#time distortion

Sometimes Sol wasn’t there, but more often he was. More present and solid than before. He was becoming the physical version of the illusion he had made for me. Now when he took a breath it seemed to matter – his shoulders would relax with the rush of oxygen. I would catch his eyelids fluttering at the end of a long day, as though he could tire. But still, how could I be sure that the human attributes I prescribed were real? Isolation is a powerful hallucinogen. No matter how human he seemed, the Vigilant bent around him, time bent around him, and increasingly, so did I.

Something was shifting in me, too. More than my mirrored organs and my time loss... the space I took up in the universe seemed constantly in flux, air and gravity beginning to warp around me just like it did for Sol. Matter moved to match my intent, shortening distances under my stride and removing barriers from my reach - sparing me from physical effort.

Perhaps it was necessary - the change - to be able to survive him...

✧ ✹ ✧

I could see Sol out of the corner of my eye. He was leaning on a tabletop and there was a distinct crease in his jumpsuit where his thigh met metal – he hadn’t had such physicality even just a few days ago.

I shouldn’t have been able to see him from where I was sitting at the recording console. He should have been almost directly behind me. But the room bent around me, and around him, so that almost the entire space was visible to me. I didn’t think he knew that I could see him though, because without my full attention on him, his expression was completely blank. I tried not to look too closely, and to instead focus on my log.

“Cycle 237, Day 25. Eidon A is behaving strangely – beyond modelling and predicted margin for error. Between yesterday’s entry and a few minutes ago it remained entirely stable, with no flaring and no measurable change in mass – all orbiting planets showed tidal and atmospheric readings comparable to those taken before the Eidon project even began construction. Current readings show dramatically increased flares and other indicators of accelerated collapse – beyond what has been seen over the past week. The Vigilant’s systems do appear to be functioning correctly when recalibrated against neighbouring systems, so my current hypothesis is that collapse is simply less steady than we predicted.”

Behind me, Sol’s mouth twitched in a smile, no doubt enjoying the irony of ‘my kind’ trying to predict the unpredictable. Or perhaps I had just given away that he was in view.

“Note for Paz: I recommend that we continue to take more regular manual readings and set up automated measurements to take place overnight – I will be doing so for the next five days until handover.”

I ended the log and spun my chair around to face him, but immediately regretted it. In motion, I could feel my organs sliding over one another, twisting and untwisting as a sickening sloshing sound echoed around my head. I held my breath and screwed my eyes shut as I waited for them to re-find their places, resisting the urge to look down where I knew from experience that I would see my stomach distending and pushing against the hold of my jumpsuit.

In a moment I felt warmth surrounding me, and although I could still feel movement, it felt right, for my body to be coming undone this way. When I opened my eyes Sol was squatting right in front of me, looking up through long jet-black lashes, hand on the arm of the chair as though steadying it would steady me.

I let out a heavy breath. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Aniara.” Graceful as a cat he stood, offering me his hand which I took gratefully. “I have not heard you leave a note for your crew before.”

“I didn’t feel like I needed to before now. Or that they would believe the things I wanted to tell them...” I wrinkled my nose and gave him a pointed look, which he charitably ignored.

“But you believe the star’s changes are now significant enough to mention?”

“Yes. And-” I twirled a lock of hair around my finger as we walked, “it’s not long until Paz wakes up. I’m looking forward to seeing them, and I don’t want them to be lonely once I go back into stasis.”

He hesitated in his stride, just enough to put us out of step for a moment, and smiled at me, I thought a little sadly. “Tell me about them. All of them.”

So I did. We settled into place on a bunk, me curled into a corner and him stretched across the rest of the mattress, long and elegant and bent just slightly beyond how human joints should bend.

For a moment, I couldn’t look away from him, even as it was all I wanted to do, like passing an accident on the motorway. His limbs draped so casually, but the geometry was wrong. Whoever had constructed him had done it from a checklist, without a reference. Not quite grotesque, but almost.

My own joints felt just as stretched, and I couldn’t tell if I was just unsettled from looking at him, or if I too was twisted into unnatural shapes. I shuffled where I sat, trying to rid myself of the sensation, and all at once he settled into place. Comfortable, and safe. I felt my fear melt away under his warmth.

I told him about Rowan’s brusque, secretly-caring attitude, how he’d passed every physical and mental test with a quiet self-assuredness that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around – and how that drove me crazy at times. I described Paz ‘s vivid eyes and doodles in every margin, how they made every space they entered feel alive, and about our many horticultural projects over the years, both on Earth and here on the Vigilant. I hesitated when he asked about Lena. What might he do, if he knew them all? Should I keep a piece of them to myself? I still felt sure that he would leave, without me here, but I had always been a wishful thinker...

As always, he didn’t push, just watched me quietly, tucking the blanket over my feet as I mulled over what to do. And as always, in the end, I told him all about Lena. About how she had steadied me in training, and ever since. How she was always neat, and composed, and could step off a 30-hour observation shift and still exude warmth. How in a lot of ways, she was like him. Or he was like her...

