by Seth Barder
Darkness surrounded Josh once again. Hundreds of bright glowing embers floated around him, the only remnant left by the inferno. They came down gracefully, beautifully, making the previous horror seem like a terrible dream. In their short life the embers disappeared with one final flash, lighting a large area around it. This lasted for a couple of minutes until the last ember shot out its last. Then a light faded in like a brightly lit street lamp above revealing Josh’s new condition.
Smoke rose from the skin of Josh's sweaty back and head. He could feel tears pouring from his eyes as he wept. His sobs echoed through the cavernous wasteland. His mouth had never felt this dry. It took him a moment to realize the flame had dissipated. His body felt warm, confusing his mind into thinking his body was charred. He slowly took his hands from his face and looked at them. They were smooth again. He looked at his arms, there was no evidence his skin had just been boiled. He looked around. There was no evidence anything had happened. Then he remembered the hard surface on which he kneeled. The charred black soot now marking his knees was the only proof he had that it even happened. Josh tried to keep his mind in order, a lot had happened in a very short time. How it could be that his hands looked intact despite the fact he’d obviously gone through the worst pain he had ever felt? He looked at his chest. It too was whole again, except without hair. Breathing heavily he straightened up to take an inventory of the rest of his body. Not a burn mark on it. Only heavy beads of sweat glistening from every pore of his body, just like that woman he saw. But didn’t she have long hair? He felt his bald head. Maybe she got there the same time he had. But she was naked, like he is now. Nothing made sense. What was going on? Was any of this real? The pain sure felt real. Yet, it didn’t, at least not in any reasonable or explainable way he could come up with.
“What is this place?” Josh thought.
A small part of him had an idea, but he didn't want to admit it. It couldn't be possible. He remembered distinctly asking God to forgive him before he pulled the trigger. Josh felt the back of his head where the bullet should have exited. God should have forgiven him. Still holding the back of his head he looked around again. This certainly couldn't be heaven. And he certainly wasn’t in some kind of sleeping state. Most definitely he hadn’t killed himself and now ceased to exist, his flesh and bone was proof of that. It left only one other possibility then, and was almost too unbelievable for him to accept. Him in hell? It just couldn’t be. But he could think of no other place so vividly described by those crazy preachers he was forced to listen to. Was it really happening to him? Even if he didn’t believe in hell, he’d still be right where he was. If this was hell, what does he do now? What could he do? Josh quickly calculated how long he’d be forced to live like this. He obviously couldn’t die again. This meant he was sentenced to this place forever. Before he could break down into uncontrollable crying, Josh was startled by a noise to his right. It was the sound of something scurrying past. It was the distinctive sound of claws on hard rock. Visions of pictures he’d seen of devil’s with hooved feet and pitchforks readily came to the forefront of his mind right then. Josh stood up, nervous and concerned for his welfare.
“Hello?” his voice was quieter. He’d hoped to get the attention of some other human who might be nearby.
Something to his left flew past him. Josh looked but saw nothing. Whatever was out there, it was watching him, waiting for just the right moment. Josh’s chin trembled. He felt like crying. His whole body shook violently. He didn’t know how things worked here, he couldn't plan for anything. What he did plan would be useless anyhow. For the first time in his life he knew he wasn’t in control of what was going to happen. He had to calm down if he was going to think straight but it wasn’t easy. He used some breathing techniques to slowly calm his heart rate and ease his body to stop shaking. To his surprise it worked. He was able to focus a little better and felt a little more prepared. But he wasn’t.
An arrow whistled in from behind him, sounding something like a bottle rocket, and plunged itself near the spine of his back. The thrust of the arrow hit him so hard he fell forward to the ground unable to cushion the fall with his hands. He fell on his chest, the side of his face slamming onto the floor, causing the black dust beneath him to sweep upwards. Josh gasped for air. He could feel his left lung struggling to inflate. Every breath he let out kicked up the black dust, as he tried to suck in some air the dust was sucked in with it making breathing even more intolerable. His hands shaking, he reached for the arrow. He felt every muscle connected to that spot pull and stretch as he pitifully tried to grab it with his fingertips. He could feel the shaft of the arrow was thicker than he expected one to be. It’d be useless to try and break it off. He slumped his hand to his side letting out an exhausted and garbled gasp. Then he heard it again, the sound of an old furnace lighting up.
Josh had no delusions of what it could be this time. Remembering the previous ordeal, Josh tried desperately to get to his feet. The very movement of his arms pulled and ripped at the wound in his back. Every nerve extending from it was set alert and cried out. Josh couldn’t muster the strength to even get to his knees. He fell back to the floor with a thud, closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and cried.
