Chapter 3: Hell

Chapter 3: Hell

There was a way to tell how much time had passed when one fell asleep. Not down to an hour, but it was possible to feel it. The mind might just be extrapolating how much time passed based on how high the sun was or the individual’s sleeping habits.

When Neave opened his eyes, he felt like an eternity had passed since he died. It wasn’t like falling asleep. It didn’t resemble passing out. There was an element of oblivion that severed his existence. Now he had arrived at a place he could only describe in a single word.

Hell.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was standing upright. He felt relatively well rested. There was no fatigue, no muscular pain, no hunger, and no thirst. He still felt the vague aches his body had suffered from all the beatings, but it was nothing unusual. Neave, however, noticed none of this. The only thing he felt was panic.

And despair.

Gray, smoggy clouds clouded the sky with a red, backlit by an ominous red glow. The ground was rusty red, with pools of noxious liquids scattered here and there. In the distance, there were impossibly tall, jagged mountains. There was no growth, only obsidian bushes with sharp, twisted branches—the air stank of sulfur, blood, and smoke.

And rot.

Slowly shambling toward him was a creature. A vaguely humanoid creature with gray, rough skin, no eyes, and a large, toothy mouth. Neave had read many books covering mythological subjects, and only one creature that fit the description.

A demon.

Neave ran. He sprinted as fast as he could away from the thing chasing him. As he dashed, he dodged pools of blood, rifts in the ground, abysses with jagged spikes protruding the walls with green, glowing gasses filling their depths.

He looked back constantly. He was putting the demon further behind him. Neave neither relented nor slowed down. Instead, he constantly darted his eyes over the environment, looking for whatever other monstrosities might show up.

But there was nothing.

The adrenaline wore off at a certain point, and he collapsed onto the putrid, dusty soil on a small hill. He gasped for breath, choked on the toxic dust, and took a second to calm down. The demon was far out of sight at this point. There seemed to be nothing else chasing him.

For now.

The sense of despair deepened as he looked around the hellscape.

No matter what direction, all he saw were the endless, rolling hills jagged with spiky stone and obsidian growth. The only notable landmarks made the feelings of misery worse.

Mountains so tall they disappeared into the smoky atmosphere. Pools and lakes of blood, pus, acid, and black ooze. Massive rifts into shimmering, glowing abysses filled with spikes, gas, or pure darkness.

He was thirsty. Neave felt parched from the dry air. There was no water anywhere in sight. His desperation drove him to lick the sweat off his arms. He searched around his robes and didn’t find the food pills either. Had he dropped them?

Neave had no idea where to begin. What to do from here? Where to go? He sat there frozen, desperately searching for a plan; for any shred of hope he could latch on to.

This place had no sense of time. Nothing but thirst and exhaustion could even begin to clue Neave in about how long he had been here.

Just as he thought he couldn’t get any more desperate, he noticed a small black dot moving toward him. The creature was catching up.

Neave wanted to cry, but no water could wet his eyes. They hurt as he whimpered and got up.

He ran in the other direction. Neave stumbled into pools of blood and tripped over the sharp shrubbery, cutting his legs. He bled precious drops and felt them dripping down, mixing with the putrid blood.

Several times, he just barely avoided dropping into pits of certain death.

He couldn't tell if he'd been running for hours or days.

And the thirst was driving him insane.

He felt his body stiffening. His eyes were so dehydrated his vision blurred. It was becoming impossible to breathe. The desperation finally got the better of him, and he took a small sip from a pool of blood. It tasted of despair, rot, and death. He got up and walked. His footsteps slowed. He dragged himself forward, losing all feeling, first in his arms, then his legs, and finally, his stomach.

Neave gagged. He raised his shaky hand and touched the near-black blood dripping from his mouth.

Was it his blood? Or the blood he drank?

Or was it both?

It doesn’t matter anyway.

He thought as he fell over face-first to the ground.

Dead.

When he finally opened his eyes, he was standing upright. He felt relatively well rested. There was no fatigue, no muscular pain, no hunger, and no thirst. He still felt the vague aches his body had suffered from all the beatings, but it was nothing unusual. Neave, however, noticed none of this. The only thing he felt was panic.

After all, he was back in the beginning. The demon slowly stumbled towards him. Tears ran down his face. He was rehydrated. He was in one piece.

And had to go through all of that again.

Neave ran. He ran like mad, clumsily fumbling over a rock and dropping into a pit. A jagged spike ran through his head, killing him instantly..

