Divine Descent

Chapter Eighteen

The Apocalypse.

The End of Times.

It's been told with hundreds of outcomes. Some come from text, and some imaginings have come straight from the mind. One of the most popular is the ten plagues, locusts and all. Another is the usual natural disasters, earthquakes and tsunamis covering the world, leaving anything but livable. The buildings and homes are flooded and broken apart to nothing.

Hell isn't like that.

In fact, it more resembles what the world would look like if it were raided by zombies or suffered from a significant blast of radiation. It's wholly livable, but anything but nice to look at. Shrouded in darkness, exiting the tunnel, my eyes take in the underworld with disbelief.

Disbelief by how endless it truly is, and how much it resembles earth.

There are no prison cells, no chains for enslavement like I'd pictured.

If anything, from the horror I was expecting, it's rather tame from this angle. There are thousands of buildings as far as I can see. Samael leads me down onto the ground level where narrow winding walkways are the only route to get around. The imprisoned souls look like humans do. I'm being proven wrong at every turn.

The crowd's part as we walk through. They bend at Samael's presence almost dutifully, but their eyes remain on mine. All of them. The chatter in the small area we're moving through drops to a hush as they take me in. I'm as diligent in my observations as they are.

"How far does this go on?" I ask, distracted by the sight of a man on the ground, laid out as if he were in a grave. A few more like that catch my eye.

"It's all rather endless. Millions of souls dwell here."

To my shock, he greets several people, kindly. They almost seem like friends. Some back up when he moves by them, eying him nervously, while others go out of their way to touch him, speak to him.

Those people know he is their ticket out of here.

I see concrete walls and brick ground, illuminated by blue. All the flaming light has a blue tint, as if masked by a rippling ocean. Because of that, the faces blend together into a wave of insistence.

Samael, sensing how uneasy I've become by the watchful stares, guides me deeper into the pit with a hand pressed to my back. After I see a few more on the ground or asleep on a chair, I frown, feeling the need to inquire.

"What's with the scattered bodies?"

Samael points his chin at a woman perched against a wall. "She'll be trapped in her mind for a few more hours, enough to leave an impact."

It clicks then. "Wait. Is she what I heard coming in?"

"One of them, yes. There are thousands simultaneously every hour. When they are particularly stubborn, we induce them more frequently. This is such a woman."

I bend down beside her, marveling at how there is no affect on her features and yet, as soon as touch her cold flesh, agony and fear drifts into me.

I have no need to search her for answers.

Her hate is overwhelming.

"You see? Hell isn't just full of evil. Anyone who isn't at peace, whose soul remains in turmoil at the time of death usually passes through here at some point. In her case, she neglected her children, and eventually abandoned them. I'm forcing her to relive her actions, see herself through their eyes. In her case, she is her own worst fear."

I watch the woman seriously, almost expecting her to come out of her trance-like state. Agitation moves through me faster than I'd like it to. Samael comes up behind me.