Into The Abyss

Caleb

Was that a breeze?

Not a hot gust of dry smokey air, but an actual to-goodness breeze? It was so un-hot that it was almost cold. The Thing – as I have now decided to call my captor – shuddered with a pause at the different air coming towards us from our destination.

Did hell have a cold section? Like did people get frozen punishment also? Asking for a friend. Not like I might need to know this in my immediate future. Right?

And then it happened. A hallway appeared. Right ahead of us. Like a regular hallway. Slightly larger than you’d see in say an office building. Maybe something more like in a school.

Wide. Unnecessarily tall. Unless you remembered that demons came in tall, very tall, unnecessarily tall, giant, and titan sizes. The last two sizes would not fit in this hallway. Also, were schools really somehow connected to hell like so many of us kids believe and that’s why so many have such large hallways?

Okay. That was an irrelevant thought. But come on.

It was a white…ish? Off-white? Beige? Oh heck I couldn’t tell what color it was. The tiles were light with speckles of grey and tan, just like the ceiling tiles.

Florescent lights shone brightly. Humming contentedly. Except for that one. You know the one. The one that flickered. Every place I’ve ever been with fluorescent lights had that one light that flickered.

And that other one that was dark because no one bothered to replace it. But we don’t talk about the burnt-out light because if we pretend it isn’t there it doesn’t have to be replaced. If people can see without it why should it get replaced? Because the lighting plan wouldn’t have included that light if it wasn’t needed for full illumination, Mrs. Cotton. That’s why half the class doesn’t take notes, because we can’t see to read our own fucking handwriting.

Even just seeing that burnt-out un-replaced light makes my eye start twitching. This…oh this was truly hell. Because the dead light was covered in dust. Ash from the smiths and dust.

Anyplace where a person had to work without full lighting was diabolically evil.

Then we passed the light, and the doors upon doors leading off on one side of the hallway. The side facing the interior of hell. The wall on the exterior wall of hell was covered in workplace corporate propaganda.

I’d seen stuff like this at my mom’s job. ‘Lift with your knees.’ ‘Your duties on the job.’ ‘Be kind to your coworkers.’ And tally boards for competitions. ‘Most Souls Tortured’, ‘Most Souls Converted’, ‘Weapons Productivity’. There were even ‘Employee of The Century’ plaques for different departments.

“Hmm…congrats to Jerry from accounting.” I mumbled sarcastically. The thing under me grumble-burped something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Fuck Jerry!’

“You don’t like Jerry from accounting?” I turned to glare down at what I had determined to be ‘Mr. Thing’s’ head. As I suspected that area of The Thing stretched and swiveled up toward me, and a string of popping burbles spewed forth his complaints against Jerry. It lasted a…while.

And… I could have sworn, and I have nothing to prove this because I couldn’t understand a single word that ‘Thing’ was saying. But I could have sworn that it had something to do with teddy bears? Yes. That’s right. Teddy bears. And trains? And cookies.

“Ah. I see. Jerry’s a jerk.” I got a slurping sound of agreement that could…vaguely…been interpreted as ‘Jerry’s a JERK!’ I had apparently not said it ALL CAPS enough.

“Well, fuck Jerry then!” I shot back at Mr. Thing. This was the first opportunity I’d had to connect with my captor in any way and I was hoping that maybe if it, he, it, liked me. Maybe it would be inclined to take me home?

Thing agreed with a sound that could only have been an agreement. A smacking cackle that definitely gave the angry righteous impression that he was yelling ‘FUCK JERRY!’.

Then as if it had suddenly caught itself, it put a tentacle to his sound hole – I was not going to call it a mouth – and hunched down into itself. Its tentacles drew closer, and it made a shooshing sound with one tentacle poised in front of its sound hole like a finger. It blushed an algae-green over its semi-transparent surface becoming even more oily wherever the color crept.

Suddenly I felt kind of bad for Thing. It hadn’t wanted to kidnap me. It didn’t want to go to the green rooms. It just wanted to hang out with its other demon coworkers and talk shop and not deal with that jerk Jerry from accounting.