“Paz will wake up in just a few days... The handovers are my favourite time, when I can tell them all about how the star has changed. I think they’re the only people who’ve ever really known me. They’re my family,” I gnawed on my lip, “at least, the family I still have...”

He stilled, breath halting in a sharp reminder that it wasn’t needed. His eyes softened like he knew what I was admitting. “You left your family to be here.” It wasn’t a question.

“My parents, yeah... Eidon A was all I ever wanted. I told them, told myself if I'm being honest, that it was for the future of humanity, whatever that means. But it wasn’t. It was for me. To see my star, up close. I think they knew it, too.” I tilted my head back, staring at an unnatural dark spot in the corner of my ceiling. “They’re dead, now.”

Somewhere out there my star was flickering, on its way to join them in whatever came after. I wasn’t sure whether it was my warped vision, or my imagination, or an after-image of Sol’s swirling starlight-eyes, but I could see Eidon A there, in the corner, as though I had turned the many layers of steel to glass.

When at last I looked down, Sol was right before me. I hadn’t felt him move on the mattress, but his face was only inches from mine. He looked intently into my eyes, unblinking, and I was held captive looking back. The air seemed to thicken around me – inside me – pressing at my ribs, my limbs, my throat, like great hands were holding me still. I couldn’t move a muscle even if I wanted to. I didn’t think that I did though - want to.

“You dreamed of the star your whole life, and now you are here.” His voice was thick as the air, heavy with intensity, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, “Is it everything you wanted?”

His question cut like a knife, and I believed it was meant to. Was the sacrifice worth it? I had avoided the question even as it hung in my mind every waking moment, afraid of what my answer made me.

“Yes.”

A shiver ran through him, so quick he seemed to blur at the edges, and like that the pressure was gone. He reclined back, a lazy smile playing on his plush lips, eyes half closed and heavy lidded, curls in casual disarray. He looked as though he had just been kissed, and I was mesmerised. I slumped back myself, the wall turning soft where my bruised head hit it, preventing further damage.

We stayed like that for I don't know how long, at either end of the bed, only breaking eye contact to blink.

✧ ✹ ✧

I dreamt of being outside the ship again, close enough to touch Eidon A.

It was beautiful, of course. A field of stars spread out endlessly beneath my bare feet, the light bending around me like soft earth, and above them all, my star. I could see the collapse now, how the bursts of colour fell inwards instead of reaching out, long-fingered and desperate. Like it had accepted its death, and become all the more beautiful for it, diamond-refracting the remaining sparks of its life.

I reached down, brushing my fingers through the stars like dandelion seeds, and like those delicate seeds, they collapsed under my touch. One by one, they began to melt, light dripping in molten rivers around my ankles, until it began to reach up my legs.

My skin gave way like wax, sloughing off me in sheets that glowed the same gold and violet as Eidon A, and my eyes slid our of place, rolling down my body like teardrops. I tried to move my legs, to run from the stars that burnt my flesh, but I was stuck fast. My fingers too had become soft, webbing together, collapsing. I could feel a scream building, tearing at my throat and lungs, but somehow I couldn't get it out.

Somewhere in the distance the light parted. Or something blocked it. Tall, unnaturally angular, its edges weeping darkness into it's surroundings, looming ever closer.

I wrenched awake, tangled in damp sheets, reeking of ozone and burnt hair. The air was crackling faintly, like as red-hot poker plunged into water. In the far corner, exactly where the shadows met, stood that same silhouette dripping black. Its edges shimmered as though painted in oil, it's darkness spreading, eating into my space and my air, a single bead of night sliding in reverse up the wall.

I tried to scream, but when I opened my mouth it folded back into me, air collapsing suffocatingly, down my throat. I needed to get it out, out, out out out! The shape tilted its head as though listening to the sound I couldn't make. I opened my mouth wider, pressure building and darkness growing until I was sure I was about to burst -

- and then Sol was there.

In the same corner of the room, just watching. The black figure was gone, or swallowed into him, or waiting behind him, blocked by his dark radiance.

The scream finally choked out of me in a gasping, ragged sob, and then he was beside me, all gentleness, all comfort. The lights began to rise in a soft sunrise-glow. My breath stuttered shallow, and the warm air rolled down my throat like a balm for the claw marks my scream had left.

His voice was tender with concern, "Aniara."

I buried my face in my knees to hide the fat tears rolling down my cheeks, and didn't answer.

✧ ✹ ✧

Hydrophonics was the only place aboard that didn't smell of ozone, now. It wasn't a bad smell, but it set my teeth on edge - a constant reminder of how very close I was to the vacuum of space.

I took a deep inhale of the green, damp air as we entered, relief washing over me once again. I told Sol I needed to check on the vats, but I really just wanted to get away from the smell. It seemed I hadn't needed to check them at all since I first brought him here. In fact, re-growth had surged, almost back to 95% of optimal levels, though I hadn't changed anything in the way I was treating them.