And then he woke up. He was standing in the same place again. He felt madness creep into his mind, threatening to tear his soul into pieces. And then, yet again, he started running. He ran and ran as far as he could until he slipped off a rock and broke his neck. He didn’t die instantly but sat there, crumpled and broken, as his life slowly drained from his eyes.

And then woke up again. Ran. Fell into a pool of acid. Died.

And then woke up again. Ran. Then he died from thirst.

And then woke up again. Ran. Fell into a pit of poisonous gas. Died.

And then woke up again. Ran. The skies broke, and it started raining black ooze. It solidified on his skin, and he suffocated, unable to move or breathe. He died.

Drowned in a river of blood.

Impaled on obsidian thorns.nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.

Melted by acid rain.

Time and time again, he woke up at the same start, ran in a random direction, and found nothing but new ways to die. But he went back every time. And ran. He explored every bit of land he could reach before dying.

After some time, he no longer fell into pits. He no longer tripped or stumbled into spiky bushes of death. He realized that when he died, the same events happened in the same order, so he knew where it would rain blood, acid, tar, or pus and avoided those places. But he could not outrun exhaustion or thirst.

He looked into his robes. The bottle of food pills wasn’t there even at the start.

His desperation clawed at him. He felt his misery deepening endlessly as the agony threatened to tear him apart. He ran at the demon and swung at it in his desperation. His tantrum punches were like soft taps on the demon’s tough flesh. It pulled its arm back and clawed his chest out.

Neave died from the injury, but in his stubbornness, he ran at the demon again.

It grabbed his head.

“No... Please...”

Its claws sank into Neave’s skull, and the demon violently pulled his head off.

Neave looked at the demon again, shaking and stepping back in terror. He vividly remembered the feeling of his spine being pulled out of his back, and he screamed.

He sprinted away again, finding the same deaths lurking behind every corner. The demon was an ever-present threat stalking him in the distance, but it could only move so quickly. Eventually, he ran slower, so he could make it further before the exhaustion and thirst caught up. Then he walked instead, slowly, in every direction. He had even more time like this and was still faster than the demon.

So he walked, now reaching further and discovering more. Eventually, the discoveries dried up. The same deaths repeated enough times to become... Dull.

The tip of the branch pierced its skin, causing a bit of red blood to flow out. Huh, so it bled red... For some reason, Neave hadn't expected that, nor had he foreseen the demon's violent reflex to its injury. It grabbed his arm, pulled him towards itself, and sank its claws into his face.

Restart.

Neave kept repeating the same strategy and felt like he was progressing.

Not enough, however. At a certain point, he felt himself stagnating. The demon was just that much stronger than he was. It was faster, tougher, and heavier. Its claws were a much more reliable weapon than Neave’s obsidian branch, which kept breaking or cutting his own hands.

Neave was no warrior and he had no idea how to use a weapon. Through improvisation, trial, and error, he could perhaps eventually develop some sort of martial art, but he was quickly losing hope that it would matter. The biggest problem was his lack of physical weight and the poor quality of his weapons.

Not to mention the fact that every time Neave died, he went back in time. That meant there was no progress of any kind regarding his physical strength. While he could injure the demon, no matter how many shallow cuts he landed, his opponent simply refused to die.

He had even finally managed to land a strike on what looked like a major artery. The demon bled profusely for a couple of seconds, but the bleeding slowed. It seemed like he’d have to land a much better strike several times to kill the demon. Maybe that would be plausible with a better weapon, but the fucking shitty branches kept breaking. So he instead dropped the stick and decided to try a different strategy.

He ran from the demon until he reached a steep incline. Then he climbed until he reached a foothold, grabbed the largest rock he could pick up, and threw it down on the demon's head. The resounding thunk made Neave feel like the demon's skull must have cracked open, and the demon collapsed onto the ground. However, it quickly got up to its feet.

This stubborn...

Before it had the time to get up, Neave was already grabbing another stone and throwing it. The demon blocked the rock with its arm. Neave paused in shock and grabbed another one. The demon had already gotten up by now and was already walking forward. Neave threw the stone down at the demon, but it smacked it aside with its arm.

At this moment, Neave realized he was stuck halfway up a steep incline, and his only two options were to jump off and break his legs or get killed by the demon. He looked for another rock to throw at the demon but found none. His rock-resistant nemesis was already climbing up the hill.

Oh well...

Restart.

