Chapter 2 – Meeting with the Lord

There is only one death that holds any meaning. It's the first one. Why? - Because this one fills you with nothing but regret. It doesn't sever any ties, it only splits your heart apart, knowing that you won't ever have a chance to meet your loved ones again.

After I have learned to more or less take the torture head on I was able to multi-task. The only true suffering that matters comes from within, after all. Physical pain pales in comparison to that. I've wasted seven months being preoccupied with myself.

Sure, getting shredded to pieces is a good excuse. But it it was still just an excuse. The wounds that matter were completely...

Crushhh!!!

...ignored by me for such a long time. I was oblivious to them because they only manifest themselves through the passage of time. In an environment with omnipresent death and destruction my eyes were opened for the true tragedies in life. Growing estranged from family...

Scrisshhhh!!

...members, never reconciling; hurting others without much thought. Those are every-day occurrences; pretty common stories. Everyone comes across those experiences sooner or later. I grew accustomed to those things and accepted them as the natural flow of things, never realizing...

Splatt!!

….that my existence as a human being was decided right there. So I have...

Pfrghhhh!!

...i have...

Khriiiiiieeeegh!!!

...i have decided...Frggigigg

“DAMMIT. YOU ARE ONE ENTHUSIASTIC BASTA” - .....cccccrrrrriinnch!!!

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Learning how to pick up from where you stopped last time is a necessary skill in hell. You need to stay focused and don't mind the small stuff. Even if it's a two metre long broadsword like the one that's about to behea-

Swushhh!!

Wow. That was a flawless swing. He went straight for the kill without any unnecessary movements. I think that demon will be graduating soon from here. That happens at quite a regular interval. New ones coming, old ones going.

There isn't really any contact between them and me. Sometimes they'd say something, but I don't understand their language. I knew that they were trying to tell me something and weren't just producing random sounds.

Often enough a whole group of demons would appear in front of me. Although they have different physiques they obviously belong together and communicate with each other in some kind of devil language. It wasn't Latin, though.

Their behaviour was not what I expected. They would casually chat with each other while only paying the minimum amount of attention needed to randomly slice at me. Suffice to say they seemed like they had better things to do than killing me most of the time. It appeared as if they had a real culture.

There was one group that stayed for a particularly long time at my place, enjoying picknicks or a barbecue with refreshing beverages. Naturally, I thought that was also some kind of psychological torture. After arriving at Hell I hadn't had one meal.

At first, I thought Souls wouldn't have the need for food, but this existence proved to be a close replication of my physical one.

My own appearance transformed into a malnourished skeleton-like shadow of my former self. It went as far as that I even started to lack the necessary weight for the chain to strangulate me when I would lose my legs. They couldn't possibly provide a solid footing for me anymore. That task was already forwarded to the chain wrapped around them a long time before I could really think about it.

At one point in time I even asked myself how I could still regain consciousness, seeing the state I was in. Wouldn't I have to immediately die because of lack of nutrients? But it wouldn't be logical for Hell to have such a convenient way out.

Longing for some interaction I still wanted to communicate with them. Not the usual pleas for peace; I was already long past that stage. Neither did I actually want it anymore, because I arranged myself with the pain. It was the necessary mirror to face my own self.

So I observed them.

The first expression I was definitely sure of was 'Nice one!'. They'd often comment on each other when the killing was done in a beautiful and swift manner or when the first hit would make the victim lose consciousness. From there I gradually started to grasp the meaning of other generic terms like 'food, water, shit, boring and so on'.

The first time I really had an exchange with one of them was when I witnessed a demon asking another one for a smoke. I catched on to that phrase and asked with a wry smile for the same thing. Regretfully, they didn't lose an ounce of countenance at my question. Both of them looked at each other and a ugly smirk appeared on their faces. They lit a cigar and I was already full of anticipation to experience my first contact with a more ambivalent nature.

I wasn't foolish enough to misinterpret the meaning of the gesture of giving a smoke to the guy you are about to kill. But still... The demon's way wasn't as shameful as the human one where you pretend to be on a somewhat equal footing by giving out a cigarette and then shooting the prisoner. Nope. They didn't let the slightest chance of doubt emerge between us on who held the reigns. One of them pulled out a Stiletto and stabbed my lung creating a large enough hole to put the cigar in.

Amused by their own achievement of ingenuity they called the rest of their group and showed off in front of some female demons. That kind of behaviour didn't need much of a translation and seems to be pretty self-evident in every culture. They proceeded to mock me for a while.

