Down into Darkness (Part I)

I was drifting down an Astral street when it happened. Out of nowhere, a wind sprang up, pushing me backwards, and growing stronger by the second.
I had experienced Astral Wind before, but not often, and knew that the wind would get ever-stronger until I was swept to wherever it wanted me to go. But I always like to experiment, and besides, I don't like being shoved around. So I conjured up a rope connected to a nearby lamp post, and hung on tightly to it.
Moments later, I was looking down at the lamp post, as the wind had lifted me up into the air. Determinedly, I pulled myself down the rope, forcing myself against the wind. Then, as the wind became almost unbearably strong, I flew to one side, into a gap between buildings, out of the wind's path.
Or at least, it should have been. Instead, the wind continued unabated. Unable to resist any longer, I released the rope, and let the wind carry me away.
I was swept upwards, and the ground receded beneath me. Then the wind changed direction, and I was dropping downwards at an incredible rate, until finally, the wind faded away, and I was standing in a dark, shadowy void. Suddenly, a man appeared before, me, pain written over his face, and yelled in anguish "Help me!". Then, black tendrils wrapped around him, and he was pulled back into the darkness.
With a shock, I realised I had recognised him - I hadn't seen him in a few years, but this was an old friend of mine.
I wondered what to do. Try to find him again, I supposed. The wind had obviously shown him to me for a reason. Unfortunately, I hadn't had the time, or presence of mind, to check his aura, which meant I couldn't just will myself straight to him - I had to find him first.
I flicked myself out of the void, and into the Between. As ever, the colourful globes that represented other Planes floated all around me.
I concentrated, and energy flowed out of my fingertips, creating a large, bright white energy globe. A few moments more, and his face appeared in the globe.
"That's him," I said to it. "Now find him."
Beams of light, hundreds of them, burst out of the globe, penetrating every Between sphere in an attempt to locate my troubled friend.
It took quite some time, but eventually, the beams stopped searching. They hadn't found him.
Oh well, I thought, so much for the simple route. Have to try and give it a better search guide.
I thought back to when I'd known him, trying to recall everything about him I could. Then, I chose a single memory. Concentrating hard, I focussed solely on that single memory. Once I had put as much detail as I could into it, I pushed the memory out of my mind and into my hand, and a small, colourful globe appeared in my palm.
I rested the globe in midair, and concentrated on the next memory, which I also exteriorised, and continued until I had put everything I could remember about him into little balls of memory energy.
Then I floated all the balls over to the white search globe, and plugged them all in.
The image of him became much more colourful and detailed, as the globe now had a much clearer image of what it was searching for.
"Right. Now, find him!" I said to it, and the beams of light again leapt from the globe.
This time, the search was considerably shorter, but still, it didn't succeed in finding him. A pale beam of light continued to shine from it, but it was unfocussed, and simply indicated that he was in a lower plane somewhere.
Obviously, I wasn't able to provide a detailed enough description of him for a search spell to find him. I hadn't been able to use magic when I'd known him, so didn't have any knowledge of his 'astral signature'.
I looked at all the memories of him I had provided the globe. Was there anything in there that could help me?
Views of meeting him at his house.. nothing to help there, the reason we'd lost touch was that he'd moved and his house had been knocked down.
Views of seeing him at school.. not terribly helpful there, either.
Or was it..? I remembered suddenly that he'd been very good at art while we were at school. An idea occurred, and I dropped down from the Astral into the Etheric Plane.
It had been a long time since I was at school, but I managed to navigate my way there fairly easily. Getting to the Art rooms wasn't too hard either. Going back in time several years was a bit trickier, but I managed it without too much trouble.
It was now daytime, and the corridor outside the art department had posters all the way along it. I floated along until I found the poster I'd been looking for - it showed a scene that could have come straight out of a fantasy book - a big monster being attacked by a human hero, with a woman chained to a nearby pillar.
He'd always been a big fan of fantasy books, Dungeons and Dragons, and the like, and had created his own fantasy world, with his own heroes and monsters. He'd drawn many pictures such as this one, drawings of his own world.
I raised my hand, and mist flowed out of my fingers, and wrapped around the picture. Then, it soaked into the paper itself, and when I beckoned it, it floated out, as an exact copy of the picture. I took hold of it, and returned to the present.
The poster was, of course, not there any more. I held up the copy I had brought with me, and told it, "Take me to where you are now."