The flames swept over him once again. In greater agony than the arrow gave him he curled up into a ball yelling out in pain. The arrow burned up in the flames and was swept away, his skin boiled, and again his insides baked. And then, as it had before, the flames disappeared, leaving behind the falling embers. Finally, the light returned above him.
His breathing had returned to normal, whatever that meant for him now. His lung no longer felt punctured, but that was little comfort knowing there may be more to come and there was no leaving this place. Josh refused to move. He laid there curled up on his side, shaking and sobbing to himself.
Josh wasn’t sure how much time passed before he felt a sharp blade being shoved into the side of his forehead. The sudden strike and pain surprised Josh. He wanted to scream out in pain but was too shocked to do anything. The pressure in his head from the blade made it feel like his eyes would pop out of his skull. Josh dug his fingernails into the hard black floor in a desperate attempt to flee, but it only served to rip them away from the skin without moving his body an inch. He tried to reach for the blade to remove it from his head but the perpetrator twisted the shaft causing the sharp object to grind the edges of his skull. The creature then pulled the object out leaving Josh lying there holding his head. Now freer to maneuver, Josh rolled to his side and clasped the side where the blade once held him down. He could feel the mangled hole. He wasn’t bleeding but the skin was ripped open and chunks of brain and skull easily fell out onto his hands. The sound of a furnace igniting behind him made him pause. Josh did nothing this time. He let his hand, now covered with brain matter and skull fragments fall to the ground. He stared at the flame coming at him. As it raced toward him he thought of all the things he should have done when he was alive and all the things that led up to him being here. But it didn’t make sense, it wasn’t his fault things went wrong in his life. If his wife had been a better lover he wouldn’t have cheated on her. If someone had done a better job of warning him about hell he would have gone to church more often. Even God could have revealed Himself a little better to more clearly warn Josh, and then he wouldn’t be here. Why should he suffer because of God’s lack of responsibility? Then, the fiery pains gripped him once more. He was never sure how long this went on, the fire and torture. They could have lasted minutes but it felt like hours. There was no sense of time anymore. Then, just as quickly as it came, the flames were gone, leaving Josh in the fetal position like a confused baby.
Once more smoke rose from his naked body and embers floated down like some kind of evil snowflake lighting a large area of the vast darkness all around. Each went out in its own time until one was left. It floated down lazily until it was a few feet above Josh. As it went out it illuminated the area around Josh to reveal a hoard of demon creatures who en
circled him. Josh was unaware of any of them. His face remained covered with his hands and his eyes were shut tight. He still thought he could feel the pain of the fire and now pain of the shaft once in his skull. And just like before, after the last ember died out, the light above him returned, shining brightly on him.
Josh lay on the ground, sweaty and shaking from fear and pain. He knew there would be more pain to come but he didn’t know how or for how long. He heard something scurry across the hard floor behind him. The pain he dreaded was about to start again. The once flowing tears stopped almost instantly as Josh quickly weighed his options. Still in pain, still smoldering from the fiery experience, Josh wiped the excess tears from his eyes and cheeks then got to his feet.
“Wait!” he yelled out between his heavy breathing. He wiped a few more tears from his eyes. “Wait,” he still shook a little, “let me do something for you.” he was speaking in every direction, not sure where this, or these, things were. “Let me...,” he thought about it, “...let me go back bring more people down here for you.” Josh thought of several people he’d like to see go through this. There was no response. “Let me...,” he thought desperately of something else he could offer but nothing came to his mind, “…just let me...,” he looked around for some sign of movement, anything, “…p-please.”
Not being answered was almost worse than being told “no”. A dark red figure stepped out of the deep darkness, stopping just at the edge of the light. Josh could see the creature was holding a club in its hand. Josh pleaded with it to let him go. Without warning it took two quick steps towards him, raising the club even quicker to meet the bottom of Josh’s chin. Josh's bottom teeth were forced up into the top of his mouth gouging into the soft skin. The force knocked him almost senseless on his back. Disoriented, Josh laid on the ground holding his mouth. Thinking the beast would come in for another blow Josh tried to ignore the pain and stumbled to his feet.
“Wait,” he said almost muffled, still holding his now swelling mouth while holding his other hand out in front of him, “wait. Just wait a second. I just wanna say something real fast.”
His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest he was so nervous. Josh wasn’t sure whether the beast would actually listen or suddenly begin to violently beat him. The creature, to which Josh now figured to be a demon, didn’t say a word but instead took a step back as if to tell Josh he would wait and hear him out.