I jotted a few notes on the board, finding the pen conveniently already in my hand, and scooped some of the most developed algae into the mulcher for processing, with Sol watching carefully from where he stood, his hand hovering centimetres over one of the vats. The algae seemed to strain after his long fingers as he made tender stroking motions in the air above it.

"How much of this sustains your life, Aniara, and how much sustains the rest of the crew?"

My eyes were on him like a shot, and I spat hotly, "There's no reason for you to know that, since we're all here and we all need air."

His voice was infuriatingly calm when he replied, "I meant no harm, I am simply curious about the effects of their stasis. I already told you, as long as these sustain you, they will be safe."

"And what about the crew? Paz, Rowan, Lena, they all sustain me too." My voice still felt harsh, even as I took a step towards him.

Something in his eyes flickered and his hand stilled over the algae. "Do they?"

"Yes," I said, almost in a whisper. "Of course they do. People aren't meant to be alone."

We stayed in a heavy silence the rest of the day, like the air had thickened once more. I wasn't sure if I was waiting for his contradiction, or affirmation, but neither came.

✧ ✹ ✧

I sat at the recording desk, shoulders heavy and thigh throbbing from a long run.

"Cycle 237, entry fourteen. Eidon A's collapse is becoming more erratic. The impact on Eidon Ab, c, and h's tides has increased along with it, but b still appears within habitable conditions. Provided the theoretical infrastructure is tsunami ready... Sixteen days remaining in this cycle, our current predictions point to Eidon A's full collapse in cycle 241. My next turn awake, if you all let me wake up again, after this. I can still feel the presence. I have not made contact... I won't."

With a sharp click I ended the recording. Entry fourteen... fourteen. That wasn't right... I had made this recording before, hadn't I? I should only have a few days left, not sixteen.

I was sure...

But there was the case of daily vitamins I kept by the recording desk to make sure I took them each morning, only half empty…

I looked up at the clock over the door. It flickered for a moment, numbers tumbling over one another like raindrops. My stomach lurched as they flipped between the past and an impossible future: Cycle 237, day fourteen; Cycle 237, day two; Cycle 237, day eighty-three, Cycle 237, day fourteen; before stilling. Cycle 237, day twenty-seven.

Of course it was day twenty-seven, I had just been telling Sol about how the handover process would go in a few days.

Something was slipping through my fingers. Had I been in a different day? Like sand, I couldn't hold onto idea.

Why was I confused, again?

✧ ✹ ✧

Sol found me on the floor. I wasn't sure how long I had been there. He said he wasn't either, but I didn't know if I could believe him - even when he's not with me, I know he's not really gone.

I must have fallen getting out of the shower. My leg was twisted under me at an unnatural angle, and later when I tried to test standing my quad under the old bruise seemed incapable of supporting my weight. I felt as though someone had flayed away the muscle, and taken a chisel to the bone of my hip where it twisted. I lay on the floor, towel barely covering me, and looked up at him through kaleidoscopic tear-blurred vision, too scared to move without knowing how bad the damage was.

He was on his knees in a moment, hands hesitating to touch just above my damp skin.

"Can I?"

He held so still while he waited for me to reply, but I couldn't make the words come. Instead I just nodded my head limply, jaw quivering, and waited for the pain of being moved.

But it didn’t come.

He moved with inhuman carefulness as though he thought I might shatter, cradling me behind my shoulders and under the crook of my knees. When he stood I could feel bone grinding on bone, muscle tearing further and filling with dark blood, and I knew it should have been agony – that I should have been screaming - but all I could feel was his touch. His fingertips seared my skin until the contact was all I could think of.

He laid me down gently on the mattress, scooping a pillow under my head and adjusting the covers so that they supported my injured leg, but he didn’t withdraw. One hand remained pressed against my side, as though poised to pull away the towel. The other held my wrist lightly, and I could feel my pulse flickering, mirrored in the pad of his thumb.

I should have pulled away, but I didn’t.

Instead I stared at him: at the way his lashes were fluttering, refracting light in shades of blue and violet; at his lips, parted just slightly, as though about to let out a breath; at his thumb making feather-light circles over the thin skin over my purple veins. And at last, at his eyes, at the starlight and galaxies and kaleidoscopes of colour held in them.

Time folded around us, and still we didn’t move.

Hours passed. It was dark, then light, then both and neither. I wasn’t sure when he had laid me down, or how long I had stared at him. I only knew that neither of us had stirred, not even to take a breath, since. But my vision remained unclouded, my lungs didn’t ache or clench for air. I simply didn’t need to breathe, right now. Maybe I had never needed to breathe. I wasn’t sure I could, even if I had wanted to.

Panic came too late. I did need to breathe. I had always needed to breathe. But I didn’t know how. How to make myself do something that had always been unthinking?