There was a sudden tug, and I was standing in a room. The picture was up on a wall, along with many others with similar themes to them. I looked at them all, and identified the themes that appeared in most of them.
I narrowed it down to five - one hero, one wizard, one woman, one monster, and a symbol.
I went to each picture, then, and again sent mist into each one. This time, though, I only used it to copy small parts of the pictures. The characters.
I pulled a copy of the first character out, the hero, standing in a heroic pose, holding a sword high. Then, I took his image out of the next picture that showed it, and merged the two together. Then I added a third, and a fourth, and a sixth... eventually, I had merged every variation of him in the drawings into a three-dimensional image.
Then I did the same for the other characters, until I had taken everything I could from the pictures.
He had created these characters - they existed because he had invented them. And he had dedicated so much time and effort to them, I was sure they must have thoughtforms somewhere out in the Planes. By taking their likenesses from the images of them he had drawn, I hoped to trace those thoughtforms.
So, I placed the images all into an energy bubble, and took it to the Between. Then, I just followed where it lead me.
The sphere it lead to was fairly small, but when I entered it, I knew it was the right one - I had emerged in a scene I recognised from the pictures. Two of the characters were in front of me.
"Hello" I said.
They ignored me, and walked away.
"Thoughtforms," I thought grumpily to myself. "Sorry about this," I said. "I'll restore you later, I promise."
Lightning leapt from my hands, and struck the two thoughtform characters. There was a flare of light, and they collapsed into sparks of energy - I had transformed them from active thoughtforms to their energy essences.
I hunted down the others, and soon had collected them as well. Then, I returned to the Between, and the search globe I had created earlier.
"Here you go," I said, placing the sparks inside the globe. "Now find him. After all this effort, you'd BETTER find him."
Once again, light leapt from the sphere. Almost instantly, the search was over, and a solid white beam shone downwards into the darkness. The energy connection between the thoughtforms he had created and himself had done the trick.
I sighed in relief, then laid my hand on the globe, and it pulled me along the beam. We dropped downwards for some time, before finally reaching the sphere it had located.
Since I would still have to find him once I entered the Plane, I shrank the globe into a small ball of light, then plunged into the Between sphere.
The Plane I entered was dark. That was all that had time to register before I leapt into the air and hovered there - the ground had burned my feet!
I lowered myself down slightly, then touched the ground with my toe. It burned all right! It's not often you find something on the Planes that causes pain.
I continued floating in the air, and looked around. I was in a cave, made of red rock, and illuminated by flames. It looked, in fact, like Hell.
There was a brighter light down one end of the tunnel. I headed for it. When I reached the end of the tunnel, I looked out into a huge cavern. What I saw in it was so horrible I almost fell out of the Plane in shock.
The cavern was unbelievably big. It would have taken a day to walk across. All around its roof, flitting between ugly, needle-pointed stalactites, there were huge, ugly flying creatures, looking like a cross between a bat and a vulture. There were rocky spires and walls and caverns everywhere, and over virtually every flat surface were hideous white worms, like giant maggots, oozing pus and constantly emitting a horrible noise, somewhere between a moan and a scream. And walking over them, demons; like hideously distorted humans, striking the worms, the bat-things, and each other with cruel whips and clubs.
Streams of liquid fire ran throughout the cavern, small streams combining to form rivers, and rivers running together to form a huge lake. In the centre of the lake was a small island, with a sinister looking castle on it. There were living things in the lava as well; thrashing, writhing Things I could not see clearly.
Enormous as it was, the vile noise from the worms filled the cave with a kind of horrible chorus, which resonated through my head. This place was horrible beyond belief, and I wanted to leave.
But I had to stay. Somewhere here was a friend of mine, and I had to get him out.
I raised the shimmering, shining globe that had brought me here. "Find him, " I ordered it. A ray of light shone out of it, pointing far across the cave. I started to follow it, but suddenly, the globe was ripped from my hand.
"Hahah! Oooh, pretty!! Pretty shiny ball!!" shrieked the thing that had taken it from my. It looked like a small hairless monkey, with bat wings and a wide, snaggle-toothed mouth.
"Give that back!" I yelled at it, and leapt into pursuit. It flew away, still shrieking "Pretty!" at the top of its voice.
