Our hero slipped in the water, pooling on the floor from the sprinklers. The rejuvenation from the demon’s life force had gotten him surprisingly far, but he was losing steam. He dipped into a doorway to catch his breath, wracking his brain for a spell, or some kind of magick, he could use to get the hell out of here.

He could hear dogs baying down the hall over the sound of the sirens. He popped his head around the doorway, and saw something sniffing its way through the water. It looked like a giant charred jackal with flaming eyes, rather than a dog. It had no jowls to cover the sight of its gruesome black teeth. Another of these creatures appeared around the corner, and our hero pulled his head back into hiding.

The fire in his chest had dimmed, and he couldn’t seem to summon anything to magick himself out. He had to run. He had to find a way out, but he had no idea where to go or what he was looking for, let alone if he would recognize it when he saw it. Surely there wouldn’t be an Exit sign… but then again, he hadn’t expected this concrete maze of a prison either.

The hellhounds were getting closer. He needed a way out, and he had to face the beasts. He knew he couldn’t outrun them. He needed the fire back, and he only knew one way to summon it.

He stepped out from his hiding spot.

The hellhounds perked up and latched onto him with their hellfire eyes.

Their muscles flexed, and they bolted at him. Black, talon-like claws scratched against the tile floor, their serpentine tongues salivating.

Fear rose up in his chest. The fear quickened into rage, and the fire inside of him returned. The first hellhound lunged, and he sent it flying back at a glance. The second hellhound grabbed hold of his bony leg. He tried kicking it to shake it off, but was unsuccessful, and the first hound had regained its footing and resumed its attack.

Together, the two hellhounds were ripping and prying at more than just his scarred and tattooed flesh. They were eating his soul.

He summoned enough magick to throw them off one at a time, but they just kept coming back. The trio was stuck in a relentless cycle, but the hellhounds were prepared for this dance, and the Jinni, though now free to use his own magick, was still learning how it even worked. His magick was sputtering like a drowning candle flame in a puddle of wax. It kept coming and going with his concentration and emotions.

The dogs of hell were quickly wearing him down. They were on top of him, tearing him apart bit by bit, prying away flesh, and bone, and something invisible. He could feel his soul detaching and pulling away from him inside out.

And when they ripped greater parts of it from his body, they shook their heads, like shaking a rag doll caught in a monstrous tug of war between two vile toddlers.

A whistle sounded, sharp and piercing, and both hounds retreated to the three demons with cattle prods at the head of the hall. The hounds obediently stationed themselves at the demon’s sides as they approached our hero’s bloody mess.

“Unholy shit! Get up!” one exclaimed. The demon approached with his prod extended, making contact with our hero’s side. “I said get up.”

Our hero put up his hands in surrender and made to get up. The demon took a small step back, foolishly letting down his guard just enough.

Our hero snatched the demon’s wrist and twisted, wrenching the prod from his hand. In the same swift movement, he connected the prod with the demon’s ribs, electrocuting him with a magickal current. The demon fell, and the hellhounds resumed their attack.

The heat and anger welled back up in the Jinni. With a glance, he threw one hellhound into a wall hard enough this time to knock it unconscious. The second demon tried to stick him, but found her arm bent backwards, and her own prod connected with her neck. The second hellhound went after our hero’s bloody leg, and ended up with a mouthful of magickally boosted electro-shock.

The third demon, who had been frozen with uncertainty, now stood very still to embrace what he knew was coming. Our hero casually touched the end of the prod to his chest.

The demon vibrated for a short moment before collapsing.

Our hero stood there breathing, waiting for the ringing in his ears to clear, and for the sound of sirens to return.

He looked at his new weapon and smiled. The emblem on the stick read Grim Enterprises, and he chuckled. On the other side it read 32” Soul Shock. He liked the weight and balance of it in his hands. It felt like a saber.

The baying of hellhounds rose over the sound of the sirens. It was a blood curdling and unholy sound. With the Soul Shock still in hand, he began to hobble down the maze of white hallways lined with doors. The whole place was made even more labyrinthian between the flashing red warning lights and the wispy threads of intuition guiding him.

He left a trail of blood behind him as he walked, having tried and failed to heal the hellhound bites with his magick.

His right shoulder was gnarled and chewed along with several other spots around his ribs and arms, but his left calf was shredded. He was already skin and bone, but now there was hardly any skin remaining on his lower leg.