I opened my mouth and waited for instinct to kick in, but nothing came. My ribs were locked tight, my chest still. But now my vision was blurring, dizzying black in my periphery, a deep red tinge the telltale sign of bursting blood vessels - and still I couldn’t take a breath.

Sol tilted his head and watched me for a moment, studying me like a butterfly with crushed wings cradled in his hands. And then he pressed a palm flat against my sternum.

More searing heat. Pressure. A strange liquid sensation, as though my skin were melting around fingers reaching inside of me and curling around my organs. He squeezed, and my lungs finally convulsed like startled animals.

Air rushed in with violent life, electric against oxygen-starved alveoli. I twisted onto my side, pain from my hip finally shooting through my body as I coughed and choked and sucked in air like it might vanish again at any moment.

After a long while I was able to return my focus to the warmth of his hand, still resting on my chest. I looked up at him, a vengeful god, a forgiving god, and met his eyes once more.

“So quickly, you forgot. But of course, you persist in holding your shape...” His gaze flickered through concern, hunger, reverence, and back again. “I am sorry Aniara, I promise I will not allow that to happen again.”

Time Distortion in Hell

The length of time Sam’s soul felt/experienced the cage is a function of two factors: how long he spent there in earth terms, and the degree of temporal distortion hell creates.

The first piece is easy if we assume Sam’s soul spent 18 months in the cage* (footnotes at the end).

The second piece... Dean spent 4 months dead (time in earth terms) which was 40 years on the rack in terms of his experience/perception. If we take this assumption that 1 month = 1 decade, we get to use some very simple math to say that Sam spent 180 years in the cage.

But.

I’ve always personally interpreted Hell’s time distortion to run a bit different than a static 1 month = 1 decade. This headcanon derives from some hints in canon (or at least, this headcanon is not actively contradicted by moments in canon) and from other pieces of media.

I believe that the deeper you go into hell, the greater the temporal distortion is.

This is basically like the move Inception, I’m not even gonna try to pretend otherwise. There, the deeper you go into the dream within a dream, the more time dilation there is. It makes sense to me that SPN’s Hell canon works the same for several reasons.

For starters, when Sam's wall is breaking in s6, he has flashbacks where 2-3 minutes is equated with what feels like a week in the cage (episode 6x14). We can take this at perfect face value (meaning that Sam’s soul experienced about 5000 years in the Cage). Or we can interpret this to be a function of the episode he is experiencing, where temporal dilation is exaggerated because of the nature of his flashback, or we can say he is speaking in hyperbole.

I think it makes sense for the truth to be somewhere in the middle - Sam is speaking off the cuff, not entirely literal or exact about how long those 2-3 minutes felt like, but nonetheless honestly that they felt like days, felt much longer than our formula of 1 month = 1 decade allows. And I take that as a realistic reflection of his time spent in the pit.

Another, and far more overt piece of evidence comes in Season 11 when Sam visits ‘the Cage’. In 11x09 (O Brother Where Art Thou), we see Rowena, Crowley and Sam in Hell whereas Dean is on Earth, and there appears to be little to no temporal distortion occurring between the events below and the events above. This remains true in the following episode (11x10, the Devil in the Details) when Crowley phones Dean and when Dean comes down to join them in Hell (and Cas as well shortly after).

So - what gives? Is there temporal distortion occurring in Hell or not? Did they retcon that, forget about it, what?

Well, Crowley explicitly refers to this area of Hell as ‘Limbo’, which brings us to an understanding of Hell’s temporal distortion through the lens of the circles presented in Dante’s Inferno.

Circles of Hell

It’s fair and frustrating to say that canon doesn’t give us much in the way of understanding the structure and hierarchies of Hell. That gives us a lot of leeway, but I like to anchor my headcanons to canon if and when I can.

Thankfully, there is at least some reason to believe that Hell in this universe is structured at least somewhat similarly to Hell in other popular works of fiction that derive their conceptions of it from Dante’s Inferno (which itself is the popular mainstream view of hell that even a lot of Christian/Catholics have adopted, often without realizing at this point).

Dante’s Inferno provides a view of hell that has 9 circles, or layers, each one deeper into Hell than the last. SPN implies the same.

We get this from the use of Limbo, as stated above, since this is the term in the Inferno for the first circle. Crowley refers to Limbo as the “furthest reaches” of Hell, whereas in Dante’s Inferno, it’s the top layer. SPN plays fast and loose with what it takes vs. leaves from real-world mythos, but I take this to mean that “far” or “furthest” not in the sense of depth, but as a place which may be vast and largely empty, and which few demons can enter (since, as per the Inferno, it’s not a place where guilty souls actually end up, so possibly has quite restricted access to demons).

