Episode Eight

As we kept moving I looked around at our surroundings. It almost seemed as if we were outside, in a forest fire during the night. I looked up and became very aware of the absence of stars. There was no sky. We were in hell and of course we would not be granted the beauty of the twilight sky.

            “Shot gun to the gut.” Brian huffed in front of me as he threw a smoldering branch from our path. I didn’t know if he was talking to me or himself so I stayed quiet as I followed him as he continued walking.

            “I don’t know how long ago it happened.” He continued again a bit louder. “Feels like I was stuck there for an eternity, watching the ferry load up and leave without me. Countless times a few would make it on and disappear down the river, but even more would show up then the few that escaped.” He looked back momentarily. His face was unreadable through the charred ashy-ness of his face.

            “I thought I would never get out of that swarm of people, bodies crashing into other bodies, screams melting into the other’s moans. I began to think of the ferry as my only way out of the torment. What I wasn’t counting on was even worse things awaiting after I made it past.” His shoulders hung low as I studies his back and listened to his words. Listening to him speak helped me forget about the fear that seemed to be creeping behind us with each step we took.

            “I saw you.” He said again a little louder to make sure I heard him over the crackling of the fire around us. “You looked different then the others. At first I didn’t know what it was. The look on your face as the crowded into the others, but then I realized. You can in by yourself. It’s usually groups of ten or more, clawing at each other like animals. Then I noticed something else, your clothes.” He sighed deeply once, then his shoulders bounced and his head rocked back as he coughed a deep rattling cough from inhaling too much smoke.

            “I didn’t think I would see such a brilliant white again. People came in with soot covering their bodies, a black thick crust to match the color of their souls.” He shook his head and picked up his pace.

            “I watched you as you were miraculously thrown onto the very next ferry. Imagine how one must feel after suffering for so long as they watched their only escape leave countless amounts of times without them and then you so effortlessly make it aboard. I knew there was something different about you and I had to make it aboard with you. I didn’t think I was going to succeed but then somehow I made it on. I was there beside you. Then literally all hell broke loose. We were on the beach and I kept looking for that brilliant white. It was gone though. Of course hell had taken that one beautiful sight from me so quickly. I saw you being attacked and I knew I had to help. I could sense your purity through the filth of this place.” Brian coughed once again, a quick jerk of his body from talking so long when oxygen was already so hard to come by. He walked on silently and I followed close behind as I digested what he had said.

            It felt as if we were walking inside of a greenhouse, where heat enters but cant escape. The exertion of hiking through the brambles wasn’t helping. I yearned for a glass of water to quench my thirst or even the slightest of a cooling breeze.

            Of course I had looked differently then the others. I had just come from the gates of Heaven. I was still wearing the white clothes that I had awoken in. I looked down at them now and I felt the same sadness that Brian had described. I looked just like the others now. My clothes were tattered and torn, barely hanging onto my body from being ripped by tree branches and were a dark singed black from fire and smoke. It was as if the short time I had spent in hell had erased the beauty of heaven.

            Have I been condemned for turning my back on Heaven? I opened my mouth to ask Brian about what he meant by purity, but at that moment he quickly crouched down to the forest floor.

            “Get down!” He whispered in a bark. I automatically followed his order and fell to my stomach as I looked around us. My ears picked up a high pitched whining sound, an almost inaudible sound that unless pointed out you would not notice. I looked at Brian and saw that his head was tilted to the right as he scanned the trees beyond. My eyes darted through the trees, scanning for the slightest movement. The wining sound doubled. Two notes now twirled around each other in the air, one slightly more bass then the other. I looked upwards from the forest floor, my eyes following the tree trunks as they went from charred blackness to red pearls of embers, to where they danced with fire. It was then in the fire that I saw them.

            Silhouettes of two people, jumping from flaming tree branch to another, bounding from tree to tree. They were headed in our vicinity and my heart jumped. We were going to be spotted. I thought about the man as he screamed for mercy as he was dragged into the forest. I knew these things were no ordinary permanent guest in hell. These things were placed here to hunt and feed off of our pain and fear. Demons that wanted nothing more then to make us scream in agony and repent for our sins, even though it was to late for God to take mercy.

Reviews

[Kaya]

I generally wait till I catch up with the writer to review... but if she's there because she cheated on him I may kill her myself!!

[gombeggar]

this has some typos and grammer errors too...i get the impression of the greek hell of hades from wut u present in this work...and i don't just mean the river stix earlier on in yer whole story...the whole scene thus far seems like that, maybe greco roman hades mixed with judao-christian hell

[Craig2591]

The writing style is good, but there are some typos in this chapter that you would probably catch in a re-write.

I find reading this to be slightly depressing, but only because of your excellent description of hell.

[Tabitha t]

So is that a victory or fail

[Craig2591]

Victory. Good writing should evoke a mood, and not always a good one. That's why we like to listen to sad songs.

[KAOlmsted]

I like the Brian character; he plays well. Some minor editing blips, like you use the word 'then' for 'than' a lot and 'to' instead of 'too', but mostly it was a clean write. Thanks so much for sharing it with us. Really interesting stuff.

[Marie]

Tabitha, I have been readin all these episodes. I was not going to comment till the piece was finished.