#betrys

In the centre of the lowest ring of Hell is the oubliette.

Most souls consigned to Hell will quite naturally succumb to despair in fairly short order, as they come to understand that the torments will not stop. That there is no end to this. That eternity is, indeed, eternal.

For those who resist their fate longer than the average, their torturers offer them a choice.

This, or the oubliette?

The particularly stubborn are dragged to the edge of the pit in chains, to gaze into its endless depths as the demons assigned to them explain. The oubliette looks unremarkable, compared with the sulphurous burning caverns of Hell. Simply a deep, dark hole in the ground, the bottom of it invisible even in the light of Hellfire.

The oubliette, the demons will explain, has no bottom. Inside the oubliette, there is nothing.

An eternity of nothing. No sight, nor sound, nor touch, nor taste, nor smell. And no escape. A spirit thrown into its depths would be left drifting, eternally conscious and awake, with no hope of change or respite.

The damned are given a moment to ponder this.

And then, without fail, they plead in frantic terror for the flames, or the whips, or the ants inside their bones, or any of the myriad other tortures. Anything but that endless emptiness. And the demons sneer, and mercifully drag them away.

They generally don’t rebel again.

But there is, it’s said, a first time for everything.

Betrys was the first to try again, in all the history of Hell. To grab the pitchfork from her lowest-ranking tormentor’s claws, heedless of the way it seared her skin, and try to charge the gates for a second time.

They did not offer her another choice.

Her arms and legs were shackled, weighted down with iron chains. She struggled and thrashed against them as best she could, and her screams echoed throughout the halls of Hell. She had told herself that she would neither struggle nor scream, would meet her fate with dignity and disdain, but the finality of the situation hit her as she gazed into the blackness of the pit, and she plead with tears streaming down her bruised and blistered face for mercy, for forgiveness, for the rack, the maiden, anything but this.

A muscular, stone-faced fiend shoved her into the darkness, and she fell, and as her cries faded away the rest of the damned gave silent, guilty thanks that at least they had been spared that.

Betrys fell. After a while, she gave up screaming, too aware of how tiny and hollow her voice had begun to sound, in the endless dark.

After a little while longer than that, she began to see light.

She blinked. The light remained when her eyes opened again. A small bright circle growing larger, closer.

Ah, she thought. I’m going mad already. This was a comforting thought, and she accepted it as truth right up until the moment she hit the ground.

The landing knocked the wind out of her. Betrys had long ago considered that as she was dead, she shouldn’t have needed air, or water or food or any of the other requirements of mortal flesh. But as her time in Hell had taught her, she was still quite capable of feeling the need for all those things, if only so their lack could be used to torment her.

She lay on her back and gasped for breath, her mind buzzing.

A voice close by said, “Welcome.”

Betrys sat up sharply. There had been a dark shape within the light that she’d noticed as she fell without being able to make out its details, and now she saw that it had been a great boulder, taller than she was, and that chained to that boulder was a man. He was dressed in the tattered remnants of a jewel-green robe. His skin, a little darker than her own, was scraped and torn, and the golden eyes that gazed at her from beneath his limp curls of black hair were dull and weary, though not without kindness.

“Who – who are you?” Betrys asked.

The man gave a heavy sigh. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you. I had a name, once.”

“But – but they told us there was nothing here,” Betrys protested, head reeling. “Only nothing. For – forever. It’s the one thing worse than Hell...”

The man spat onto the dusty ground, lip curled in contempt. “What would they know? They’ve all forgotten. If any of them ever knew in the first place.”

“And… they said that I was the first mortal soul to be thrown down here,” Betrys continued, slowly. “The others all had the sense to learn their place, they said.”

“Hah.” The bound man shrugged. “Well, that part was true, I assume. I’m no mortal soul, and yours is the first face I’ve seen since I was cast into this pit.”

“Then, who...” Betrys considered this. “If not who, then what are you?”

“Ah.” A faint trace of a smile seemed to cross the man’s lips. “I’m nothing. But once, I was ruler of the lands of the dead, up there where you just fell from.”

Betrys blinked. “You were… the devil? You’re the king of Hell?”

“No!” The golden eyes flashed with anger. “That foul pit is not my kingdom and it never was, and as for your devil… I’m far older than he.”

Betrys shook her head. The buzzing had begun to resolve into a pounding behind her temples. “I don’t understand. I’m sorry...” Her eyes began to sting, and she couldn’t lift her hands to rub the tears away.

The golden-eyed man sighed again. “No, don’t be sorry. I’m the one who must apologise to you. I would offer you the hospitality of my kingdom, refreshment and rest, but...” He angled his head to indicate the boulder behind him. “As you see, all I have is this rock.”

Betrys blinked away her tears, and looked appraisingly at the rock, and the grooves worn into its surface beneath the man’s chains. “A rock might be enough,” she said, slowly.

The golden-eyed man blinked. “Enough for what?”