Ugly though it was, it was a fast and nimble monster, and I was unable to catch hold of it. Then I realised, I didn't have to. I'd forgotten the globe was under my control. I ordered the globe to return to me, and the little freak suddenly shrieked as it was pulled back towards me.
I reached out my hand to catch hold of the globe, and it was nearly bitten off by one of the big fliers I had spotted earlier. It missed my hand by inches, but the flying monkey and my energy globe went straight down its throat.
I tried to call the globe back out of the monster, but then its wing smashed against me, and I plummeted down to the ground. I hit with a thud, and burning pain shot through me - the ground was still scorching hot, even out here. Before I could get up, I was pinned down - the revolting maggot-like worms had crawled over me.
Forcing my pain and revulsion down, I struck out wildly - energy exploded in ever direction, hurling everything away from me, and lifting me into the air. Blue flame enveloped my hands, and a sphere of energy surrounded me.
For a moment, I wondered if I was safe The worms couldn't follow me into the air, and the fliers had apparently lost interest in me. Then a loud crack, followed by a pain in my ankle, told me I was not.
A black, thorn-studded cord had wrapped around my leg - one of the whips wielded by the demon-creatures I had seen before.
The flames around my hands spurted out, and burned the whip in two, freeing me. I located the demon wielding it, and threw flame at it, too. It shrieked as it was enveloped in the burning blue light.
Another crack sounded over it's voice, and I knew another whip was heading my way. But thought moves faster than any weapon, and the energy sphere around me solidified before the whip had a chance to hit me. I flew up into the air, away from the ground-bound demons and their weapons.
Only to have to struggle to avoid the fliers again. This, I thought, is getting ridiculous. I concentrated on the energy sphere, and vanished.
Or, at least, appeared to. Invisibility is hard to do, but a worthwhile skill if you can master it. The fliers broke off their attack, shrieking in confusion. I dropped down towards the ground, and hovered a few meters up.
This place really was as Hellish as it looked. Everything here seemed to want to attack me. But I couldn't leave without finding my friend, and I couldn't find him without the globe. But so far, I hadn't seen any sign of a single human being in this plane.
I decided to start searching the Plane itself, try and work out how it worked and what was where.
I started with the worms. It wasn't hard to see that they had a pretty bad time of living in this plane. The floor of the cave burned them as badly as it did me, and the rocks were sharp, and cut their flesh even as it burned. Their blood was a pale green slime, and every single worm was oozing the stuff. They had no visible features, no ears or eyes, nothing but the circular orifice at one end, through which that vile moaning sound emanated.
The demons that walked over them were nasty brutes. They were humanoid, but had shiny black bodies, which on closer inspection were covered in hard, black scales. Their faces were hidden by ugly black helmets, and it was impossible to see where their bodies ended and the helmets began. They all carried a whip in one hand, and a club with sharp metal spikes in it in the other. They seemed to take great pleasure in inflicting pain on the worms, and almost as much in hurting their fellow demons.
The fliers seemed mindless. They attacked anything smaller than themselves, but ignored things on the ground.
And then there were the rivers. From what I could see through the flames, there were Things in there with big tentacles. Some sort of squid monster? I wondered. I couldn't see anything, and the heat from the flames was so intense, I didn't dare get a closer look.
The mystery was solved after I found a small cliff overlooking one of the rivers. The worms were writhing around all over the ground, just like everywhere else. I was passing along level with the edge, when I suddenly had to dart to one side - a few worms had fallen off the edge, and fallen into the river!
Clearly, the worms' lack of eyes really did mean they were blind - they hadn't even tried to avoid going near the edge. I realised now that the worms here on the ground, cut, blistered, and beaten though they were, were actually the lucky ones - the ones in real trouble were the ones that had fallen into the rivers of flame.
I decided to take a risk, and do some magic: I created a huge net, and dropped it into the river. It took a lot of effort to keep it from being burned away, but I managed it, and lifted it back out.
It was full of worms - the river was clearly saturated with them.
I shuddered. The more I learned, the more horrible this place seemed to be. If the vile creatures living here were so badly off, any humans who were in here must be in REAL trouble, I thought.
A sudden thought occurred to me - if the worms were all blind, and unable to keep from falling into the rivers, then why were so many of them still on the ground? Either there were places they could get out of the rivers, or there were lots of worms coming into being. I followed the river along, and found that, sure enough, there were a few places where worms were coming back out of the river. They fought their way past each other, knocking others back into the river in their desperation to get away from it themselves.
