Heaven and Hell (19 page)

“During the next few days, the cycle repeated again, and again, a game of cat and mouse. It was tiresome, stressful, and often painful, but it sure beat the alternative. It was then when I began to think of eternity in a different way. Like rainfall wearing down a tall mountain, might I wear down my chains, given enough time? There were plenty of rocks, very hard ones, all around. The chains between my wrist shackles gave me about 2 feet of play, enough to wield the rocks.

“At first I tried to use them as a hammer. I decided to work on the chain between my ankle shackles first. After all, if I couldn’t run, I’d have no chance. I decided to work on what I thought was the weak link in the chain, where it met the shackle. For weeks I struck that link. I managed to bend it way forward and way back time and time again. That’s supposed to break a link eventually, right?”

“But aren’t your shackles barbed on the inside?” asked Serena.

“Yes, and that made it hurt all the more,” replied Gwen. “With every blow of the rock, those barbs dug into my ankles, but I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. If I couldn’t remove the shackles from my leg, well, there was only one solution, wasn’t there?”

Serena realized where this conversation was leading. “Oh my God, you thought of amputating your foot?”

“Exactly,” replied Gwen, “it was the only way. Cut the foot off, pull the shackle from the stump, then reattach the foot. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? I just wasn’t all that sure that I had the guts to do it. I knew my foot would grow back together in an hour or so, but how do you do such a thing to yourself. I thought of stories of desperate animals who chewed off a leg that was caught in a trap. It is a lot easier said than done. Nonetheless, I started working on a large narrow rock, sharpening it into a blade. Still it took me a long time to work up the nerve to do it.”

Serena shivered at the very thought, it was ghastly. Only in this place would anyone possibly come up with such a scheme.

“I don’t think I’ll go into the details, of cutting off a foot and then reattaching it. It can be done, but believe me, you can’t imagine what it’s like. Cutting through flesh, and then bone; it was horrible. And when you start, you’ve got to see it through to the end, no matter what. I don’t cry easily, but I did then. Those two days were the worst days of my eternity, but somehow, I got through it. When it was over and the healing was complete, I just stared at my bare feet. It was wonderful to have them free again, but what I wouldn’t have given for a pair of shoes. I buried the shackles beneath some rocks and prepared to do my wrists.”

“Had you thought any about where you planned to go when you finally got free?” asked Serena, looking for a moment around the valley. “I mean, where could you go? This place is so open, surely you’d be seen.”

“I’d thought a lot about it,” was the reply. “I wasn’t about to go through all of this, just to get caught again. There was a way; I’d thought my way all through it. But I guess I didn’t think about it quite enough. Anyway, I never got the chance to make the break. It was after I did my left wrist that the black demons caught up with me. I’d slipped back into the vent, was waiting until the coast was clear, when two of the demons showed up. They grabbed my chain and pulled me out. I think they knew what had been going on for quite a while. Maybe they’d just been playing with me, waiting for me to almost get free before catching me. They clawed me up real bad; then they put the shackles on me again and threw me back into the vent. But they didn’t stop there. They climbed down into the vent, crawling along the walls like some sort of insects. They added extra chains to my feet, shackling them to the walls to keep me inside the vent. They said that because I didn’t play fair, that I wouldn’t be allowed to play the game at all. And that’s the way it’s been ever since.”

“I’m sorry,” said Serena. “I know that doesn’t mean much, but I am.”

“And do you think you’re any better off than I?” asked Gwen, a crazed anger in her voice. “I don’t know what you’ll experience in the sea of fire. I don’t even know exactly what the sea of fire looks like, but I think I’ll take this over that any day.”

Serena drew back from the gaping hole in the ground. Gwen might be right. What was the sea of fire? She wasn’t really sure. Continually being burned alive might make Gwen’s ordeal seem like a picnic by comparison.

