~~Young~~

Chapter Twenty

   “I should tear your head from your shoulders myself,” Lucifer roared, “How dare you betray me!”

   “She wasn’t really right for hell-” this time it was a clawed hand wrapping around his throat to shut him up.

   “I will hear no more words from you!” Lucifer hissed so close to Gage’s face that his acidic spittle began burning his cheeks, “I know of your other treasons!”

   “Mic-Michael was wrong,” Gage choked out.

   The claws that dug into the side of Gage’s face and dragged across his cheek were a blatant sign that it didn’t matter what he had to say. In hell, Lucifer had already damned him.

   “You killed the one you were to protect!” he growled, “and saved the one you were to kill! Then…then you seek to steal from me! I can see your mind has broken Gage. And what can be broken must be broken. I have no more use for you,” he gave Gage’s head a sharp tug and slammed his head into the floor before dismounting him, “to the hellfire with him.”

   Bane’s scaly grip replaced Lucifer’s as he hauled Gage off the floor by his neck, each of the twins taking one of his arms to restrain him, “Oh I’m going to enjoy this,” he grinned.

   Discarded. Lucifer was going to just throw Gage away like trash. He hadn’t expected that, of all the tortures he had imagined could fall on him, never once did he think it would be the hellfire. Disembodiment, dissected, sodomized or forced into some sort of sexual service for Lucifer or Bane he could have handled. Handled and recovered to be able to escape, but the hellfire…he’d never return to earth after the hellfire.

   Hopeless, Gage could only stumble along as the demons dragged him to the bottom most chamber in hell. He couldn’t even call his blade, he tried, but in Lucifer’s hands he couldn’t move it. And for even trying such a thing Lucifer slashed Gage across his torso drawing a long gouge. Gage choked as he felt some of his insides trying to spill from the hole.

   They had pulled back inside by the time they came to a stop on the ledge above the endless hellfire fields. Down below Gage could see the souls forever trapped in their pain, and knew that was his future. He watched the body closest to him, a man. Each flame was a living thing and it ran up and down his body, it taunted and teased, offered a moment of relief only to engulf his bodies in a worse pain. His screams were deafened by the flames as it slithered inside his mouth and down his throat. The blue glow was visible even from here as it moved around inside him. He couldn’t even scream he was in so much pain, merely gurgle and choke.

   And there was no defense, no fighting against the icy fire. Your hands and feet were held down by unbreakable chunks of ice. And should you wilt, should your legs no longer to be able to hold you upright, then you were hooked like a side of beef at a butchers. Gage could see thousands of them from here, hanging from their invisible lines they made sure the flames had the best access to your body.

    Bane took a deep satisfying breath, “isn’t the smell of agony and despair delicious?” he asked Gage before laughing and leading their group down the ramp to the floor of the chamber.

   They walked for miles it seemed until they found an empty flame. Bored it was doing laps around its small space, circling and circling, waiting for something to do. On its last circuit it realized it wasn’t alone and brightened, as if to say ‘oh goody, something to hurt’.

   “In you go,” Bane tossed him in with a laugh.

   Gage managed to get his bearings before the ice rose up from the floor, turning around to face the pathway between the hellfire as his feet encased in ice. He didn’t bother trying to fight it, instead found as comfortable position as he could manage before the ice claimed his hands too. He was going to be here forever, no sense being left in an awkward position.