Day 18,300

Anguish doesn’t fill every day. I think that’s why this place is true torture. Nothingness fills some days. I spend my time listening to the screams and agony of others, waiting for my turn at the table. Sometimes it never comes. It could be days or weeks before I’m pulled from my dark, damp corner.

Sometimes I’m forced to clean the pits. The holes where some demons do their best work. Cleaning the filthy spaces takes days. We’re given small tools and forced to scrub each inch. If your work is not acceptable, your body becomes the one used to mess the pit once more and when you’re put back together, you clean again. Every task comes with a punishment. They punish even successfully completed tasks, because why reward a damned soul?

However, they don’t always keep us on the demonic plane. I heard that those who are deemed tolerable get to serve the others in the hoard.

Today was my turn.

They wrapped a heavy metal collar around my neck and connected it to a lengthy line of other doomed souls. Men, women, young, and old. Nothing limits your entrance to the demonic plane. Nothing stops you from becoming an eternal guest of the many demons that inhabit this place of pain and misery.

I couldn’t see the beginning of the line and before I had a chance to check the end, a hand pressed my head down, forcing me to look at the ground. Suddenly there was stirring and noise from the head of the line, and then darkness. It was thick. Heavy. I couldn’t tell if we were moving or if the darkness was moving around us, but I remained calm. I refused to be like the others. Shaking and weak. There were screams and terror and then…the Nether.

It was breathtaking. I’ve never seen a place like it. Buildings that stretched into the sky and machines with wheels that move without the aid of horses. It’s a bustling city. Large and modern. I never would have dreamed a place could exist. The small village I came from had houses of wood and stone. But these were different. These shops and structures were all made of a hard material that looked like stone. But it was smooth. The sky above was black with twinkling stars dotting it and long veins of lightning stretched across, but there was no thunder. No rain.

The demonic plane is a rocky landscape filled with dead trees, and long rock structures that shoot from the ground and hang overhead, but the Nether. It was perfection.

Our feet shuffled until we came to a large square where other souls were already at rest. They were free of their chains. They were waiting.

A voice boomed overhead and crowds descended on the square. It was madness. Everything moved at a pace faster than my tired mind could comprehend. Beings appeared from portals and faded in from mist. Others strolled to the square, arms linked like they were on a date, and I realized we were to be the entertainment. That was our task.

The line of souls in front of me were still. Unfazed by the surrounding noise. They knew what to expect. We were unprepared.

The collar and chain were removed from my neck and I stood next to other trembling bodies, but still refused to show fear. I was more curious about who the inhabitants of the Nether were. How did they come to live in such wonderful splendour?

The powerful voice called for the fight to commence, cutting my thought short, and a line of souls ran towards me.

I raised my hands, stopping the fists that were aiming at my head, then quickly pushed myself free, running for an empty space.

Laughter and screaming echoed around us as the Nether came alive.

It’s strange trying to fight for your life when you’re already dead. Even if another soul killed me, I would simply reincarnate in my hole within the demonic plan. But I didn’t want to leave the Nether. Not yet.

I gathered myself and found that the people of the Nether were throwing tools at us. Weapons of all kinds. I went for a dagger, reaching it before another and slashed out, cutting across his throat.

The blood sprayed, and he gurgled to the ground, only shedding one tear before disappearing into a void back to the plane. Bodies began following and voids popped up to swallow each. Screaming and cries for mercy took over the cheers of the people of the Nether. It was violent and chaotic.

But I felt nothing.

Fifty years of wild, torturous existence and I finally lost the ability to feel sympathy. These souls were here just like me. Meant to be punished just like me, but I want more than punishment. I want power.

The square emptied as more and more souls fell through the void until there were only a handful of us.

Before I went for another kill, the booming voice ended the fight.

The square was silent for only a moment and then cheers roared around us. I survived. I made it, and a smile painted my face for the first time in decades.

Nine others stand with me. Exhausted. Bloody. Winners.