Raising Hell - Prologue

         Imagine yourself bound with barbed wire to a bed of rusted nails and spikes. Imagine all around you tongues of fire, licking at walls of stone and searing your flesh. The only sounds you hear are agonized screams, demonic laughter, and the constant crackling of flames. The foul stench of sulphur and charred flesh is strong and hangs thickly in the air. You cry for help but no one comes.

         Then suddenly above you appears the most fearsome creature you’ve ever seen. It towers over you, eyes cold and hard, expression blank and merciless. In one hand the creature holds an object that resembles a hammer, but the head is a sharp iron spike, rather than round and blunt. It is here that you realize where you are and what your fate will be.

         Your pleas for mercy go unheard as the demon pounds you hard with its torture device, creating large, gaping holes in your face and body. The pain is intense; your body now mangled and mutilated. You pray for sweet death to take you away but your prayers go unanswered. Your screams rise into the air and are lost among thousands of others.

         Now imagine yourself enclosed in darkness with scarcely enough room to move your fingers. You are completely alone; you cannot see or hear anything. The only thing you feel is the pain, constant and all throughout your body. You are left like this for hundreds of years with nothing but your pain and your growing insanity. And you do not die.

         And this is only the beginning. The possibilities for suffering are endless. You could wake up one day back in your own bed to think that everything was just a horrible nightmare, only to watch everyone whom you love and care for perish before your very eyes. Your sorrows are multiplied because you are the cause of every death. And when the last loved one dies you find yourself right back where you started and the torture begins again.

         There is no escape from this place. Both your body and your soul now belong to Lucifer, lord of all that is evil. Once Lucifer owns you, you are lost forever. Here you will be punished for every sin you committed on earth, for earth and every person in it are nothing more than a test. If you end up here you have failed. This place, a place of suffering and torture, pain and misery, agony and sorrow, is hell.