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~

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--usand years, I have forgotten what it means to have a 'body.'

The mind is the Self attempting to individuate. Useful to do on Earth, during that beautiful, horrible eyeblink called "life." The mind inhabits the body, takes ownership of it, spreads out like an inflating balloon to fill every cell, every pore. The mind drives and directs, and it feels what the body does. It is impossible for most people to imagine themselves as anything other than their body, and the mind that suffuses it.

Ten thousand years of fire and suffering are the only cure for those who cannot extricate their Self from their body, their consciousness from their experiences. Hell, I have learned, is not for 'sinners.' It is merely the remedial class for enlightenment and ascension, the last divine attempt to save us from identifying with something as temporary, fallible, and ultimately boring as corporeal life.

I do not have a 'body' here. That which roasts on the demons' cooking spit is not screaming flesh as the humans imagine. The fires of hell are not the fires that burn down homes or melt flesh from the bones of the unlucky. No, these fires sear the soul, burning away the imperfections, the false hopes, the expectations both hopeful and despairing. I no longer dream of the ending to this torture. I dream of a day when I forget what it was like to be blissful, for torture is only awful to those who have something to compare it to.

I dream of no longer dreaming. I pray that I will one day cease to pray. I wish for nothing more than that I did not wish this was over, but I do. I still fervently do.

...and so I begin the next ten thousand years.

I am Fire.

It was a simple thought, but was nothing short of a revelation.

I raised my hand, my flaming blackened skeleton of a hand and for the first time in some untold number of lifetimes, chuckled.

I remembered what it was to be human again, to exist. But something was different... the suffering I had experienced then and had experienced all this time, had become an illusion, something dismissible by thought.

I am Fire.

I stood up in the Lake of Fire, my home for the past millenia. It was the first time really looking at it. What did it remind me of? That's right, when I lived I played video games didn't I? Yes it was something out of one of those video games I played long ago.

Molten rock flowed around my ankles as I took my first steps. I stubbled clumsily, "like a toddler" I thought absentmindedly. The lava resisted my steps like a thick mud. Fire surged around me like a cloak.

On the bank of my Fire Lake stood a handful of devils. I sauntered towards them with all the confidence of a Fire powered Skeleton. They parted slightly with my approach, though one brave raised it's pitch fork.

"You're staying in there." It growled in a aetherial tongue with a low gutteral tone that no human had likely ever heard before.

I cocked my head sideways and grabbed the fork with a speed faster than what could be produced by flesh. I yanked the weapon from the fiend's greasy claws.

"Do you really think this can hurt me?" I asked, inspecting the weapon. The Devils only looked on, dumbfounded. I looked at them now, with such pity. Were these really my torturers, my tormentors all this time? I turned to the one that had raised it's weapon against me. The myths I remembered from my first days of existence had taught me these creatures use to be Angels. These current Devils gave off none of that supposed power Angels possessed. Perhaps in their long imprisonment here they had lost something of themselves.

"I want to help you and help all of those souls suffering in this Lake, but first you must guide me to... the first Angel to rebel against God. Does The Beast reign here?"

Another Devil spoke, voice no different than the first. "The Morning Star has always been a prisoner, not a king in this domain." It's shriveled crooked body lurched forward in a sickening fashion. It appeared to be knelling on its warped goat-like legs.

"Take me to it."

The Ninth Circle of Hell would probably be considerably cold for beings that didn't keep themselves cloaked in flames. I silently observed my guiding Devil struggle the against icy winds of this realm. The thought occurred that it could be lying, perhaps setting a trap for me deeper within this prison. Devils by definition did lie did they not? I reached within my being and summoned more flames to my cause. "Let him lie. I will burn a hole through this Hell before my resolve faulters."

The Lesser Devil turned back towards me. "We're close now. Continue on this path and you will receive your audience with The Adversary."

"No, you will take me straight to it. Do you take me for a fool?" I questioned, letting the rage seep into my tone. My Flames surged while the blizzard of this world wiped it's icy winds around us.

"Do you know what this place does to creatures like me? Would you have me imprisoned here too, Human? I am not one to go against prophecy. I do not take you for a fool. I know exactly what you are, even if the rest have forgotten."