We also get evidence of these circles from Word of God through Sera Gamble, who has apparently said that the Cage is “At the bottom of the lowest depths of the ninth circle of the worst bit of Hell.” That’s pure Dante’s Inferno, ba-bey. (/mcelroy voice)

More evidence comes from Season 8 when Sam rescues Bobby’s soul from Hell, since he goes through Purgatory as a sort of back door to Hell, being told that Purgatory is “Hell adjacent”, which is true as well in the Inferno.

Another within-canon indirect hint of this is the association between Lucifer and ice. Dante’s Inferno keeps that the ninth circle of Hell, reserved for treachery, is a large frozen lake. And in the Inferno and in SPN canon, this is where the Devil is kept, in the Center of Hell, in the deepest frozen depths of the pit, the frozen lake in the ninth circle.

Also remembering that in early seasons, Lucifer and his Cage were buried so deep in Hell that most demons weren’t sure if he even existed. His existence was a matter of faith, no different than humans believing in God, according to 3x04 (Sin City).

Based on all this, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to surmise that Hell is vast, but potentially its vastness manifesting in the way in which it is layered, and that there are regions, planes, or depths that most demons do not or cannot tread to.

But okay, even if you’re on board so far, why do I believe that time works differently at different layers? And what circles have we seen in canon?

Situating Each Circle

My fundamental argument here is that temporal distortion in Hell is more extreme at the deeper depths, in a mathematically determinable way.

If we accept that Hell has nine circles (or planes or layers), then we can assume that we’ve seen three - probably five - of them. There is Limbo, as per season 11 and stated above, in which there seems to be little to no time dilation. This makes some sense if we accept that it’s the surface-most plane*, the first circle.

We have also established what’s in the ninth circle, titled Treachery, which is the Center of Hell and The Cage. Given its depth and the lines from season 3 Sin City, we can assume that, much like Limbo, this is an off-limits zone for most demons. If we accept my argument that times moves differently at the different layers, this is where time distortion - really, time dilation - should be the most extreme. It is the furthest removed from the material plane and the deepest well (do not call it a gravity well do not call it a gravity well do not call it a - )*, dilating time and everything around it at its depths.

In between, we have seen The Rack (where Dean was tortured), we have the Throne (where Rowena sat and kept court, since many of Crowley’s ruling scenes are implied to be on the surface rather than in Hell proper, although any of Crowley’s ruling scenes would be on this same level, I imagine), we have The Dungeon (from which Sam rescued Bobby’s soul as part of the Trials), and we have the glimpse we caught of how Crowley restructured the place into endless lines as a method of torment. There’s also the space where Lilith’s horn is kept, as per the Belphegor and Cas scenes in the early episodes of Season 15. I take that to be the same level as the Throne level, since it seems to be where ruling demons would both preside and reside.

Based on the seeming lack of time distortion we tend to see (in late seasons...) when we get scenes relating the Throne level, my headcanon is that this is the second circle of Hell (Lust). In the Inferno, incoming souls are judged here and then sent to which circle their sins have them belong, so I think it’s at least somewhat fitting for this to be where the Throne is. Keeping it closer to the surface world / material plane also has some advantages if doing so minimizes time distortion, since keeping closer time with Earth allows easier monitoring of Earth and tracking of things like deals etc. It also means that higher ranking aka more powerful demons who preside here are closer to Gates of Hell and therefore have less far to travel when slipping out and onto Earth.

In contrast, I think that The Rack is pretty damn deep. There is a lot of time distortion going on to get to 1 month = 1 decade (especially if we allow that a very small amount of dilation is happening at the topmost circles, even including Limbo). This makes sense to me in that The Rack is a place of exceeding misery and horror, literally the center of Hell’s most violent and excruciating tortures.

For that reason, I place The Rack as circle seven, aptly titled Violence. This is not to be confused with the sin of Wrath, which is actually the fifth circle. Rather, the seventh circle (to quote wikipedia at least), “houses the violent”. What better way to re-interpret that in the world of SPN than that circle hosting the torturers and their tortured? Within the seventh circle are those who committed violence against neighbors, against self, and against God. What better place for someone who sold his own soul (violence against self and against God), who killed?

Of course I don’t think it’s so straightforward that violent souls get sent to The Rack. I think any damned soul can be called there for a torture session. But Dean spent his entire time in Hell on The Rack, and that can’t be standard. Bobby spent plenty of his time in hell in a cell, as per 8x19 (Taxi Driver), and demons come here to torture him.

I don’t think it’s a huge leap for me to infer that Dean was special and spent his entire time on The Rack because they were so determined to use him to break the First Seal, and that most damned souls only do short stints on there, either due to limited real estate or so that souls don’t become numb to the violence (since let’s face it, most demonic torturers probably can’t keep them in anticipation of further horror as well as Alistair can, after a few days or months being cut into.) They’re probably returned to their cells to marinate in the memory and anticipation with only minor tortures until they’re brought down again. This is what we see with Bobby and probably with the endless lineups in Crowley’s redesigned Hell.