I turned away in disgust. This place was making me feel ill.
Determined to explore further, I left the rivers, and went to explore the edges of the cavern. Near the floor of the main cavern, I saw a tunnel, similar to the one I had arrived in. I took a deep breath, and entered it. It was dark, and blisteringly hot, but the few worms on it seemed determined to get as far along it as possible. Their apparent purpose seemed puzzling to me, until I realised the floor of this tunnel was smooth - no jagged rocks cut their flesh in here. These worms were obviously going along in hopes that the tunnel would get even better as they went along it.
I followed it too, and we came out into a fairly big cave, with a large ravine in it. Sticking out over the edge of the ravine were a number of stalagmites, but unusual ones - they were almost horizontal. On the other side, there was only one single stalagmite, and it was directly beneath one of the ones on my side.
I looked at it in puzzlement. What was this place?
The worms that had come up with me went past me. One just found the edge and stopped, unsure what to do. The rest...
The rest crawled around, came to a stalagmite, crawled along it, and jumped off them! As they dropped, they gave a despairing moan, which cut off suddenly as they hit the ground, far below.
But one didn't fall. It landed on the stalagmite that jutted out from the other side. Triumphantly, it crawled along to the far side, where it stopped, apparently for a rest.
It was the first time I had seen a worm stop moving and not moan. Curious, I reached out and felt the ground.
It didn't burn! No wonder the worm was so happy to stay where it was for a while. Nothing was hurting it here. This struck me as odd. Why was the floor cooler on this side than the other?
Then I saw it - just beyond the edge, where I was standing, the floor was covered with a thin layer of water. Water which the worm was drinking. I was surprised. It hadn't occurred to me that the worms might be hungry or thirsty.
I looked back, and saw a few more worms. I suddenly wondered at the purpose some of these worms were showing. They weren't crawling at random, they seemed to be moving deliberately. Could it be they somehow knew this place was here, where they could finally get relief from the heat and cuts?
The worm that had made it over suddenly started moving again. Curious, I followed it. It lead me to a small passageway in the rock, and now I was sure it had been here before. It continued down the passage, and I followed it.
It came out in another cavern, which had a floor several feet below, which seemed to be a moving pool of blackness. The worm hesitated, then jumped down to the floor. I followed, but stayed in the air.
Closer to the floor, I realised that the floor was made up of nasty-looking insects, beetle-like. They were attacking the worm, which didn't surprise me. But the worm was also attacking them, which did. Its toothless, rubbery mouth was actually sucking the beetles in, and it was clearly eating them.
The beetles appeared to work co-operatively, because they actually carried the worm away, to a cliff on the far side of the cavern. The worm fought against it, but in the end, they managed to throw it over the edge.
"Weird," I thought, "It gave up being in that nice, quiet, cave to come to this?"
I looked over the edge. The worm was moving, fast, away from where it had landed. I realised that it was going in the right direction to find the entrance to this tunnel again, and would probably be trying to get back up here.
I decided to give it a short-cut. I levitated it back up into the cavern, and dropped it back where it had come in. It immediately went to work, eating more beetles. It managed to keep itself free of them for longer, this time, but eventually, they got it to the edge, and pushed it off.
I caught it again, and levitated it back. I noticed that it was no longer bleeding, and its skin had gone from a slimy white to a dull grey. Then I dropped it back amongst the beetles again.
This time, it needed no help from me. The beetles couldn't keep hold of it, it was thrashing around too much for them.
It continued to gorge itself on the bugs, and I realised that as it did so, its skin turned darker. Clearly, by eating the bugs, it was taking on some of their nature. And the more it ate, the more it changed.
In little time, it had changed so much it was unrecognisable - it had grown short black legs, and compound eyes and antennae, and it's dark grey body had firmed up considerably. The beetles were now avoiding it as much as possible, and it gave up on trying to catch them. It found the next passageway, and continued along it.
Again, I followed, and this time, it came to a room filled with... well, they looked like that nasty little demon that had snatched my globe earlier, except they had no wings. It had managed to catch one, and was eating it when I arrived. The rest kept out of its way, until they suddenly attacked in a rush, and threw it down to the ground far below again.
This time, I left it down there. I had seen what I needed to - the worms were clearly meant to progress slowly and painfully along this tunnel, and eat the things they found along the way, until they became strong enough to get to the next cavern.
