ‘one of their own kind’ to help out. He told her her place was at home, waiting on him instead of some lowlife. I honestly thought they would end up getting divorced.”

  “It must have been tough on you,” Kris said, but I shook my head.

  “I was fine. I just kept reminding myse
lf that it was nothing compared to what Robert was going through. Are you now beginning to understand why we are so close?”

  Kris shook his head. “Not really.”

  I shrugged. “I guess you need to live through something to really understand it. Anyway, it all came to a head one day when my mother had finally had enough and told my father that she was going to continue to look after Robert and his mother for as long as they needed her and if he didn’t like it then he knew where he could stick his opinions. It was the closest I had ever heard her come to swearing. She told him to learn to deal with it or move out. I was shocked, but not surprised.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He walked out. I have no idea where he went, but he came back a few hours later and never uttered another word against Robert’s family, though he would still ignore them whenever they said good morning.”

  Why was I telling Kris all of this? I have absolutely no idea. He was just so easy to talk to and I had told him almost the entire history of Robert and myself before I realised it.

  “Fathers can be difficult,” Kris said, the tone of his voice hinting that he was talking from personal experience.

  “What did yours do?” I asked, but he refused to say.

  I checked Robert’s temperature once more and found he was still hot and clammy. Kris told me that his condition was unlikely to change before sunrise and I should get some sleep, so I bathed Robert’s head again then headed to my tent. I was not feeling tired enough to sleep so I updated my diary, but soon found my eyes closing, hence the abrupt ending of the previous entry.

  Robert was still asleep when I awoke and had not cooled down at all. Kris was not worried, so we spent the day eating, dozing, tending the fire, looking after the patient and getting to know each other better. Well, when I say that, I mean Kris got to know me better. When it came to his personal life, he always changed the subject.

  He happily talked about films he had seen, music he liked, just like any normal person, but refused to discuss his family, his childhood or anything I was really interested in.