Hellbound: Chronicles

by Brashear, Nicholas

  I started walking on the outside of the buildings surrounding the square. I checked the square for my dad at every alley and road. I started to see a lot more people. More than I imagined would be in Hell. Every single one had a deformation unique to them. I knew then that I too had to have something unique to me. So many things were overtaking me. I started to think about trying to find one of those hounds. ‘I had killed myself before, jumping into the mouths of those monsters,’ I thought, ‘couldn’t be much harder.’ As soon as that thought finished in my head, Shannon pushed her way in. I could still see her face in my mind. I just wanted to see her again standing in front of me. I knew that if I could all the pain I was feeling would be gone. Seeing her always did that for me. It didn’t matter what had happened to me, she always made me feel better.

  That’s all I did while I waited for my father. I walked around and thought about my life, that is, while I was still alive. He finally showed up and I walked toward him. He looked exhausted.

  “You all right, Dad?” I asked.

  He was breathing heavily and then said, “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “That’s none of you damn business, Jon. I told you earlier that there were things I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “What the hell is your problem, David?” I didn’t know why I had said that. I guess just like all people, in a moment of intense passion, you say things you don’t mean.

  “What did you just call me?”

  “You heard me!” He didn’t say another word to me. He just walked over to me, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me. He dragged me about a block to the cave wall.

  “Touch it!” he ordered me.

  “I’m not going to touch the damn wall. Now let go of me!”

  “Only if you touch the wall, Jon.”

  I conceded. I reached out and touched the wall. The exact moment my skin touched the dry, black stone, something horrifying happened. I saw every sin that had ever been committed in the history of existence. I felt the pain of millions of people, and even of the fallen. I don’t mean that I just then knew everything that had happened; I mean that every single sin was literally flashing before my eyes as if I had committed them all, myself and as if they were committed on me simultaneously. I immediately fell to the ground. I couldn’t find the strength to get up at that point. The pain that had just shot through my body was so intense that it drained me to the brink of death. I was still conscious, but mostly paralyzed. My father was talking but I couldn’t hear him. His voice became muffled when I hit the dirt. The cries of every person, ever done harm to, had deafened me. He dragged me into a building. It looked vacant from what I could see. He left me there. I wanted to yell to him not to leave, but it was like when I was on Earth. No matter how hard I tried, it was futile. I was silenced. I wasted the energy I had left. Hell went black before my eyes and I was out.

  Before then, I didn’t think the dead still had dreams. I just I assumed they never slept, but I was dead wrong. I had a dream.

  I was there again: in the bedroom where I had died. I wasn’t participating in this dream like you do on Earth. I was merely a spectator, standing there watching what was going on. It happened exactly as I remembered it. I went for the gun and all that. When I shot myself something different happened, though. Shannon’s head spun around on her shoulders to look at me the spectator. She shouted at me, “It’s all your fault Jon!” Her eyes were full of tears and her voice was different. It was muffled and every word echoed. “It’s all your fault. You are making me do this!” Before I could say a word she put her hands at the top of her face and started to rake down. Every time she did she scratched deep enough to remove skin. I was trembling. She kept doing it until there was no skin left, just a bloody skull. Her eyes were peering at me, and then she leapt off the bed towards my dead body. She turned it over and then my body’s eyes opened. They were looking straight at me. My body got up, and it, along with my faceless wife, started for me. I ran to the door and swung it wide open, but there was the bedroom again, my body and my wife staring at me. “Now it’s your turn to feel my pain,” my wife said as she and my body lunged forward. I felt their nails dig into me and then I woke up.

  I was sweating and I couldn’t breathe. “That was horrifying!” I said aloud.

  “Who is that!?” a muffled voice said from the other room. I turned my gaze to the door where the voices were coming from. A wooden door that was rotting off its hinges was all that separated me from whoever was on the other side. I didn’t know who it was, but for the time being I didn’t really care to know. I mustered all the strength I could and I fled the building just as the door was opening. “I guess I’m hearing things…” the voice said as I lumped down outside next to the door.

  I was still disoriented from the dream and the wall, I didn’t want to move. I thought to myself, ‘What is the point? I mean I should’ve just let them find me. I’m in Hell, what could they possibly do to me that would be worse?’ I was trying to convince myself to face them, but my cowardice kept me hidden. I decided to rest there and try not to sleep again. So, for a while, I just sat there, slowly regaining my strength. Passersby gave me dirty looks, but no one hesitated to speak to me. I think they probably had more important things on their minds than to worry about some straggler sitting by his lonesome.

  Finally I had the strength to move again. I stood up, slowly, and started walking. I wanted to know where my dad had gone to, so I started searching for him. I figured he would eventually make it back to the square so I started there, making sure to avoid sight of anyone else. After my last encounter there, I didn’t want to take any chances.