So - without too much to go on, I’m going to tentatively place the Dungeon with Bobby and other damned souls as being in the sixth circle, Heresy. It’s a circle described as hosting souls in flaming tombs, which I think fits this notion of a dungeon with cells holding on to souls, and keeps those souls close at hand and ready for another go in the seventh circle where The Rack is held. 

And this allows me to place the endless line as actually being either in the fourth circle, Greed, or the fifth circle, Wrath. The fourth involves a nation of lost souls who, in this pit of hell, lose their individuality and become sort of empty, which fits what we see in that brief clip of the Hell line. The fifth includes a “savage self-frustration” that seems fitting of the concept of that awful endless line, with sullen and angry souls fighting each other in muck and slime.

Regardless of fourth or fifth (I have no strong sense of which fits better), I see that line as being meaningful outside (above) the sixth circle, in a torment that is less acute, as souls that are less unique and differentiated, less violent, less worthy of turning into black-eyed demons.

Because in the Inferno, there’s this critical division between the fifth vs. sixth circles as the transition between the two being the transition into “Lower Hell” and the sixth being behind guarded walls, with another steep drop from the sixth to the seventh, and so on. This makes sense to me as Lower Hell being a place where they keep the Dungeon and guard the doomed souls, whereas that place outside those walls hosting the damned but less special, less differentiated, the more generically doomed... yeah, it just makes sense to me (your mileage, as always, may vary).

This distinction is important also because of that drop down. If distance and depth are important to temporal distortion, then it matters if the first few circles of Hell involve less of a steep drop one to the next. Here we should note that the seventh circle involves three rings, and the eighth circle (Fraud, aka Malebolge, another very strong contender for the location of The Rack since it’s essentially an amphitheater for torture, so I’ll do the math both ways below)*, well the eighth is basically a funnel with 10 separate rings or steps downward.

Why does this matter? So glad you asked!

Increasing Temporal Distortion at Each Level

If you’re following the hints I’m dropping, what I’m implying about getting deeper into Hell and the further drops down at the later levels is that the time distortion in Hell does not increase linearly. It increases exponentially.

Limbo has temporal distortion that is so minor as to be barely perceptible, if perceptible at all. The Rack gives us an explicit (if fuzzy) estimate of 1 month = 1 decade in terms of perception. The Cage is implied to be much, much more than that, at the extreme end up to 2-3 minutes = 1 week in terms of perception.

If the time distortion was linear, meaning that from circle 1 to circle 2, and circle 2 to 3, and 3 to 4 and so on, we should expect that the amount of time distortion from Limbo (circle 1) to the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to be a much, much wider gap than the amount of time distortion from the Rack (circle 7 or 8) to the Cage (circle 9). Like... it should be 7-8x as much distortion.

And I mean, you could take a linear headcanon approach to it. If we accept that SPN Hell has circles or layers as is Word of God and overtly implied by the narrative time and again, you could say that there’s x amount of distortion at circle 1, and 2x at circle 2, and 3x at circle 3, etc, and this would works okay when we got the math right, but like... it’s not my preference given the way canon works.

What I mean (especially for those who hate math so might not be automatically sussing what I’m saying), is that, for example, if 10 seconds in Limbo = 1 second on Earth (sure why not) then if the time distortion increases the same way (”linearly”) at each new circle of hell, then on the Rack we get 70 seconds = 1 Earth second (or 80 seconds = 1 Earth second, if the Rack is in the eighth circle).

That specific math doesn’t check out (it equates to 23.3 years on the Rack instead of 40, or 26.7 if the Rack is the eighth circle instead of the seventh), but to figure this out we should of course work backwards starting from the 4 months = 40 years. Which tells us that each second on Earth feels like 120seconds (2 minutes) on The Rack. If that’s happening at the seventh circle, then a linear difference between each circle of hell means that the time distortion in Limbo is roughly 17 seconds for every Earth second. This math works out a little prettier if the Rack is the eighth circle because that’s an even 15 seconds for every Earth second.

To me, that’s stretching how much time distortion is implied to occur at Limbo and vastly exaggerating what we see with Sam rescuing Bobby from Hell. If Bobby is actually kept in the 6th circle, that’s 102 (7th circle) or 190 (8th circle) seconds in Hell for every second on Earth. It just didn’t seem that Sam was spending a minute and a half in Hell for every second that Dean was spending on the surface in Taxi Driver, but then again, I haven’t rewatched that episode so I’d have to double check to know for sure.

Between those implications about time distortion in Limbo and Bobby’s rescue and even the Throne room when they visit Rowena to the way Dante’s Inferno (which SPN canon clearly drew from) funnels more extremely downward the deeper you go in the circles, to what Sam’s episode of Hell memories could imply about his experience of time dilation in the Cage (assuming we accept his statement about his episode “feeling like a week” even if we don’t take that number at exactly face value)... an exponential increase just makes more sense, mathematically?