I continued along to the next cave. In it, there was a selection of black helmets, whips, and clubs.
So now I knew where the black demons out in the main cavern came from - they were worms that had grown more powerful by consuming lesser demons. I wondered if the little freak that had grabbed my globe earlier had been one of the small demons in the cave that had been knocked out of its place, and somehow managed to eat enough of a flying demon to grow its own wings.
This still wasn't helping me find the person I'd come here for though. I returned to the main cave. The sudden rush of noise and heat was a shock after the cool quiet of the tunnel. It suddenly occurred to me that if I was knocked out of this plane, I might not be able to get back - I ought to leave a beacon somewhere.
After the little monster earlier had grabbed my glowing globe, I decided against using my normal ball of light as a beacon. Instead, I sent a jet of energy out of my finger to a nearby rock wall, where it condensed into a piece of rock, firmly attached to the wall.
Satisfied, I turned to continue my search, but a grinding noise made me look back.
The wall was eating my beacon! It was being slowly pulled into the rock, and covered over. Apparently, the rock itself was alive here.
I reshaped my beacon into mist, and it came back to my hand.
I considered making it into a small flier, but the fate of the small demon I had met earlier dissuaded me. I thought about making it look like a worm, but was put off by the idea that it might get knocked into a river of flame.
In the end, I went back up the tunnel, to the cave with the horizontal stalagmites, and left the beacon hovering in the air, as a wisp of black smoke. Hopefully, nothing able to see would enter the tunnel and spot it.
Then, back again to the main cave. Time to explore again. I decided it was time to try the castle in the middle of the lake.
I flew over the lake, and then leapt upwards like a rocket - the heat was unbelievable! But when I got high enough to stand the heat, I was surrounded by the fliers, which were so densely packed I had to spend all my time avoiding them. I couldn't make it to the island flying through these things.
I dropped back down, and managed to take the heat just long enough to get back to the shore.
Nasty, I thought. They really don't want visitors in that castle.
Rather than trying to get across the lake and hoping I could stand the heat long enough, I decided to explore a little more first. I made a circuit of the lake. It was fed by many streams and rivers. All of them had large numbers of worms struggling to get free of it.
Except one. One fairly big river I came to seemed devoid of worms. So I followed it back to its source. It was running out of a fissure in the cave wall. I considered going down the fissure, but the heat from the river was too intense at such close quarters.
I contented myself with just looking down the fissure in an attempt to see something. The nice thing about flaming rivers is they give plenty of light. But all I could see was a long crack running through the rock.
Suddenly, a voice screamed out "No! I don't deserve this! I shouldn't be here!!"
It was the first speech I had heard in my time here. And it was coming from the fissure.
I gritted my teeth, braced myself, and rocketed down the fissure. It was scorching hot, but I HAD to find out where the voice had come from.
Just as I was about to give up, and skip back to the beacon I had placed earlier, I made it through the fissure, and was out on the other side.
It was yet another cave. And in it were two figures: A terrified-looking human, and... Death?
A seven-foot tall skeleton in a black robe and carrying a scythe, what else would you call it? I looked at it in amazement as it pulled the human over to the river.
In a harsh, rasping whisper, it said "Time to pay, sinner." And it threw the man into the river.
Stunned, I didn't even try to intervene. The Grim Reaper existed, and really did take people to their afterlife?? This didn't agree with anything I knew about how the Planes worked. That Death would be embodied in his popular image made perfect sense, but I knew plenty of people who'd died and not been collected by anything. What was going on here?
Death turned and walked across the cavern to an archway in the rock wall. On impulse, I followed him.
As we passed through the arch, there was a sudden lurching feeling, and we were back in the Etheric Plane, in a city somewhere.
He paused, his head raised. Then suddenly, he glided down the road, going so fast I almost lost him before I started moving myself.
As quickly as he'd started, he stopped. We were at the scene of a car accident. He walked up to one of the bystanders, and laid his hand on their shoulder. They turned and looked at him in astonishment.
"Come," whispered Death. "Your time has come."
Evidently, this person had been a casualty of the accident. Death lead him away, and I followed. We came to a graveyard.
Death moved to a large gravestone, and knocked on it once, twice, three times. And the stone opened, and a corridor was inside it.