“We’re both damned, you and I,” continued Gwen. “I can offer you only one consolation, for whatever it’s worth. The experience of continual and unending pain has a dulling effect on your senses, you’ll see. Eventually your mind learns to block a large portion of the pain out. It’s still terrible, don’t get me wrong, but not quite as bad as you might imagine. It becomes a part of you, like breathing. You come to forget what existence without it is like. Life without pain might even seem empty. You’ll understand.” There was a pause, then suddenly Gwen’s voice took on an alarmed aspect. “I can’t do it, I can’t! Run, Serena, run! This geyser is going to erupt, I can feel it! I can’t keep you here. I don’t care what he does to me, run!”

Serena rose to her feet. She was confused and didn’t know what to do.

“Run, Serena!” gasped Gwen. “You’ve gotta get out of here!”

Serena backed slowly away from the vent, then turned and ran.

It was less than a minute before she felt the rumble beneath her feet, followed by the roar behind her. She turned to behold the tower of scalding water rising high into the sky. Had she stayed a moment longer, she would have been engulfed in its fury. What was Gwen talking about? Was she under orders to delay her? Serena quickened her pace. She felt as if she had been set up. The dark demon had directed her down this path, perhaps anticipating her meeting with Gwen. Had he been behind it all, or might there have been higher powers at work here? She figured that she would never know.

Yet one thing was certain; there was no escape from her fate, no hiding from the prince of darkness. He held absolute sway over his realm, and nothing happened here that he was unaware of. Hell was as much about hopelessness as it was about pain. Soon she would know both.

S
ERENA’S journey through the realm of the geysers continued for nearly two hours. Under different conditions, it might have been a fantastic experience. Yet, she knew the dark secret these deadly fountains held, the human tragedy locked up in this wonder of nature. She could only imagine how many of these vents contained souls in torment, souls waiting helplessly for the blistering hot fury from below to be expelled, only to be compelled to scramble once more into their dark prison to escape the demons above. It was a nightmarish cycle. Now and again, she could hear the muted, mournful cries of the inhabitants of this defiled natural wonder.

Eventually the field of the geysers came to an end, and the valley opened into a vast featureless plain, an expanse of flat nothingness that extended to the horizon. She had seen this region from the mountaintop, through the mists and smoke that dominated this wretched land. The way she figured, the sea of fire was not far off. She had come a long way. She glanced at the small hourglass. She was dismayed to discover that more than half of the sand had run its course. Her time was running out.

“No hope,” she sighed, as she continued on.

Serena discovered that the plains before her were not as featureless as she had at first thought. Scattered here and there among the rocks and gravel were white-bleached bones. Certainly not mountains of them, but bones nonetheless, cast helter-skelter across the landscape. So scattered and fragmented were these remnants that Serena was unsure as to whether they were of human or animal origin. The source of the carnage was a mystery, but it was obvious that it happened a very long time ago. In the absence of rain or insects, it was hard to say just how fast animal remains might deteriorate here. Human bodies would regenerate, and Serena suspected the same was true for the fallen angels. So, what about these bones? It was a question with no answer.

Looking up from the bones, Serena saw an orange glow on the horizon. At first she thought it might be the edge of the sea of fire, but as she grew closer it took on the appearance of a myriad of campfires, spaced at regular intervals across the landscape. It seemed to be an encampment of a mighty army that stretched as far as she could see. Above the fires, a multitude of large dark forms flew through the ragged skies.

“What now?” moaned Serena, who was weary of the pain and suffering she had witnessed on her tragic journey.

She looked for a route around whatever lay ahead, but there appeared to be none. All she could do was continue to follow her shadow into oblivion.

Eventually, she had drawn close enough to see the true nature of the fires. They were bowl-shaped pits, perhaps 4 or 5 feet deep and twice that wide. The walls and floor of the pits were lined with glowing red hot rocks, and the air held the intense stench of brimstone. Most of the pits contained the writhing forms of the damned—moaning and screaming, many fully engulfed in flames. Their forms rippled and quivered amidst the waves of rising heat. So great was the heat of the pit, that their bodies had been reduced to nothing more than skeletal remains. The flesh that sought to regenerate was swiftly swept away, dropping from their bones and into the pit, where it was swiftly incinerated within the blazing inferno. Even the eyes of these damned souls had been swept away by the flames, leaving nothing but dark empty sockets staring out at the world.

