Disappear: Into Shadow

- CHAPTER SIXTEEN -

Michael thought the rough walls of the passage must have already led on for hundreds of miles. How many more to come? While floating on the Styx, the cliff walls had looked so monstrously impassable and endless to him. These winding passages, tunnelling deep through the cliff now seemed just as endless on the inside.

Not far from the truth, the cliffs formed a concentric circle. They were the perimeter walls. Inside, the layers of Hell spiralled downwards into eternity. An almost endless well of pain, suffering and darkness, it was created exclusively for its residents, by its residents. The cliff's face served not only as a layer of Hell itself, but also as a defence. Not only keeping the damned inside; it also kept those Hell did not want within itself, out.

Together, Michael and Death walked on in the half light. Along corridors and down stairwells, they moved forwards through the constant fire lit shadows. As they walked, Michael saw no demons or damned souls. He heard no sounds to give evidence of torment and torture. Corridor after corridor, there was nothing but the dancing shadows and the constant pressure of a great weight pushing against him.

Michael strained to fill in the blanks of memories that stubbornly refused to return from the shadows. Besides trying to unlock his memories, the time plodding on at what felt like a snail's pace made for an intolerable passage. Turning yet another bend, into yet another shadowy tunnel the weight of Hell pressed against him. About to cry out that he had made a mistake and they should just leave, Michael saw the end of the tunnel.

Breathing a deep sigh of relief, he said, "You proved your point. No more walking alright?"

Death laughed long and loud at that.

At the end of the tunnel was a single door. It had stood out to Michael initially, as the first detail, apart from solid shadowed rock and fiery torches, that he had seen in what felt like weeks trudging around inside this cave. A regular, boring, wooden door without runes, designs or iron rings. It was the last thing one would expect to find. There was even a doorknob and a company nameplate that read: Fire and Brimstone Unlimited.

Below, in smaller flowing script was engraved: All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

"I don't get it" Michael said.

Death smiled. "Believing they deserved to go to a bad place for the deeds they committed in life, souls came to a lonely black place bereft of love and light. It was beings similar to Charon who organized these places into what they are now. The Fallen, Daemons, who chose to become the dark balance of nature. They came with suffering, anger, a lust for vengeance against Creation and most importantly a sense of organization."

"Charon's a fallen angel?"

"No, the Fallen are a cross between Charon and this place. They are heartless, dark, empty and forbidding."

"How did souls know this was a place to go?"

"There were other beings who, walking the Earth watched over all living things. They taught mankind the secrets of life and the beyond. Unlike the ferryman and his kind, these beings loved life. They inhabited the physical in its earliest days, even before the dinosaur. They lived for age upon age, holding a strong connection to the Earth and all life."

Her voice was wistful, distant, as she spoke. "These children of Heaven, like the Angels, their powers were strong. When humanity's time on the Earth came, these Watchers remained for the first few ages of man's existence. They told mankind a secret: death was not the end. With that knowledge in hand, souls began to look for thosee places they had been shown in their dreams."