And again, for anyone who doesn’t like math or doesn’t know what that means and why I keep using this word “exponentially,” what it means is that the difference between the first circle and the second circle is not as big as the difference between the second circle and the third circle. At each depth, the intensity of the time dilation increases. So that you might not even notice the difference in time dilation between circle 1 and 2, but the difference between circle 5 and 6 is massively noticeable, and the difference between circle 8 and circle 9 is like several times even that big. Like Inception!

So let’s run some final calculations and get you your answer(s), Anon!

Some Final Math and Estimates*

Assumption 1: Equivalent Dilation

If we assume that there is no difference in time dilation from one region of Hell to another, then the ratio that Dean gives us in Season 4 is accurate for all of Hell, and 1 month (30 days) in the pit feels like 10 years. That’s 120 seconds below to every second above.

This would mean that in 18 months in the Cage, Sam experiences 180 years worth of torture.

Assumption 2: Linear Dilation Circle 7

Assuming The Rack is in the seventh circle, then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds on the Rack equates to 154 seconds in the Cage at the ninth level. That would mean that in 18 months topside, Sam’s soul spent 231.5 years in the Cage.

Assumption 3: Linear Dilation Circle 8

Assuming the Rack is in the eighth circle (which, tbh, I kind of thing makes more sense even though I argued differently above, but shhh let’s pretend otherwise), then a linear difference at each level means that 120 seconds there equates to only 202.5 years for Sam’s soul in the Cage. Slightly less awful! 

Assumption 4: Exponential Dilation Circle 7

The simple way I’m doing this is that instead of taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it x2 at the second circle, x3 at the third, and so on, I’m taking the time distortion at Limbo and making it to the power of 2 at the second circle, to the power of 3 at the third, and so on. I still have to start with The Rack being 120seconds on Earth time and work backwards to get that initial Limbo starting point before I apply the exponent, but otherwise that’s all I’m doing. There are definitely more sophisticated ways we could approach it since that’s a pretty simple linear increase in the exponent, and we could instead make the exponent itself an equation we’d derive through more complex means but... I’m really not about to do that.

So.

If we start from The Rack = 120seconds (2mins), using the exponent assumptions above, then Limbo time dilation is roughly 2 seconds (actually 1.98167 or so) in Limbo for every Earth second (works beautifully for what we see in canon, basically imperceptible), and time dilation in the ninth circle is 471 seconds (7.85 mins) per Earth second. Yes, that big of a difference, because that’s how exponents work.

This would mean that Sam’s soul spent approximately 707 years in the Cage.

What a great number! What a reasonable number, and a pretty damn canon-compliant number to headcanon. I like this number.

Assumption 5: Exponential Dilation Circle 8

As above in terms of the exponent assumptions, if the Rack is actually in the 8th circle of Hell, that much closer to the Cage, then here the math works out so that 120 seconds on the 8th circle being... roughly 2 seconds in Limbo. Because that’s how exponential functions work. It’s actually 1.81928 in Limbo vs. the previous 1.98167, but that rounds to the same thing (2 seconds) in terms of human experience, even if it makes a big difference when we take it out to the difference it makes in months, years, etc.

(But like, this is why I think it’s exponential, because this works so much better for what canon implies about the time dilation there*.) 

Anyway, here, this would mean that Sam’s soul spent roughly 327.5 years in the Cage instead of the 707 from above. That’s a big difference.

Assumption 6: Off the Rails

We can also take Sam’s statement about 2-3 minutes on Earth (having a Hell flashback) feeling like a week in the pit. If we estimate conservatively and go with every 3 Earth minutes = 1 week in Hell, depending on how we approach it (depending on if you go with minutes in a week vs. a month and which way you get to a year), you get somewhere around 5000 years (in my present calculation it’s 4984, but I also calculated it another way to get to just over 5000).

Assumption 7: 9th Circle vs. The Cage

Dante’s Inferno distinguishes between the 9th Circle on its own vs. the Center of Hell as the place where Lucifer resides, right at the deepest depths. The Cage itself is remote in Hell, distant from all other demons, enough so as to be a matter of faith to many of them. If we allow the possibility that this all means that the Cage is deeper than the ninth circle itself*, we can add another linear layer or else another exponent (take our equation to the 10 instead of to the 9).

This works out to be:

Rack 7th Circle, Linear: 257 years

Rack 8th Circle, Linear: 225 years

Rack 7th Circle, Exponential: 1400 years

Rack 8th Circle, Exponential: 596 years

Meaning this is a good place to note that... depending on the final number you want to get to, you can use whichever assumptions you want to get there and justify it by math. Remember kids, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

TL;DR!!!!!

How much time did Sam’s soul spend in the Cage? My headcanon is that he spent probably either 600 or 700 years there, on the assumption that it was 18 months between Swan Song and Appointment in Samarra, and assuming time dilation gets more extreme the deeper that you go in Hell.

