Our hero hung in the Dark abyss, having an argument with it. It told him to abandon all hope, and he told it to quit quoting Dante. He preferred Milton. In Milton’s poem even the fallen angels had hope, and he identified with them, having been kicked out of the Goddess’s queendom and cast down into hell.
If he was going to be forced by the devil’s right hand to kill, entertain, and grant souls all the ’riches that grow in hell’, the abyss could damn sure bet on the fact that he was going to go down swinging.
And the abyss laughed and reminded him he already had. And the chains he was suspended from swayed ever so gently in a non-existent breeze.
A door opened and dim firelight illuminated the shadows of the two demons and their rolling tray coming towards him.
His heart began to pound the adrenaline he’d need into his veins. Everything tensed. His breath grew rapid, and his body struggled instinctually for the freedom his mind knew was impossible.
And the Darkness laughed at this and said I knew this would happen. I told you this would happen. You’ve already lost all hope.
“Shut up,” he told the Darkness, but his voice broke.
Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’ll be right here with you.
“How we feeling today, kid?” The gruff demon asked.
Our hero looked away. His pain, and shame, and misery reached unfathomable depths.
“Not so hot, huh?”
Our hero tried to swallow the overwhelming desolation bubbling up and festering in his being.
“You want us to stay or go?”
He choked on the word, the tormenting word. He’d rather be tortured than left alone. “S-Stay.” And it broke him.
The demon grabbed his face and pulled it center.
“Look at me,” the demon said without hostility. His voice was void of emotion. The demon said, “Not looking at me won’t do you a lick. You look at me. You memorize my face. You see it?”
Our hero nodded, despite the feeling of drowning in his own tears. They were sliding down his throat and burning at his lungs.
“You see past it, though, right? What’s behind it?”
He swallowed and tried to steady the wracking in his chest. Our hero looked into his demon’s all-black eyes. He looked through them and past them, and what he saw was the Darkness, the abyss. He saw, “Nothing.”
“Right. Not a goddamn thing. Now, what’s that tell you?”
The hunched demon with the cart giggled, “Nothing. Everything is nothing! Hee-hee ho-ha ha!”
The gruff demon grabbed bolt cutters from off the tray, and again, the suspended body began to struggle and hyperventilate. Our hero closed his eyes, and gritted his teeth, and he desired stronger, harder, than he ever had. He wanted it, wished it, longed for, so fucking much, to be somewhere else. Someone else. Dead. Never born. Gone. Empty.
The demon’s monotone was almost comforting. “Hey. Look at me.”
He did as he was commanded out of habit.
“It tells you you’re not me.” He paused for a long while, never breaking eye contact. “You will never be me.”
Our hero didn’t know what that meant, but his chest calmed, and his rationale began to prepare him for what was about to happen to his body.
“Okay.” The demon brought the bolt cutters to his withering rib cage, about to start his work, but he stopped and added, “You might become him, though…”
Our hero looked at the crooked, cackling demon in the corner, and his face twitched.
“Food for thought,” the demon said and began his work.
The demons left him with his chest cavity wide open. Blood still dripped off his toes and added to the lake of red beneath him. His body twitched as each gurgling shallow breath electrified every severed nerve. The chains creaked as he swayed back and forth in the still of the dark. His mind slipped in and out of consciousness and nightmares.
“That’s rough, mate,” said the blond man smoking a cigarette, standing before him.
The blond man bent his neck backwards to look up into our hero’s face. “I mean… I thought my nightmares played rough. At least my nightmares are fun.”
One eye was green, the other was blue.
His cigarette illuminated as he took in a drag, his fingers adorned with tarnished silver rings and his dirty nails covered in chipped, black nail polish.
He took a few heavy steps back. He wore bulky, buckled combat boots and a long black trench coat.
“Huh…” His mismatched eyes drifted all the way up the chain. “No wonder you’re fucking miserable. This place is fucking boring! I mean there’s no way to puzzle yourself out. It’d be more fun if there was a way out. You know, that’s the hero’s story, innit? Against all the fucking odds the hero makes it out alive. You can’t die anyway. Not sure if you knew that, but you can’t. Like… ever.”
The blond man waited for a response from our hero, and receiving nothing, he shrugged and continued, wandering aimlessly around as he did.
“See! That’s why they should add me to the payroll here. Spruce the joint up a bit.” He snarled down his nose at the Darkness, “Sure it’s a classic, torture-torture, but that’s fucking boring! I mean… at least give them a chance to try to make their escape, and then, when they’ve almost made it- WHAM! Right back in their cell. I’m telling you,” he mumbled with the cigarette between his lips, and he blew out a stream of smoke, “that will fuck a person up, that would. I’d take it up to the max- be better than this repetitive shit. Oi, what are you going to do? Cut up me innard-bits? And do the same tomorrow? And, let me guess, the same fucking thing the third day! Psht!”
He flicked his cigarette to the ground, and our hero wanted to laugh, but couldn’t manage it.
“I’m telling you, mate. This place is third-rate.” He sank his hands into the pockets of his leather trench coat. “You could do better. I could show you real torture, I could. Because I know your insides better than they do. The real insides. The fucking brain is where this shit’s at. These people spend too much time making new fears, rather than playing on the ones you already have. They’re missing out on making some serious fucking art out of your brain chemistry.” He pointed at the hero, and then dipped back into his pockets to produce another cigarette. With a click, a flame emerged from his index finger and he lit up. Then, he waved out the flame like a match.
“You’re not listening to the Darkness are you? Because he, she, it is a fucking putz. Still owes me money.” He stepped up to our hero and said, “Look, I’d love to help you out, mate, I would, but I’m sort of not allowed back down here after last time. So- Hello? Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me.” Hypnos craned his neck to look into his face. His mismatched eyes were sympathetic, but he grimaced at the state of the hanged man, who could only manage to give him a glance and an uncomfortable wheeze.
Nervous, he wiggled his fingers and rattled his rings together. “Alright, so, here’s what I can do. I’m going to help you sleep, and that’s it! I mean it. I can’t do anything else for you- Alright, fine. Jeez! Didn’t have to break my arm over it. I’ll see what I can do. No promises. If this shit goes sideways, I’m out! Get it? … Alright. I’ve got your back. That’s what best mates are for, and you’re my best mate. Not sure if you knew that, but you are. Just wait. You’ll see.”
And our hero drifted off to sleep without dreams or nightmares, just blissful nothing. When he opened his eyes he saw nothing, just Darkness. So dark, that if his hand had been in front of his face, as they say, he wouldn’t have been able to see it. The only time he could see anything was when the door was open, which meant the conversation he’d had with the blond man was merely a dream. It hadn’t been real.
His heart sank, and he discovered his ribcage and flesh were back in their proper spots thanks to the regenerational magick put upon him.
He decided not to bring up the dream to the Darkness in case the dream had been real and was a secret. The man in the long black coat, whoever he was, wasn’t allowed back down here after what had happened the last time. So, he would keep his mouth shut and not say a word about the punk rock phantasm who had his back. Because, that’s what best mates were for.