  I walked to an alley and stood there, keeping an ever watchful eye for anyone and everyone. There were surprisingly a lot of people walking around. They would mingle for a second and walk on by each other. Nobody really ever smiled. I could see why they wouldn’t, but it was odd to see so many people talking about so many things and not once cast a smile to one another. I was still used to people on Earth, I suppose. I longed for it. I longed for my crappy job, I longed for my cheating wife, I longed for the struggle to pay bills, I longed for it all. I wanted to feel it all again. I wanted to see the sky again. I just wanted to be home. I sat there for some time pondering on the past and wanting more than I had. I was feeling so much self-pity it was disgusting, but after a while, my father showed up. He didn’t spot me so I walked to him.

  “Hey, Pops!” I said.

  “Feeling better, Jon?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Never do that to me again, okay?”

  “As long as you never are an ass to me again, it’s a deal.” I was so relieved to see him again. I still wasn’t sure if he really was my father or not, but at least it was a familiar face that wasn’t trying to devour mine. It gave me security to have him there with me, whoever he was.

  For the next few hours, my dad showed me around the first level. He showed me places that I shouldn’t go, and places I should. “There are some places where people will kill you before the Elohim will,” he said to me. He was referring to some of the souls that had convinced other souls to follow them, just a guy and his cronies to me. We walked and talked for some time. He just explained to me about some of the people and how to identify them. The more deformations a person was given meant that they were more evil than others. Someone like Muqtaba who had just had her skull caved in wouldn’t be as evil as the guy I ran into in the alley. Basically he was teaching me about trust in Hell. It brought me back to the subject of my deformation. I didn’t want to ask my dad about it, but I kept wanting to know. I decided it would be best if I kept my curiosity buried for the time being.

  “Well, I’ve been up for a while,” my father started. “I think it’s about time for me to hit the hay.”

  “I think I should probably stay with you tonight. When I woke up there were some people in the next room. I don’t know what they wanted with me but still,” I responded.

&n
bsp; “Oh, don’t be such a pussy Jon. You’re my son, and my son doesn’t turn into a chicken shit in the blink of an eye.”

  “How would you know?!”

  “What? Because you are MY son; that’s how!”

  “You died way before you knew anything about me. In fact, even when you were alive you never spent any time with me. You were always at work, or at the bar, or too tired, or just not around!”

  “I provided a life for you and your mother. She never complained, and neither should you!”

  “She hated you.” He punched me as soon as the words left my mouth. Right in the chest and I fell immediately. I still hadn’t regained all my strength; I think he knew that.

  “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again, Jon!”

  “I don’t owe anything to you! You came here and I don’t even know why.” It was hard to speak. He had a strong punch.

  “Fine. You want to know why I’m here, Jon?”

  “That would be great, Dad.”

  He grabbed the end of his sleeve and pulled it up with a quick jerk. “That’s why I’m in Hell, Jon!” he said as he pointed to little pinpricks on his arm. “I was an addict.”

  “You came to Hell because you did drugs?” I asked rhetorically.

  “You don’t know the kinds of things I did to get the drugs, Jon. You don’t know the hell I go through every day that I’m here. I caused a lot of pain to people. I stole, I cheated, I almost killed just to get them. I ran my life to do it. Whatever I could do to get more, I did it. It controlled me until the day Charlie came to get me. It killed your mother on the inside, and it made me miss out on so much with you, son.” He paused for a moment, just staring at the ground. “I didn’t come here because I did drugs. I was sent here because of the things I did to get the drugs. Every sin I committed to get the drugs haunts my dreams. Do you understand why I couldn’t tell you? There are some things a man shouldn’t tell his son because it hurts him too much to deal with. I’m very ashamed of what happened here, and no one here knows about it. At least, the people that don’t need to know.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I had no idea any of that happened. I mean now that I know, a few things from my childhood are kind of put into perspective, but.” I gave him a hug, but he didn’t hug back. I felt like I did when he died: abandoned. He stepped to the side and walked away. I didn’t try to follow him. The shock of this new found information froze me in my tracks. Besides, I figured he could use the alone time.

  I began to wonder if I would survive in this place. I wondered how long I would be here before I died again.

  That nap my father gave me kept me refreshed, I wasn’t tired yet. To be honest, I wasn’t ready to dream yet. The idea of dreaming another dream like that frightened me. All the scary movies and all the horrifying scriptures can’t prepare a person for the torments of hell. The dream felt real. I could feel everything that was happening to me. I could smell the blood. I could sense the hate. I didn’t want to dream anymore.

  I started walking. I was weary from all that had happened to me. I wasn’t tired, I was just strained. I felt stretched out, like when you have a day that just seems to never end. I wondered how long I had been in Hell. It hadn’t really seemed to be that long, but since I passed out, there was no telling.

  “I wish I could see her again!” I shouted. Then she stepped from the other side of the building I was walking along. She was wearing a pretty white dress that flowed down to her ankles. She was smiling and staring right at me. That little twinkle in her eye gleamed and I felt relief. She motioned with her hand for me to come. I ran to her and took her in my arms.