Either their bites had a magick of their own that went beyond his capabilities, or he was doing something wrong. No matter what he tried, the wounds wouldn’t heal, wouldn’t reconnect. With little time to waste, he ignored the searing pain and kept moving through the paths of Tartarus.

He had to find a way out.

There had to be a way out.

You have to go in to get out.

But like any labyrinth, he had no idea if he was getting closer to the center or further away.

The white halls transitioned abruptly to stone, and he stopped at its edge.

He knew where he was standing was hell. He knew it wasn’t safe, but the primordial road before him was unknown. The straight-edge conformity changed to the jagged rocky terrain, and he gathered himself. This was the way out, which had seemed impossible to find. Now he could see it clearly. There had always been only one way out, and this was it.

No way in hell was he going back.

He rested the Soul Shock against the white wall, and stepped over the threshold, moving onto sharp, black rock with bare feet. Eventually, the flashing red lights faded, and he was in Darkness. He felt safer in the Darkness. He felt concealed, but not for long.

There you are! We’ve been looking for you. Just come back to what you know. I know you missed me, Erubus, the darkness, purred.

He ignored it.

And you know you won’t make it out of here, don’t you? What are you even trying to escape to? There’s nothing and no one out there for you, even if you do make it, which you won’t...

He wiped away the tear that fell as his anger began to rise.

Oh, baby, your feet won’t carry you. You’re weak. It’s okay. You just don’t have the strength to pull this off. You’re going to break. Spare yourself the pain. Listen… I’m only trying to help here.

“Go away,” he growled as he climbed over boulders and stone.

Nope. Can’t. I exist everywhere the light cannot touch… which means I am inside of you. In your heart. In your mind. Can’t you see? There is no escape.

He felt the fire rising up inside of him.

“Maybe not, but I’m damn sure going to try.”

It will only end in heartache.

“Pain is temporary.”

Erebus laughed. So is happiness, and unlike happiness, I will never leave you, old friend.

The rocky tunnel opened to an all encompassing expanse that reached in all directions. The black void washed over him and left him as hollow as the endless cavern around him..

The tunnel had been dark, but this pit was darker. It was filled with the permeating stillness of Silence.

It is the Silence which follows absolute trauma. It is the Silence which follows the pivotal moment when your life changes forever. It is the Silence that becomes you right after your soul dies.

Unlike the illusion that was his prison, this was boundless, eternal, and filled with empty nothingness.

His toes found the edge of the world, and pebbles fell over the ledge and never landed.

Our hero could feel his oldest friend roll its eyes. The Darkness groaned.

And the chasm yawned.

Our hero asked the Darkness, “What is this?”

It scoffed. The Silence, and despite his name he’s a real chatter box.

“The Silence?”

You know that space between life and death?

“Not personally.”

Well, now you can say… you’ve met him personally. Come on. Nothing to see here. I told you there was no way, and now you see, I was right. The cake was a lie. This was all a fool’s errand. A dead end.

Our hero nodded in complete understanding. “Good.”

He felt the Darkness squint.

“Then I’m out of options. There’s only one left.”

Our hero felt the ledge underneath his toes, and he swan-dived into the chasm.

***

Our hero was floating in nothing. He felt snakes slithering and constricting all over him. His brain sent signals telling his body to move, but there was no response.

He was floating in nothing.

Well, hey there. There he is. How you doing? A smooth male voice permeated his mind. The disembodied voice was everywhere. It was inside his head, echoing.

Our hero told his mouth, his throat, and tongue to respond- but nothing.

What’s your name?

Our hero pondered how to respond, while trying to move and beginning to panic. The constricting snakes rolled across him as he levitated. He couldn’t see. There was nothing to see.

I see, said the Silence. You don’t have a name. That’s fine. I have no use for names. Everyone’s just passing through. But you. You jumped. Why is that?

I had to, our hero thought.

He tried again, in vain, to move, but his body wouldn’t listen. The feeling was similar to when a wish forced him to move and act in ways he would never, but that had been his body betraying him. This was like not having a body at all. That was why he couldn’t see or move. His consciousness was lost in the Silence.

You had to, the Silence pondered. But where were you trying to go?

I didn’t plan that far ahead.

The Silence laughed. Well, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road can take you there.

Any road is good with me if it gets me out of here, our hero quipped, the smooth scales rolling across him.

Okay. Fine, hot shot, the Silence was amused, I can point you in that direction, but you’ll be going the wrong way.