Within their rib cage and surrounding the bones of the legs and arms, a gray turbulent mist swirled like smoke, yet never escaped. Was it smoke from their continually vaporizing flesh, swirling in the eddies created by the intense heat? Or was it something more substantial, something more precious? Perhaps it was the physical manifestation of their eternal souls?

Still, the most incongruous aspect of these damned souls was the worms. The porous, light gray bones were teaming with white worms that seemed totally unaffected by the intense heat. They crawled in and out, as if feeding upon the slim remains of these skeletal apparitions that had once been human beings.

Serena had seen many horrible things since her arrival here, but this was the most ghastly of them all. With no flesh, no lungs, and no tongues, how could these people scream so? Serena was amazed that the bones of these hapless individuals remained assembled in the form they had taken in life. With no muscle or sinew to hold them together, why didn’t these scorched skeletal members fall to the ground, to become no more than a pile of litter scattered across the bottom of the pit? And the worms, how could they possibly survive under conditions such as these?

The pits emitted such heat that, even from a distance of 10 or 15 feet, their radiance was absolutely brutal. She could hardly imagine what it must be like from within. Surely the laws of reason, of physics, no longer applied here. They had been indefinitely suspended at the whim of the prince of darkness.

Overhead, hundreds of demons cloaked utterly in black guarded the pits. Well, so much for her theory about a shortage of demon power. Satan seemed to have no lack of resources.

The walls of the small pits were steep, but not insurmountable. So what force held these poor souls in their primitive crematoriums? Was it the fear of the dark horde above them, or were they so weakened by their ordeal that they had no strength to escape?

The pits before her were widely scattered enough to allow her easy passage, at least physically easy. Emotionally, it was another story entirely. Her fortitude and courage were failing her. As pointless as it might have been, she offered a brief prayer before she took another step toward the plain of tormented souls. It was not only a prayer of mercy for her, but for them. It was a prayer for strength that she, the condemned prisoner, might be able to continue on her final journey. She moved forward.

Serena tried to focus on the path before her rather than the carnage around her. Surprisingly, none of the damned souls called out to her as she passed by. Perhaps they lacked the ability to see or hear her. Perhaps all they could sense was the searing pain carried upon the flames that leapt up from the embers beneath them. Perhaps their personalities, memories, and consciousness had perished in the flames, leaving only their primal urge for survival. No, that would be too merciful.

Serena’s attention was caught by a commotion not far away. Turning, she discovered that one of the skeletons had scrambled from his pit, only to encounter a black demon in the process. Already, the skeleton had started to develop internal organs and the beginnings of flesh.

“I can’t stand it anymore!” he screamed, flailing wildly in the demon’s grasp. “You gotta let me out.” His cries quickly turned to sobbing pleas. “I’ll do anything you want, but please, don’t put me back in there, please!”

The demon effortlessly picked him up by his bony neck, held him out at arm’s length. “So you can’t stand it?”

“I can’t,” cried the man. “Please, it hurts so much. I’m going out of my mind! Please, let me out of here, please!”

The demon cast the poor man back into the pit, but not before ripping a skeletal leg from him. The small quantity of flesh that had formed on this poor soul’s bones, virtually dissolved as the pit erupted in flames that towered 10 feet into the sky. When the flames died down once more, Serena witnessed a bare skeleton, flailing around upon the coals.

“So, you can’t stand it,” said the demon, in a sadistic sneer. “OK, let’s see how you like laying in your pit rather than standing in it. It will take days for that bony leg to regenerate in there. That should be enough time for you to ponder the consequences of trying to escape. And if you do try to escape again, I’ll rip you into a dozen pieces, and scatter them across the desert. I’ll show you a new aspect of pain.”