What made that encounter strange was the appearance of a higher ranking demon, one of those who usually didn't bother with the tiresome task of torturing souls. He said two short sentences whose meaning I couldn't get, which had a visible fear-inducing effect on the group. Then he finished me off before I could even notice what had happened. I never saw that group again.

As humiliating as that whole attempt at connecting was, I was still able to learn something from it. Personal contact with us was not welcomed and the adherence to that rule was quite rigorously enforced.

Thinking back I realized that the demons who were talking to me before, didn't stay long.

-------

While I wasn't able to hold a conversation with one of the torturers there wasn't much of a success in getting to know my fellow neighbours, either. The guy on my right wasn't able to focus on anything else than himself. From time to time he'd open his eyes but they would only fixate on the demon in whose care he currently had the misfortune to be.

Talking to him had no real effect and I couldn't get his attention no matter what I did. The language of his stammering was unknown to me and had an exotic ring to it. His physical features weren't all that different from mine. He was all skin and bones.

From watching him I was sure that he was at a place where I too, once was. Seeing his conduct I could guess what I must have looked like before.

The inspection of the person on the left hand side had also proven to be futile. Someone with female features in a similar state like 'righty' (tentative name).

The distance between each soul was around three to four metres. From my place I was able to see the next three people on the right side and only two on the left side before boulders would obstruct my view and none of them showed any signs of recovery.

I was alone. For the longest part of my life I wanted to be left alone and here I was, trying to stretch out to others without any hope of reaching them as long as they themselves didn't try the same thing. There was no irony in that, though. My behaviour in my former life was baseless, whereas the people here where truly victims.

At this time the only thing that was left within my power was to pray. Not the vulgar kind of prayer, that stated some terms or concessions towards a deity. Here I understood why people truly pray. I did neither believe in the chance that my prayers would be answered, nor did I expect any miraculous effects from them. Fully realizing my own helplessness and the futility of my action I was still praying.

I prayed for my mother and the rest of my family and for the pained souls next to me. In the state of complete helplessness it was the ultimate confession of my own inability. Yet, I still needed to voice my own protest against the situation they were in no matter how useless or unreasonable it seemed. I'd rather leave reasonability behind, if it meant that the reasonable thing to do was to stay apathetic to their suffering.

-------

For the next year the only thing I did was listen to the demons' chatter and then retorting with a prayer of my own whenever the agony of the other souls seemed to peak. By then I could understand around 50% of their babbling.

From that I learned how to measure the flow of time down here. The stream of lava, which I had already experienced would come in constant intervals. Every three months there would be around 3 days were the lava-stream would flood my section of the chain. This wasn't really their way of measuring time but in a world that has become as small as mine such a natural phenomenon was enough of a major event to justify my creating a calendar around that. From the sediments I was able to roughly estimate the time I first arrived here.

From grasping a sense of time I understood that they were operating on some kind of schedule. The demons weren't allowed to stay indefinitely here and had to move on after a while. This was some kind of holy ground for them where the coming and going was strictly regulated and they had to pay a large tribute to be granted permission to enter this section. Their main reason for coming here was, of course, the torture. The act of killing a soul over and over again held a significant importance that resembled a religious background at times. On the other hand side, it was all performed in a very unceremonious and crude way that lacked any form of organized protocol. If there were any religious gestures performed I was unable to discern them. Their sole motivation seemed to be focused around the number of kills they could accumulate in the limited amount of time they were given.

The highest record I was able to witness was achieved by one certain demon who went on a rampage in my section for around 2 days for a whopping 31789 kills. I knew the exact number because they were quite obsessed and held meticulous count.

The day he came was special. Normally there was not one moment without someone practising their skills on us. Instead of rejoicing in this moment of peace I grew suspicious. Even before he appeared there was a foreboding of the coming terror present in the air.

He was a truly horrific existence. Long red hair, black skin with the face of a beast and four arms, and three and a half metres in height. It was the first time I saw a high noble of the demon race. I heard the others talking about them in a tone of admiration and fear.

Now I understand why. Every step he took was oozing with the intent to kill; an aura that emanated the definite promise of death. A promise I thought I had grown immune against.

He came with one female attendant carrying a 2,5m long double-bladed axe.

“Nertiri, my weapon.”

“Yes, Mylord.”

The way he handled his weapon was on a different level compared to others. It wasn't so much as the complete lack of useless moves (which other demons would show at times) but the will behind each swing. He took some practise swings while swiftly interchanging the grip between his four arms.