"Come," he whispered, and walked down the corridor. The dead man seemed confused and lost, but seemed to have no other idea of what he should do. He went down the corridor, and I drifted behind.
We came to a small room. It was wood throughout, the floor, the seats, everything. As well as Death and the dead man, there were three people in the room, on the far side from the door. They looked like elderly men, with long white hair and beards.
"Welcome, human," said the middle figure. "Step forward."
The dead man, still looking confused, took a step.
"Name?" said the middle figure.
The dead man told them. The three looked down at an enormous book in front of them, and the one on the left traced his finger down a page. "Here he is," he announced.
All three of them read through the book, shaking their heads occasionally.
"You did not go to church often," said the right figure.
"N..no, I didn't." said the dead man nervously.
They all shook their heads sadly.
"Charity work?" inquired the left figure.
"I donated to charities," the man protested.
"Yes. A few coins you would not even miss," countered the middle figure. The dead man just looked down at his feet.
"I see nothing here," said the right figure. The other two nodded in agreement.
"Human," said the middle figure. "Have you done anything that you feel earned you admission to Heaven?"
I was amazed at this question. Heaven isn't a place you go to because you convince a judge you should. You go to whatever Plane you deserve or believe you will go to. A devout religious person might think he must be judged after death, but this man was clearly surprised at what was happening here. This was not a creation of his belief.
"I've never done anything wrong," said the dead man.
"No? You have never disobeyed a single Commandment?" asked the middle figure.
"Well.. I've never done anything really bad. I've never hurt anyone," said the dead man, a hint of desperation in his voice.
"Human," said the right figure, "The question is not 'Have you done anything wrong?' The question is, what have you done right?"
"I don't understand," said the dead man.
The three figures sighed.
"Did you really think that eternal paradise was given to you for just doing nothing?" asked the left figure.
"Heaven is not a place you have a right to enter," said the right figure.
"Heaven is a place you must EARN entry to," finished the middle figure. "I see nothing that shows you have earned admittance."
The dead man looked at them, nervously. "So what happens now? Where do I go?"
"You know where," said the middle figure. "We cannot grant you entrance to Heaven. Thus, you are condemned to Hell."
"No... Please..." begged the dead man.
"Take him away, Reaper," said the middle figure. "May the Lord have mercy on him."
The Reaper took hold of the human, and pulled him towards the side of the room, where there were two doors. A black one, and a white. Death pulled the dead man towards the black door.
Just before he got there, the dead man screamed, pulled away from Death, and ran to the white door. He tore at the handle, but the door would not open.
Death caught hold of him again. "To you, the door is closed," he hissed.
He pulled the dead man to the black door, opened it, and walked through it. It slammed behind them.
I was now hopelessly confused. I had never heard of anything like this. Nobody gets condemned to Hell by a judge. Nothing that they had said agreed with my understanding of the afterlife. What was going on?
A laugh from behind me stopped my train of thought instantly.
"What a gullible one he was," said the middle figure. "Charity work!" he snorted with laughter again. The other two grinned at him.
"I was amazed he had the nerve to go for the other door. Meek as a lamb, he was," sneered the left figure.
"Maybe we should make that door actually open," said the right, "Let them get as far as seeing Heaven before they get dragged away."
"Hey, I like that idea," said the middle speaker, "It'd be nice to have two working doors."
They stopped talking at that point because of an interruption: Energy beams smashed them against the wall and pinned them there.
I'd heard enough.
I dropped my shield of invisibility, and walked up to them. "I advise you to make the explanation you're about to give, phenomenally good." I said coldly.
"A human!" hissed one of them. "A LIVE one!"
"Kill it!" yelled the second.
Flame leapt from the eyes of the middle figure, knocking me to the ground. The energy holding them to the wall vanished as I lost my concentration. The energy pinning me down vanished as they fell to the ground.
I opened a gateway behind the three of them, leading to a void, and blasted the middle figure through it. Then, while the other two turned to look towards the gateway, I created a thoughtform of myself, and transported myself to the void. The gateway snapped shut.
The two remaining in their room immediately attacked the thoughtform, believing it to be me. In the meantime, I was left with the third in the void with me.
I concentrated, and three circles of pure white light blazed into being around him, spinning very rapidly. Trapped within them, he snarled in anger.
"Now," I said, "What was going on in there?"
"You think your little circles are going to scare me?" he sneered.
I concentrated.