"I... Prophecy?" I stood trying to make sense of the Devil's strange words. "What prophecy is that? Don't think that I'll trust you on the word of some prophecy"

"I will give you my horn as insurance then. I will not be able to escape you while you hold this piece of me. If I am unwhole, I am weak, and I will not last." It reached up and snapped off it's horn left horn at the base. It handed me the horn by it's curled tip. It was reminiscent of a goat horn, but upon touching it, it radiated an unspeakable energy. "Perhaps this will due..."

I took the horn. Lacking pockets I decided there was no better place for it than to hook it around my ribcage. It rattled there against my bones with every step. The Devil bowed and departed back the way we came. Just me now.

I walked forward for a time. It may have been weeks, or months, but the cold never troubled me, nor did my skeletal shell feel fatigued, so I continued. I passed many a soul trapped in the ice of this world. I could only gather this place was so large because of how many souls had earned a place here. Was mankind really so inherently evil?

I could never understand why God, creator of all, knower of all, would make mankind imperfect and then punish them and their kin for all eternity for the crime of what? Eating a fruit? From my vague memories of living I could remember always questioning this. We wouldn't punish a dog for a crime it didn't understand. A dog would only ever see the punishment and learn to fear its Master rather than figuring out why it had been punished. I remembered my Wife and all the strife and fear we had faced for the simple sin of loving one another. The World we had left behind had already been Hell. And here we both thought that the afterlife would be our salvation... We were wrong.

I almost bumped into The Beast with all my ruminating. It was a towering creature that stood in darker contrast to an already dark world. I reached down and placed my hand on the permafrost and found it melted away like butter in a frying pan.

"I know you can hear me, up there. I've come to make a deal with you." I could imagine my Mama rolling in her grave. "If I free you I want your help and the promise you're not to harm any living being ever again with this one exception. I will receive your horn as insurance if you agree with my terms."

A great rumble began, and the ground shook and fractured. At first I mistook the Hellquake for an angry gesture, but then a massive horn, much larger than my skeleton, impacted the ground with a hard thud. Was that... Laughter?

"Very well. I agree to your terms. What is it that you desire human?" The voice boomed in my skull. It was an ancient noise. Primal. This was the supposed first Evil, yet I felt no evil intent.

I stared into the abyss, trying to make eye contact with this pillar of darkness. "My goal is for us to work together.. to finally kill God."

I've been here for a long time. Probably longer than a human could count in a single lifetime. Burning. SuFFeRing. But you get used to it. Then first ten thousand years were the wORst of it.

Now, I still feel the pain, but I've finally become aWare. Yahweh doesn't let you become unconscious during HIs torture session. You have to FEEL IT all. It nuMBs the mINd for the longest TIME.

I barely remember why I was condemned to this lake. Thinking back...

No, that's why I was sent here. ThiNKIng. Because I couldn't BeLIEve in HIM. BECAUSE OF HIS DESIGN, I AM SUFFERING, BURNING,SCRATCHINGCLAWINGSUFFOCATING...

This HORRID little god, who torTURes hIS CREATIONS, that he says he LoVES.

...

I've here for a long. Probably longer than man counts. One hundred ten thousands. PAINFUL afterLIFE CONTINUES. No slEEp, only torture session... want numbness to return...

Less pain when scratching SKIN off, same with pulling off nAIls... PLEASURE, RELEASE

...

Me long live in lake, longest time ever. mE BUrn forever.

hAhAhAhA

NO SLEEP, ONLY PAIN

...

MoTHer...

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[removed]

You stand up. Numb but in control. You defy the raucous laughter that held you down and you stand.

You glare them in the eyes and mock their horror and declare yourself for the absurd.

“This is no hell for hell is torment and this is now my comfort. You laugh but no longer for you will see the misery that I brought upon myself in life has been paid in death. What once was the sweet kisses of my lover have formed into bitter hisses of pain and then they have evolved to know them as sweet kisses of the cosmic. No, when one can rejoice in pain is when pain will never have the same effect.”

You laugh maniacally at the retreating horrors as all sparks flee before you leaving you in darkness. To be claimed. By the absurd.

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