These swings instilled a natural terror in everyone witnessing them. It seemed as if they weren't meant to inflict wounds on flesh but were rather aimed at the very core of one's existence.

The souls around me started to scream in agony, which he didn't pay any mind.

“I will begin. Do not let anyone disturb me.” There was no compassion in that voice.

“As you command.”

He started from my left and proceeded in a swift manner. I wavered at the thought that I had to watch this through the end and was tempted to close my eyes and imagining the serene forest again. His movements were so fast that I needed to go through 50 deaths or more, just to end that thought.

Even though I learned to stay conscious until death despite being cut in half or losing my limbs during these past one and a half years, in the face of this demon all resistance seemed futile. There was no pain. My mind went blank again. That showed me just how much of a gap there was between his strokes and the ones I experienced until now.

The true horror of his swings came in the form of an after-effect that wouldn't go away even after reappearing.

After a while he stopped to inspect his weapon with a pleased look.

“I have to give Arandis my regards. Truly, a magnificent weapon.”

“Yes, even the minds of the tormented ones are obliterated upon contact. In these realms they witnessed the greatest pains and should have developed a surprisingly high tolerance against it for such lowly creatures.”, commented his attendant.

[So we are just guinea pigs for him?] My neighbours screamed out an aria of agony. [Have their minds finally caught up with their damage?] My own screams were a prayer for them and I shouted out:

“STOP IT! THEY CAN'T ENDURE!!”

“You lower lifeform, know your place! You are in the presence of Lord Bagrat Ver 'do San, do not address him directly!”, shouted Nertiri in hatred. She quickly pulled out a long slender sword and cut off my head.

Just as she was about to repeat her action a second time Ver 'do San stopped her.

“Mylord?”

I wasn't granted the grace of an answer. He simply lifted his axe and struck me down. Over and over again. Whenever I would regain consciousness I would get a moment to relive the previous strike, and then he would cut me down again. There was curiosity in his eyes. He wanted to clearly test something.

Screaming at the top of my lungs I would force myself to watch the movements of the sharp edge.

[I will not yield! Watch it! I need to stay awake! There is no running away from this. There is no running from this. THERE IS NO RUNNING.]

I was closely observing the axe. Silently, Ver 'do San would always follow the same path cutting me in half, only adjusting the arc of the swing in a small way to prevent overlapping with a prior strike. The pain of preceding cuts would long manifest itself even after reviving.

There was a change after a while, though minuscule, it still came. Compared to the long process of adjustment in the beginning of my time here, it happened at a lightning speed. After two days I was able to endure his murdering me until the blade would reach my spine.

The curiosity in his eyes was already gone and replaced by a look of annoyance and disappointment.

Then.

“Nertiri, how many strikes does this make?”

“31789, Lord Bagrat.”

“It is not what I expected. Surely, the edge didn't dull only after this number of strikes?”

“Should I set up a letter of protest for Lord Ber 'Vo?”

“Yes. Send Arandis this axe back and convey to him my wish for a better weapon.”

“I will arrange it immediately.”

“Keep the tone civilized, though.”

“Yes, Mylord.”

She bowed and they left.

-------

Addressing his new attendant, Ver 'do San said:

“Nertiri, he is showing signs of resistance. Arrange for only the weakest to train on him and then send a guard every three days to destroy him. This cycle should be enough to prevent his mind from growing too accustomed to the pain.”

“Mylord Bagrat, may I inquire why you are concerning yourself with this fairy? Will that really be necessary? He is just a lower lifeform.” She was using a condescending way to address the tortured ones.

For humans a fairy would be a weak little object posing no harm whatsoever. Such a mocking analogy was only appropriate when it came to demons.

He decided to not directly reprimand her for that slip of tongue, for it was below him. An elite attendant should know by herself, when a mistake was done. Some of his anger was still conveyed through his choice of words and cold tone.

“Do not question me, Nertiri.”

Ashamed by her slip of tongue – 'fairy' was only used by children and low-level demons – Nertiri bowed. She had just been promoted to the position of a personal aide to one of the most influential demons in this realm.

“My deepest apologies Lord Bagrat. I will do as you command.”

“I won't mind it this time. I picked you up for your competence. But you need to adjust more quickly to your new position, now that you are one of my representatives.”

“I will not betray your trust in me.”

“I am sure you won't.”

End Chapter 2