For people who want to make more conservative estimates but still embed some complexity to Hell’s time dilation and/or who be more canon-compliant to other glimpses we’ve seen of Hell’s time distortion (Limbo, etc), I think anywhere from about 200 years to 330 years is perfectly reasonable.

For people who want to go with maximum whump, the sky (5000) is the limit, but you can mathematically point to up to 1400 being pretty reasonable.

*Footnotes

1. Because canon plays fast and loose with how many months exactly have gone by, and some people headcanon that only about 4 months have passed in Season 6 before Appointment in Samarra when Death pulls his soul out. I personally read it as more like 6 months having gone by and think this is the more standard headcanon, so your 180 years is the most common interpretation, and definitely the most easy to defend. I also made calculations for Sam having spent 16 months in the Cage instead of 18 months there though, if anyone is interested.

2. There is also the Vestibule in the Inferno as the opening to Hell, before the first circle, and this requires passage from Charon to cross over and into Hell proper. This is where the quote “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here” is from at the Gate of Hell, which of course is evoked in season 5 as the episode in which Jo and Ellen die.

I like to think of the Vestibule in the world of SPN as being any and all of the many Hellgates implied by canon, including the one that opens in AHBL2. No time dilation occurs within the Vestibule(s), as a person has to enter into Hell’s circles to properly separate themselves from the material plane.

3. Not getting into it here but if I ever get around to writing an original piece of fiction about angels and demons etc like I kind of want to, some of my worldbuilding will explicitly connect/relate angels to celestial bodies, like literally to stars, with the depth of hell essentially being a black hole, hence why the closer one gets to it, the greater the time dilation there is. Gravity and heat increase near the center of hell in this unbearable way, and then at the very center, like within the black hole itself, it becomes unbearably incredibly cold, like that frozen lake in which Lucifer is half-submerged in Dante’s Inferno. Lucifer existing impossibly both within and outside the event horizon. But I digress.

4. When you think about how many angels are implied to have died in order to rescue Dean’s soul, compared to how simply Sam snuck into Hell to rescue Bobby, I think the circles of Hell interpretation becomes quite important. If Dean was in the seventh or eighth circle, like especially that eighth circle, that’s so much deeper in than the Dungeon. The angels also couldn’t infiltrate subtly, methinks, and had to storm the walled and heavily guarded gates at the sixth circle, through that dungeon, then fight their way down the three rings of the seventh circle and possibly down into the amphitheater of the eighth. We know that their powers alone can’t kill a demon as powerful as Alistair even on Earth, so on their home turf in Hell, it makes sense that demons would have put up a really solid fight against the angels. This helps resolve some of my own frustration at what seems to be discrepancies in the abilities of angels and how dangerous they are to demons in canon.

5. Please be aware that all maths above involve some rounding, since I didn’t think anyone wanted the detailed decimals. I also calculated months as being 30 days and for simplicity, calculated years as being 12 months. I could rework the math into weeks with 52 weeks being a year instead, which gives slightly different numbers, but it’s work so I’m just going to go with these approximations. Also noting that I used calculated everything using excel to save myself a headache. I’m sorry if there are any errors, especially when it comes to the exponents, my brain got very tired. Please let me know if you find any.

6. When it comes to the exponential ones, if The Rack is in the 7th circle of hell, then if the Dungeon where Bobby was kept was in the 6th circle, then each Earth second is 60 seconds (1 minute) in the Dungeon. That’s more time dilation than I think canon implies, because 60 minutes (1hr) in the Dungeon is only a minute on Earth? In contrast if The Rack is in the 8th circle, then 1 Earth second is 36 seconds in the Dungeon. I honestly think both of these are more extreme than canon implies, but again, it’s been a million years since I watched that episode because it’s written by Bucklemming and I cannot stand their writing. But as a count in favor of the exponential argument instead of linear, if time dilation increases the same amount at each circle then 1 Earth second translates to 103 seconds in the Dungeon (Rack in 7th) or 90 seconds (Rack in 8th), both of which are a lot more dilation than our exponential account.

7. For simplicity, I’ve also ignored the different rings which occur at the 7th and 8th circles. Those would, of course, change the math here as well, and we could add another linear or exponential step for each of those rings. That would lead to some crazy numbers because we’re talking about 13 additional steps. Linearly we’d add a few thousand years, but exponentially we’re starting to talk about a geological timescale. I don’t think it’s productive to make that extreme of an assumption about those rings, but I think we could comfortably stretch the distance between the 7th circle and the pit in which Lucifer’s cage sits at the deepest depths of hell if we wanted to, if you wanted to reasonably get closer to that 5000 years estimate.

8. Since your ask mentioned it, Anon, I realize I don’t touch on Enochian in this post but I have two tag-rambles about my thoughts on enochian and I thought I had a proper post on it somewhere but can’t find it. I could/should probably make a post with a tumblr ficlet about that, since I started drafting a canon-divergent post-Hell fic with Sam and Enochian and there’s like... no chance I’ll ever finish it. But anyway.