The wrong way?

The wrong way, the Silence teased.

There is no other way. Our hero thought.

When you come home- do you want to come home the wrong way, or do you want to come home right?

I have no home.

The Silence said, Home is going to be wherever you land, and that’s what I’m saying. You don’t want home to be at the end of some road some stranger sent you down. You want it to be down the road you chose. So choose. Where are you going?

I… Our hero struggled over this thought. He had trouble enough admitting to himself what he wanted, and he knew better than to speak his heart’s desire aloud. But, then he realized, he didn’t have to speak it aloud for the Silence to hear. They hadn’t been speaking with words, but thoughts. Even without having said it, he knew the Silence knew it. His silence had been louder than any words he could have uttered.

The Silence clicked his tongue, despite not having one, and the sound slithered around our hero. That’s a long, hard road you just picked, but there you have it. Enjoy the thorns.

He felt every snake tail slip away one by one, and as if he were suspended by fraying ropes, he began to drop. First an elbow, then an ankle. Then, completely untethered, he tumbled through the Silence, and woke just before he crashed into a pile of bones.

***

The world was as gray and as flat as Kansas, but instead of yellow corn or green cities, or red poppies, bones grew up from the ground. The corn cobs were made of teeth instead of kernels. The trees and bushes were literally skeletal, rather than figuratively. The ground was littered with broken shards of mirror.

He saw a dirt road. He grumbled and cursed under his breath as he carried his raw, shredded, useless feet, stuck and sliced by the mirror fragments, for miles and miles.

He wanted to lay down to sleep, and if he died before he woke... The thought was nice at first, but then the fear of waking up back in Tartarus kept him going. He couldn’t collapse. He couldn’t sleep. He had to keep going, so the past couldn’t catch up to him.

He walked onward until the bones and glass disappeared, until the bleak sky faded to purple, and there was nothing but cracked red dirt spreading across the flat landscape.

Our hero could see, small in the distance, what appeared to be a tree. It was the only landmark throughout the entire plane, and he made it his goal to reach it. If it was the only thing visible in this god forsaken desert, it had been put there for a reason.

The tree grew bigger and bigger against the horizon as he trudged forward. He fell many times, and each time he thought he wouldn’t manage to stand again. But again and again, on shaking limbs, he brought himself back up to his feet. There wasn’t another option.

He was still nowhere near its trunk yet, but the tree was larger than life. It was life. Its branches reached to heaven and its roots ran down to hell.

The tree was just as warped, knotted, and scarred as our hero’s twisted body. It was like looking at his reflection for the first time, but with his new eyes.

Tears began to stream down his face when he was finally close enough to reach out his stained fingers to touch her deeply-grooved bark. He put his palm flat against the trunk, and he closed his eyes.

The Tree sang. She sang and she cried, and loved, and breathed. She was free in her own form. The Tree of Life, The World Tree, had a million worlds existing inside every ring. She looked so still, but she was vibrating with the singing-bowl harmony of infinite multiverses dying and being born.

He pulled his hand away too soon, but not soon enough. Beauty and bliss was not something he could see in himself.

He looked down in shame, but saw a large hollow at the base of her trunk. It was black and oozing, and smelled of something foul. A wet bubbling came from the hollow as the wood writhed with larvae. Our hero laughed a cynical laugh and shook his head.

After seeing the blackness eating away at the very foundation of life, he felt better. Nothing in this universe is sacred. Existence at its foundation is flawed.

He crouched down and peered into the black hole. It was more than big enough for him to crawl through, and he knew there would be plenty of room for him inside the rot. He slipped into the hollow and sat for a moment in the tree’s womb, and he felt her hum vibrating through him. He vaguely came to understand- the rot wasn’t poison.

All that is born must die, even existence itself. The rot was death and time. It was inevitable. It was ineffably part of the Great Tree’s tenebrous beauty.

Now he was ready. It was time to forget.

He crawled on hands and knees through the tunnel of black, moldering decay until there was nowhere else to go. He dug his way through the soggy wound until his hand breached into humid damp air. He pulled and squirmed his body out of the earth until he was free. He emerged from the hollow at the base of a different tree. A mangrove tree in a shadowy swamp.

He collapsed in the moss. Bugs and gnats were already swarming around his eyes and ears. He didn’t bother to fight them off. He was exhausted, sore, and free. He sighed a breath of relief.