Josh was slightly stunned the demon was willing to hear what he had to say. He had hoped it would but wasn’t really prepared when it actually happened. Josh paused longer than he’d anticipated.
“Um,” he tried to think quickly what he wanted to say. “Look, let me help you. If you send me back I’ll lead anyone I come in contact with down here. I..I know you probably hear that a lot, but I mean it. I’ll…I’ll tell people you’re not as bad as what they’re told. You know by those preachers who say if we go to hell we’ll be tormented day and night? I’ll be real convincing too. If you saw me when I was there, you’d know how convincing I can be…”
The demon slowly backed away into the darkness again. Josh was nervous it would come shooting back out and hit him to the floor. He wasn’t sure if what he said got through very well. He thought of things he probably should have bargained with instead but now it may be too late. He wasn’t even sure if the demon was still out there or even if it spoke English. For all Josh knew the demon spoke some ancient dialect..
An orange glow shone from behind him illuminating the area. It was becoming painfully more familiar to him. The demon was gone. It had good reason. It didn’t want to be subject to the same torment Josh was about to experience. Josh’s hands dropped to his sides. He knew the flames would come, then they would go, and then something else would take its turn to further torture him. He began to cry again, feeling hopeless.
He couldn’t get used to the intense heat, no matter how hard he tried. He tried telling himself it wasn’t real, but all his senses overruled it. The pain he felt didn’t go away and only seemed to intensify with each round. He had hoped he would go into some sort of coma so he could simply lie there as the flames did what they did best. Even that was too good to be true. When the flames stopped Josh lay on the ground crying, wishing there was something he could do. Every plan he’d thought of didn’t seem to work. There had to be some way out of all this. Maybe there was.
“God?” It was his only hope, “Jesus!?” he got on his knees the best he could and wiped his eyes. Folding his hands in front of him tightly he closed his eyes and prayed, “Please God.” He said through sobs, “Please! I'm sorry for everything I've done. I'm sorry for taking my life. I couldn't see any other way. But I know you're merciful. I know you give grace. I know I don't deserve it. I know I wasn't a faithful Christian when I was alive. Please God, be merciful to Your lowly servant and give me Your grace. I need You now more than ever.”
Josh continued his plea, hoping there was some possible way God would hear him even way down here. He wanted this so bad it was the first heart-felt prayer he’d made in his life. He heard a noise in the distance. At first he thought it might be his answer to prayer. But then he saw the figure of a demon slowly step out of the shadows. It was hard to notice at first. The demon was black as coal. It grinned at Josh, showing his sharp yellow teeth. Josh closed his eyes tighter and tried praying harder. His heart beat faster. He could almost feel the demon coming nearer. Josh opened his eyes slightly. The demon was making its way towards him. It gripped a spear in its right hand, possibly the weapon used to shove through Josh’s skull when he lay helpless on the ground. Josh closed his eyes again continuing his prayer. He didn’t want to look how close it was, but he hadn’t heard a sound from it. Josh stopped praying and opened his eyes. The demon was no more than three feet away from him. Josh was going to have to do something on his own if he were to get out of this. He stood to his feet and did the only thing he knew to do. When the demon thrust the spear at him he grabbed the spearhead then held out his other hand towards the demon and demanded, “I rebuke you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!”
It was a futile attempt. The demon sneered at Josh then continued forward causing Josh to lose his balance and fall backwards. Josh tried to redirect the tip of the spear away from his body, but the demon was far too strong for him. It slowly and patiently drove the spearhead into Josh's abdomen, tearing at his gut, making Josh feel not only the pain, but sick to his stomach. When the blade was fully buried inside the demon began twisting the spear. Josh could hear the awful noise it made. It sounded like someone scooping out the insides of a watermelon. Josh wasn’t sure what he did wrong. Why didn’t God answer? Maybe Josh didn’t have enough faith or use the right words. Maybe his prayer wasn’t as sincere as it should have been. Maybe if he kept praying.
With the spearhead still in his gut, Josh began praying to Jesus. He tried not to think about the sharp metal object jutting out from him. He prayed more heatedly, hoping by doing so would lessen the pain. It didn't. He could feel the tip of the blade digging into his spine now. He gritted his teeth while he kept praying. He praised Jesus for all the wonderful things He'd done. He thanked Him for blessing him with a wonderful daughter, even though he hadn't been there for her. He thanked Him for dying on the cross, for His love, and for being so merciful. Josh hoped for this mercy. He stressed his need for it.
