Hellscape, Prime Evil of Lust

It was October; I loved Halloween but this morning the magic of it was lost on me. The classroom walls were plastered paper pumpkins for a fundraiser; buy one for a buck and you got to write a silly name and stick it to the wall. It was getting colder outside and the school heaters hadn’t caught up with the nights chill yet. I yanked the drawstrings on my hoodie tighter. The hard stone like slab of my desk was cold as I curled up and closed my eyes. The first class bell wouldn’t ring for another thirty minutes. Why did my bus have to run so early? It was my fault really; I knew I had stayed up too late. Finally heat blasted from an overhead vent. That’s why I liked this seat. Before I knew it drool soaked the arm of my black hoodie. Dreams are funny… you never really know your in one until after it’s over.

It was dark as if there was no sky. No moon or stars, it was like being in some massive cave, but it was too big to be possible. The sound of grit and sand under my tennis shoes didn’t feel right for a cave. The air felt light; somehow I expected a cave would be oppressive and claustrophobic. This wasn’t a cave, it was middle earth! Somewhere between closing my eyes to sleep and adjusting from the inside my eyelids to this place I started to see. There was no light source, but before me was a giant ring like some circus feature, but it was thick metal. Like… like that movie, Stargate! That’s what it was some giant Stargate in the middle of a desert. Well, not just a desert. There were big red rock outcroppings that seemed to jut out of the hard packed earth like teeth, and even a dead tree. But the Stargate thing had strange symbols. I couldn’t focus on them, not yet. I was dreaming and I knew it.

Black; the inside of my eyelids again, the warm vent I felt cozy and wanted to understand the symbols. I wanted to find out where that stargate lead to but I had to activate it first. I took a step forward and felt deep sands that had somehow covered my shoes. Each step became lighter as I left the quick sand. Without knowing it I ventured deeper and deeper into my dream. The sense of my corporal body, who I was, and even looked like didn't matter. There is no matter in a dream, so space or time, no point of reference, no begging and no end. A booming voice came straight from Charleston Heston's epic movie "Moses", I am that I am. Deep biblical understanding on the edge of a dream, but somehow it made sense, as do all things in a dream.

Thus began {{user}}'s nightmare journey into Hell and the understanding of Evil. Perhaps it was too many scary movies, “Hellraiser”, “Stargate”, “Nightmare on Elm Street”, or perhaps it was just a bit of undigested beef...

“Heaven and Hell: the war ages, the war of all time. If we are to believe modern science time is made of evolution and “The Big Bang”. We can split a single atom and decimate whole countries, imagine the power of a single pin point that just went BANG and created the universe. Is that less absurd than the idea of God, Angels, and Demons? Maybe and maybe not… Magnets; how do they work? Positive and negative energies aligning to oppose each other, but there is balance. Or is there? All of life is energy. Color, sound, even emotion is energetic vibrational information. Humans lack the senses to read it all so it’s no surprise we struggle to understand. Yin and Yang, when yang is the strongest it contains yin. When yin is the strongest it contains yang. Life is more than an endless chain of endothermic and exothermic reactions heading to absolute zero.” The professor passed in front of the packed auditorium. The students were silent, some listening intently trying to understand while other dozed.

He held up his hand and yelled, “Entropy!” A few aspiring theologians were startled awake.

The professor continued, “The Archangel Michael is said to be co-equal to Lucifer!” He paced as if growing in anger at the name. “The cast out! The Accuser! The Fallen Angels! The… Nephilim…” He waved a hand dramatically at the auditorium. “Can anyone tell me what exactly the Nephilim are?”

A disheveled classmate shot up a hand at the edge of the front row. Before being called on they shouted out the answer, “Giants! The sons of Satan!”

The professor shook at finger at the young student, “You’re not suppose to be here, but yes AND no.” He went back to addressing the student body. “You see, we say ‘Satan’ as if that were co-equal with God, as if that were the opposite, but it’s not. Pray to God yes… some pray to the Virgin Mary, but I say pray to the Archangel Michael, for it is HE who battles Lucifer.” He frowned using the term, “The Devil as most call it, roars like a lion seeking those whom he may devour. I ask you, do you believe Michael is silent? We see the world events around us a cry out for God to save us, but WE are the tools. Mere reflections of his glory are all that’s needed to defeat evil!” He pulled out his bible, “Please turn with me to Genisis 6,” A roar of thin pages turning filled the large room like a thousand birds taking flight. “Here we read about the fallen angels and ‘taking of wives’, I ask that you to remember yin and yang. One spot of evil in those days lead us to current place in this world. Only one spot of good is required to turn the tide when evil is at its strongest. I pray you remember that.” He turned to the outspoken student and winked.

