Author Games: The River of Night

Task Four Entries: Of the Underworld

Anka Tahira

DID NOT HAND IN

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Eadric Paavo

I knew what was to come when the boat started to go underneath the water. We had hit the Lake of Fire, which was a section of the river which was made entirely of fire and to pass it, one would need to have a spell of some sort protecting them otherwise it is highly possible that you will either die or feel extreme pain. It is fire after all.

As soon as the boat had gone deep enough, before even entering the fire, all I could feel was searing heat. We were under water but sweat still managed to drip off the top of my forehead. Other people around me had also begun to grasp for breath. I could only imagine the extensive pain we were all about to endure in a matter of mere seconds. Some of us wouldn't even make it past this point of the journey.

Even before entering it felt like I was in a sauna but when we went through the fire, it was a completely new and more painful experience. I felt pain in ways I never had before.

The searing heat dance over my entire body, spreading stabs of pain. When I looked at my skin, the flesh was burnt, the degree of the burn varying depending on what part it was on. My right arm seemed to be more burnt than my left one but my entire body was in equal amount of pain compared to the rest. With an excruciating move of my neck, I looked out at the rest of the people on the boat. Some were screaming and whimpering they were in so much pain, while others were quietly wincing just as I was but then there were those that surprised me, they hardly seemed to feel a thing. While you could tell that nobody on the boat was experiencing no pain at all, some certainly were experiencing very little. I found that to be quite strange because if there was something that you needed to know about the Lake of Fire is that it is tested to destroy impurity, both spiritual and physical which meant that to pass through this Lake of Fire experiencing that of only a hot shower you had to be completely pure, meaning every aspect of you had to be perfect, even your appearance and body had to be without flaw. That seemed highly unlikely that someone could truly be that pure.

As we continued further the heat got hotter and I found myself sweating profusely as well as moaning. There was no way of protecting yourself from the pain and even after we exited, I knew everyone would still be in pain. We all had similar burn marks that were all over our bare skin.

I hugged my waist tight but all it did was spread more pain through the rest of my body. Tears burned in my eyes. I wasn't sure how much more of this I could cope with without passing out from the sheer pain that I was experiencing. It was as though my eyebrows were now set in a permanent furrow while the rest of my facial features were scrunched up with wet tears sliding down my face, making me feel slightly better because of the temporary cool touch that it gave me.

The heat that burnt at my flesh was suddenly gone, but the pain that came with it wasn't. All I could feel was stabs of pain coursing through my body but the heat no longer being there made the pain a little bit more bearable. Seconds later the boat came up to the surface and everyone, including myself, began to take in a breath of fresh air. We could all breath again and there was no more heat that surrounded me. In fact, as the boat moved on I could feel a slight cool breeze brush past my arm, soothing the burning ever so slightly.

I had managed to make it out of the Lake of Fire without dying but some people weren't so lucky which made me feel all the more thankful and gave me a bit of strength to push the pain that I was still in into the back of my mind so that I could make myself feel a bit numb to the pain that I would now more than likely feel for the rest of the boat ride but I was alive and ready to find Ra which is the only thing that mattered to me.