Metal sprang into existence all around him, razor-sharp blades and spinning drills. They dug into his skin, so he could feel the points, pushing just too softly to do more than sting slightly, but very obviously able to do far more.
His eyes darted from side to side; the barbed edges that were poised to punch through his eye sockets seemed to be giving him particular misgivings. He swallowed loudly.
"Last chance," I said. "Tell me what you're up to, or you'll become the latest person to discover what 'death by a thousand cuts' really feels like."
"All right," he said. "We're sending people to Hell."
"I know that. How and why?"
He hesitated. The blades pointed at his eyes twitched slightly, and he gasped. "We trick them!" he cried in panic.
I waited, silently.
"One of us disguises himself as Death. Then we find a human who's just died, bring them to the courtroom, and pretend to review their life. Then we tell them they haven't earned Heaven, so they have to go to Hell. Then we send them there."
"How can you send people to a Plane they don't believe in or deserve?" I asked.
"They don't have any true faith," he replied, "But they still think of the afterlife in terms of Heaven and Hell. It never occurs to them we're lying, so they just go along meekly."
"And once they get there?" I pressed. "Why don't they leave?"
"They don't know how to," he said. "They don't even know they CAN leave. And they don't have time to find out."
"Why not?"
"Because they get thrown into the fire as soon as they enter. The pain is so intense, they can't think rationally enough to will themselves away."
Fury was building up within me now, but I forced it down. "And how many people have you sent to suffer like this?" I asked.
"I don't know. Many." Spirits tend not to be very good at counting.
"Then why haven't I seen any?" I asked. "I went there looking for a friend, but I never saw any people there."
The demon looked at me in surprise. "But they're everywhere," it protested weakly, "You must have seen them."
"All I saw was demons and monsters," I said. "Was I in the wrong place?"
To my surprise, he burst out laughing. "You've been there, and you don't know?" he gasped. "You didn't see?"
"All I saw was black scaly demons, big ugly birds, and disgusting worms," I said.
The look he gave me was pure evil. "And what did you think," he hissed malevolently, "that the worms were?"
"They're what the demons..." my words trailed to a halt. I stared at him in disbelief.
"Are you telling me that those worms are PEOPLE!?" I yelled.
He laughed again. "Oh yes," he said, "they were people when they arrived, sure enough."
I couldn't believe it. "How..?"
He smirked. "There's powerful magic in the cave they enter. When they get thrown into the river, the pain overcomes their mind, and leaves them vulnerable. The magic enters their bodies, and twists them. Turns them from human to ugly blind worms. Can't see, can't talk, can barely move. Can't do much of anything but burn."
I was horrified. Even the Hell that fanatic Bible-pushers talk about wasn't this bad. Inflicting pain was bad enough, but this... I tried to imagine how I'd feel if I died, and, whilst still confused and shocked, was thrown into a lake of fire, only to emerge as a blind worm, being burnt and cut and...
"Why?" I demanded, "Why are you doing it?"
"That Plane isn't just a random place," he said. "It's a representation of our Master's soul. The more people are in it, the bigger it gets, and the more powerful he becomes."
At that moment, his two companions appeared. They'd obviously come to find what was taking him so long to get back. They gaped at me in surprise.
"You can't be here," one gasped.
I'd had enough. I let my anger loose, and it exploded out of me like a supernova. All three of them screamed at the barrage of scouring red light that assailed them.
It made me feel a lot better. I concentrated, and created a mirror maze. In fact, three of them. The silver balls flew at them, and enveloped them. All three of them were snared in their own infinite maze.
I remained in the void, trying to think. The situation was worse than I had believed possible. The inhabitants of the Hell-plane I'd been on weren't just typical demons that had come into existence within the Plane. They were humans, twisted by negative energy into helpless victims.
And the black demons.. now I understood. The worms that were able to get over the pain and think, and explore, and make it to the tunnel I had found... they were obviously the toughest people, and by eating the negativities they found in the tunnel, they were twisted into evil monsters, the black-scaled demons.
I shuddered to think of how much power it must take to trap so many people, or how much power so many people must give to the entity that created that Plane. It was certainly far more powerful than I was. How could I stop this?
I didn't know.

Don't you just HATE it when they say... To Be Continued..?

The inspiration for this version of Hell came from Terry Watkins' web page, http://www.av1611.org/hell.html