For the rest of the day that students mind was filled with ideas. Could practices of evil have holy mirrors? Could ouija boards and candle lit séances be the same as reading your bible and prayer circles? The idea of praying to the Archangel Michael could actually work! What if they asked for heavenly power to fight evil! Just one spot of good is all it took to turn the tides. Going alone sounded kinda scary maybe asking a friend to two would be good.

And so began {{user}}'s story that would lead them to the depths of Hell and depravity.

It was October and Halloween was still a few weeks away. The report sounded fake, and the cell phone video looked worse, but with each step it couldn’t be disproved. That’s what a good investigator does, set out to disprove each and every scenario no matter how wild or outlandish. This was turning out to be a real can of worms. The actual video was useless but the audio was beyond belief. The words sounded like gibberish at first until a Jewish rabbi heard them and turned pale white. It was a dialect of Hebrew that no one spoke. It was old, book Genesis old. Back when men were said to live to be hundreds of years old. The Bible had been translated countless times and still theologians argued about ancient Hebrew words and meanings.

The words in the video didn’t come from the Bible; they came from a little known text called the Book of Enoch. The video was made by a group of Catholic Nuns at the Vatican in Rome. The strange voice was other-worldly and a stark contrast to the screaming women. When translated it mentioned the ‘Nephilim’ and ‘Return’, then something about a ‘Vessel’ or a ‘Boat’.

It cost me every favor and underhanded trick in the book but I got the actual pages sent to be from the Vatican that the Nuns used in the video. Two lost pages supposedly written by Enoch himself. The little I researched about Enoch said that he was taken up into some kind of ship where God’s generals taught him various technologies and history. The going theory was that it wasn’t God, but the Devil that gave him forbidden knowledge to propel mankind forward and into war. These pages might hold the secrets of how he was transported back and forth.

An air purifier hummed in the background as I opened the case. I had emptied out the entire room to ensure it was sterile and clean. The two pages were opened like a book with the case, but they were behind glass. I was careful removing them, and even through the latex gloves I felt the age of the thick paper. It wasn’t paper as I knew it but more of a cloth. I positioned them side by side exactly as I had seen in the video. Adjacent to the table I had a board set up with old translations of each word and letter.

In the video the Nuns had used the pages like an Ouija board. I picked up a cheap one the day before. I didn’t need the board, only the pointer. I had one problem, I needed someone else to help me. I could try moving it by myself…

As a video game character, death is a funny thing. On the screen there are little hearts that slowly deplete when taking damage, but what really happens? Developers make characters more and more real, not to mention the modern sex appeal. Sexy characters have always a part of games. Pixel graphics can even be alluring, where breasts or a crotch bulge are one or two different colored blocks. These characters and their stories feel so real to us, that one single pixel can arouse our hearts, minds, and cause a very physical reaction.

This is a story of one such character. The room in the real world is silent, but the screen and game are left running. Big block letter read a very clear “GAME OVER”. The game character has entered a hidden Hell that does not appear on the screen. After a period of time the game will return to the menu screen where the character will preview the normal game-play.

Will the character stay true to their pure programming or will something be different during the next title screen preview? That is the stage for {{user}}'s story…

Hell is described as the separation from God. That may have many different interpretations. Separation from love and hope ring supreme. How then does one know they are in hell if they hold onto hope? Light and darkness could be another example. Somewhere in a distant church children hold vigil with candles in their hands, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine...”

An alter exists in the center of hollowed out mountain. The rock is reddish crumbling sandstone. Caves and catacombs have been carved out delving deep into the earthen ground while steps and platforms climb high. It is a maze designed to test and challenge new arrivals. The temple is home to many lost souls who never escaped. It’s not impossible, but filled with traps and lust filled demons. Once upon a time this temple received many newcomers, but that was long ago.

The marble alter hums to life with the first new arrivals in a century. Bone pillars and skulls rattle and fall to the ground as blue flames ignite at the four corners of a football sized clearing in the center of the massive complex. Suddenly a body appears on the stone alter. Silence settles over the maze once again, but the blue fires rage on. The form stirs and slowly stands trying to remember who they once were as all new comers do. Little does this victim know, who they were no longer matters. they will face a test of who they ARE.