  “I missed you so much, Shannon. You have no idea!”

  “I missed you too, big boy,” it wasn’t her voice. It was the deep dark voice of a man.

  “What?” I said as I pushed her away. She let out a hiss and erupted into flame; blue fire in the shape of a man. “Who are you!?” I demanded.

  “I am the keeper of dreams. I am he who burns in the back of every mind. I am the destroyer of hope. I am Asmodeus!” And as he said his name, his voice grew deeper and had a boom to it. Also, his fire turned from blue to bright red.

  “What do you want with me?” I asked, huddled on the floor. “Please don’t kill me!”

  He laughed. “Jon, I’m not here to kill you. You are in my domain! I’m letting you know of my presence.”

  “Please, just leave me alone!”

  “Leave you alone?” He bent his neck back and cackled to the black sky of the cave. “You are in my territory! You will obey me here! You will learn from your insolence!” I began to cry. I was so frightened, but in the back of my mind, I was welcoming death. “I will mark you for all to know, you are now my property!” He reached his flaming hand out and burned a symbol onto the flesh of my hand. I shrieked in pain. It was hotter than anything. As if the sun itself were brushing against me. “Now, you belong to me, Jon.” He paused and looked, for just a minute, at his newly acquired property. “O! You’ve been through so much, haven’t you? You poor thing. Yes, I think this might be best.”

  “What!?” I yelled, clutching my hand with all my might.

  “I think,” he paused. “I think that a nap would suit you well!” He snapped his fingers, and I was asleep again.

  There was blackness all around. I could see a faint glimmer of light far in the distance. Naturally, I headed for it. As I approached, the glimmer of light grew bigger until I could see what the structure was; it was a giant, golden triangle. There was nothing around it, nothing behind it, and nothing in it. It was about three stories high, and about as deep as a car. As I walked underneath it, the golden triangle burst into flame and Asmodeus was standing in front me as if he had appeared out of nowhere.

  “Welcome, Jon,” he said. His dark, deep voice sent shivers down my spine. I could feel his evil penetrating me through the mere sound of his voice.

  “Where am I?” I naively asked.

  “You are in my dream, Jon.” Asmodeus was speaking calmly, but he was pure evil.

  “What do you mean I’m in your dream? I’m the one asleep.”

  “Jon, you belong to me now. My dream has become your dream. I dream of this place, when I so choose.”

  “Why?”

  “This is my home. The one I dream of. Selfishly, your God decided to take it from me,” his voice was beginning to be sterner, “but I can escape Hell, briefly, by coming here.” I was dumbfounded. ‘Is he pouring his heart out to me?’ I asked myself. Of course, I knew that his heart was blackened by hatred, but at that time, I didn’t know what to really expect from him. “Like in Lust, you are in my territory. Sure, other Demons could escape to here if they wanted to, but I’m the only one who wants to.” His voice returned to calm and his fire died down to a soft yellow.

  “I don’t understand what you mean about ‘my territory‘.”

  “I preside over the first level of Hell. It’s my sin, and only I torture the souls on that level. Like the one you gave me,” he chuckled.

  “I’ve never given anything to anyone that they stole from me.”

  “Jon, things do not work like that here. You belong to me. Do you not see my emblem on your hand?” I hadn’t even looked yet. The pain was so overwhelming that I couldn’t take my hand off, but as he asked me, the pain went away and I was able to look down. There was a small golden triangle, just like that one I had walked through, on my hand, almost at my wrist. It was equilateral, and it set off a small yellow glow.

  “Jon,” he paused, “if you do what you are told and stay out of my way, perhaps you will learn how easy it can be to survive here. Unless you have a death wish and you disobey me, my minions will not harm you. In time, I may bestow upon you gifts that you will not find anywhere else.”

  “What kind of gifts?” I was skeptical.

  “We, Elohim, have the ability to grant access to our heavenly powers to the chosen few.”

  “What if I don’t want your powers?”

  �
�Then you will offend me, and you will die.”

  “Then, I’m offending you, Asmodeus.”

  He laughed. “It is not so easy, Jon. I understand that you feel death would be the easiest and only way out, but that is not the truth of the matter. In fact, you may live to see that life here can be quite pleasurable.”

  “Pleasurable? I just want to get out of here. I just want to go home. I want to see my wife…” I looked down to my feet.

  “Then maybe there is a way. Hmm…should I tell him? No? Are you sure? I think he is a likely candidate.” He was talking to himself. I don’t know if he thought it looked trendy or if he was just crazy. “Maybe I will just ask him.” He turned his gaze towards mine. “Jon, what if I told you that I know of a way to get to Earth?”

  “I’d say ‘sign me up!’.”

  “There is a man. You know of whom I speak, but you do not know his name. He is dressed in all black, and he travels the planes, assisting the souls of the living.”