Neave decided to change his strategy again. He led the demon toward a somewhat deep pool of blood. Then he approached it and tried pushing it in.

Restart.

That was a stupid idea. This time, rather than pushing the demon into the pool of blood, he grabbed a branch and used it to push its head. The demon was too heavy for a small child to topple, so Neave tried to get it out of balance by striking its jugular vein, which usually got it to lean backward.

Restart.

And also retaliate by caving Neave’s skull in.

Brilliant.

Now this time, Neave picked up a relatively heavy rock, baited the demon over to a pool, and threw the large stone at its head. To Neave’s tremendous surprise, this managed to topple the demon backward, and it fell into the pool of blood. And then it just swam out.

“Okay, what the hell! I’m certain the blood is poisonous! Your big stupid gaping mouth must have gurgled half a basin of it in there! Don’t you dare try getting back out”

Neave angrily stomped over to the demon and kicked its face to get it back into the pool. The demon opened its gaping maw, bit Neave’s leg, and dragged him into the pool.

Restart.

“That’s how you want to play, huh?”

This time, rather than pushing the demon into a pool of blood, he instead tried to get the demon to step close to the ledge of a pit. However, the demon simply refused to get baited into doing that.

“Okay, what the fucking shit now? Are you afraid of heights or something, you pussy? Huh? The big tough demon can’t handle a little hole?” Neave was furious. He walked over to the demon, jumped, and slapped it on its bald head.

Restart.

Now this time, he’d get the demon. He would push the demon into a tar pit rather than a blood pool. He got the demon into position, threw a rock at its head, and it fell into the pool.

“Ha... Hahaha. HAHAHAHA. Serves you right! You fucking bitch. Eat my shit.” He then pulled his robes back and swung his backside at the demon with a flourish.

It rolled around in the pit of black liquid, clearly struggling to move but still alive. And to Neave’s great distress, it started crawling back out onto the surface.

“No, no, no, no, back. BACK!” Neave pushed the demon into the pit with his entire body.

However, the black ooze hardened, and he got stuck to the demon. The demon slowly moved its hand to Neave’s neck and strangled him.

Restart.

Neave repeated the same thing. However, this time, instead of pushing the demon back, he let it walk back out. He forgot that the ooze hardened when exposed to air, so the demon would just get trapped and suffocate.

Which was exactly what happened. Well, the trapped part did, at least for a while. The demon got encased in the now solid black substance, but it shuffled in its black shell until it crumbled away and started walking over to Neave again. Neave jumped into the pool of tar.

Restart.

This time, rather than let the demon leave, Neave had decided he would pile stones up onto the demon to keep it from leaving the pool. He did that, but the demon just refused to die. It didn't need any air, so all he achieved was trapping it. As the demon wiggled around for a long time in the black pool, Neave realized he would die from thirst again before the demon drowned.

Sigh...

He wasn’t out of ideas, however. This time, he had replicated the same thing with a pool of acid. After the demon casually swam back out it looked... Shiny. Brand new, even.

Neave realized that the demon was dirty. And the pool of acid was little more than a lovely bath. Its dirty, discolored gray was now replaced with a much prettier metallic color. Neave jumped, this time into the pool of acid.

Restart.

Not one of the things he had tried so far had worked. Was this demon immortal? He had to wonder. He could have also tried throwing it into the pool of pus, but he didn’t hold very high hopes for that.

It would be pretty funny, though.

Spite moved Neave’s heart, and he thought back to the closest pool of pus. They were significantly rarer than all the other liquids. There was one relatively nearby after crossing that suspension bridge. It was a bit of a jog but...

...

Wait a minute.

The suspension bridge! How had he forgotten about that!? He just had to cut the ropes if he could get the demon to walk onto the suspension bridge!

The suspension bridge hung over a long ravine that stretched into the horizon in both directions. Neave peeked down into the canyon, failing to see the bottom of it. Quite a few jagged spikes were protruding from the walls. If his plan worked, the demon would be sliced apart and torn to bits.

Neave moved over to the other side of the bridge and waited with trepidation.

It approached. And took a step onto the bridge. Then another. And then another. And Neave then, with one of the obsidian branches, cut the ropes. The demon plummeted into the abyss below. Neave saw it fly into a jagged spike as it tore its side out. The demon fell a bit further down, what remained of its body impaled on a sharp protrusion.

It didn’t move. Neave shook in joy. He finally...

Step...

Step...

Neave turned around.

There were two demons, just like the first one, walking toward him.

Restart.