At first I almost didn't realize it.

When God opened the floor beneath me, my eyes jolted with the realization of the truth to my fate. The first thing I noticed was my balance being thrown off, slightly rotating my vision clockwise. As my body continued its descent, my eyes fixated at the absolute darkness that was separating the wooden planks below. The darkness only seemed to grow in size the closer I got.

It was inevitable. The thought that someone who has lived a life as I had would be able to enjoy eternal paradise is a drunkard's thought that another round will solve his worries. The crime I committed was one nobody could make reasonable thought of. The underworld isn't a place for light transgressions, I was destine for the fire.

My vision shifted from an ever-growing black to a white so bright it rendered me blind. I couldn't get a sense of place, like I was falling through pudding.

My knees were the first to make contact, creating a snap that echoed from all around me. I quickly learned being dead didn't mean my body couldn't degrade. Degrade it would.

As I adjusted myself, kneeling with my hands to the invisible earth, the nerves in my body electrified. I begin to feel my hands melting, my knees charring. The feeling was indescribably overwhelming. The only other thing my mind could process was the smell of freshly seared meat wafting to my nose.

That's when I began screaming.

I couldn't register it. No matter how much gas I poured into my lungs, no matter how much force I eject it with, my ears won't register the sound, or rather it couldn't. I stumble to my side, colliding my head with the irregular ground.

My hands make their way to my head, resting their well done hands snugly around the frayed cartilage of the organ I once listened from. It answers my question, I am burning.

I lay for what feels like multiple lifetimes. Uncontrollable screams as my flesh forces it's regeneration in a war against the inferno encroaching from all points. I much like a light switch alternate out of conscious only by god's grace to return to my never-ending suffering. Can't be caught slacking I pondered endlessly.

At some point I'm able to start to make out shapes as gentle shadows outline the hell surrounding me. Each time an eternity passes, the landscape becomes more visible and distinct, The sharp jagged mountains line the background as figures in the distance started to become more distinct from the browned earth. My hearing at some point came back, but I only noticed as the screams of those around me became more clear than my own.

The masses of suffering souls bring an ironic sense of comfort to my own. Long had I believed in the notion that this suffering was mine, and mine alone. The thing is, it finally wasn't. As my suffering numbed others became more apparent.

It takes a while to move my limbs willingly again. Standing took just a little longer. The time that I spent isolated within my own punishment reconstituted my perspective of time. My body was ready to begin it's journey through the abyssal terrain before me.

I turn to the petrified remains of a tree. Three figures Lean adjacent to another on it's sturdy trunk. They cackle as they observe those suffering around me. The image stays burned in my mind for a time. The heads eventually turn to meet my gaze, no longer laughing. They open their mouths to speak.

~Welcome to paradise~