Staying on the subject was difficult. The demon seemed to know exactly where to place the spear. He should, he’d probably been doing things like this long enough to perfect his “art”. If Josh couldn't get out of this, he'd end up experiencing everything these demons had perfected over the many millenniums. Josh did his best to pray through the pain, but his mind would paint a vivid picture of what the spear was doing to his insides. He heard the furnace start up again. He halted his praying and opened his eyes. The demon was gone, leaving the spear sticking out of Josh’s body. Josh staggered a bit but got to his knees hoping in that position, with a spear jutting out of his a
bdomen, God would take pity on him. He continued to pray only stopping when the flames lapped over him. The pain was so severe he couldn’t think to pray. He tried but couldn't focus. Even with his eyes closed Josh saw vivid pictures of his flesh splitting and melting, falling to the floor. He tried replacing the pictures with ones of Jesus on the cross or of Him carrying a lamb on his shoulders but the pain, and now the smell of his burning skin, couldn’t be ignored. It was only when the flames disappeared that he feebly resumed his pleading.
“Oh God please...,” laying on the ground he barely got the words out through his tears.
He was too exhausted to kneel, breathing in the soot all around him. He begged Jesus to send an angel to take him from this place. He prayed and begged so hard, he couldn’t think of anything else he could do to get God’s attention. Josh began to think there was no hope. He must be doomed to this hell for eternity.
He stopped praying and just cried. He was totally broken. He thought of nothing else but how worthless he felt and how his life was meaningless. He wanted to serve God and if only he’d be given a second chance, he’d turn from every sort of wickedness and devote the rest of his life to Him. He couldn’t see that happening, not now, not ever.
“Jesus…,” he said in one last attempt, “…please….”
It was then that he felt a soft cool hand on his shoulder. Josh quickly turned and crawled back a few feet, fearing it was some demon coming to have its fun with him. For an instant Josh’s mind flashed to the lady who he tried to comfort earlier. He knew now she wasn’t afraid of him, she was afraid of what might come next. But when Josh looked at what touched him he almost couldn’t believe his eyes. It was a tall man clothed in white. He had the most beautiful golden-blond hair Josh had ever seen. Every strand of it appeared to gleam and shimmer off of the light above them. His eyes glowed a magnificent royal blue. He was clean-shaven and handsome. Josh had never seen an angel before. But this…person was just like he had imagined.
“Hello Josh. I'm Driton.”
His voice was so comforting it struck Josh right in his heart. He felt an unspeakable joy that he couldn't explain. It was the first time he’d felt God actually heard his prayers and answered them quickly. It was almost unbelievable, but the proof stood right in front of him. Josh broke down and started crying again, thanking God over and over.
Driton came to Josh and crouched down to him, placing his soft hand on his shoulder, “You’re okay now. I'm going to take you out of this place.”
Josh couldn’t find the words to say how he felt. He wanted to thank him, but he didn’t know the best word to use to show how thankful he was. He wanted to reach out and hold Driton but wasn’t sure if he should. Josh didn’t have long to wonder, Driton wrapped Josh in his arms and held him there. Josh let go of all the tension he’d held in. His body shook from uncontrolled sobbing. He still couldn’t believe his prayers were actually answered. Josh gripped Driton’s white robe tightly with both hands. He wanted to feel that all this was real. He’d wanted this so bad and, now that he had it, he didn’t want to let it go. Driton’s robe was so soft, made of something Josh never felt before. Josh couldn’t stop crying. Driton didn’t mind, he was willing to sit there holding him for as long as Josh needed.
“W-why,” Josh started to ask through his tears, “did this happen to me?”
“Josh,” Driton's voice was so soothing, “you killed yourself. People who commit suicide go to hell, no matter what. ” Tears flowed harder from Josh’s eyes as he once again buried his face into Driton’s chest. “Shh, Josh. You have nothing to fear now. I'm going to take you out of this place. Your prayers have been heard. You have a strong spirit. That’s a very noble trait for a person to have. You’re safe now.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” Josh said, more so to God for answering his prayers than for Driton’s compliment.
“Whenever you're ready to leave we can go,” Driton assured.
Josh wasted no time in composing himself. He wanted out of this place as quickly as possible. Josh let go his grip on Driton’s robe, wiped his face of tears with his handsand stood. Driton followed him to his feet never taking his eyes off Josh’s. Josh sniffed a couple more times, breathed out a relieved sigh then smiled at Driton. Josh felt stronger now and more grateful for anything he had in his life. He knew he’d been a sinner but now felt truly forgiven by God’s. Josh was ready to stand by the pledge he made. He was ready to do whatever He asked of him. He didn’t care if it was cleaning up after everyone, he’d be thankful he was there.
Fully recovered now he said, “I'm ready,” then sniffed once more.
Chapter 4