"Wait a second, does that mean… that we are slaves?!"
"Yes, we are slaves." (The beaten man calmly responded.)
"What do we do then?" (Zeren asked.)
"We do nothing, even if the two of us escape this place we'll be found and brought back like it happened to you. Just accept your fate and live like a slave like I am doing."
"There's no way that I'm going to spend my life working as a slave."
"It's your choice, I won't force you to do anything but beware of the consequences that come along with trying to escape, you'll be having yours really soon."
"Well, that worries me, I have to ask you a question though. When you die, do you come back to life?"
"Yes, every human does, I think it's because of a punishment in this place, we have to live our life with suffering or something like that. Though I have seen humans who have become demons, when they die.. it's over for them." (The beaten man said with a gaze that seemed to remember the past.)
"Do you know anything else about this place?"
"Yeah, Right now we are in a more 'civilized' part of hell. Every single demon except some slave demons knows how to communicate, they have cities, towns, and all of that stuff. We have this, and there's also the more primitive part of hell where there are literal forests and the likes of that, there are some really powerful demons in those places from what I've heard."
"Good to know, wait a second, how do you know all of this? And we are in literal hell?!" (Zeren asked with an incredulous tone in his voice.)
"Are you stupid? Of course we are in hell! I know all of this stuff because I've probably been here for more than fifty years. That's a guess, it may be more than that."
"Damn that's tough, I can't imagine living five months in here but you have lived here for over fifty years."
"Living as a slave is not easy but what can I do? It's not like I can escape or anything."
"I don't know how hard it's to escape from this place but I have two more questions, why are we in a cage and why can't my abdomen heal if you happen to know?"
"We are in a cage because we are slaves like I told you, it's only a matter of time before the demons come and get us to work. About your abdomen I have no idea, so far all of the people that I've met recover when they die."
"I see, that's a shame. I know that I said that those were the two last questions but what do we do in the slave work?"
"We mine for precious minerals in a nearby cave, they work us to death, literally."
"Okay." (Zeren said before stopping the conversation and indulging himself in his thoughts.)
Minutes passed in silence until a demon showed himself outside of the cage. He had deep purple skin, a hideous face, twenty eyes, nose slits, and dark short hair.
"Time to work, get your pickaxes and go to the mine, if I don't see you two in the next five minutes y'all will receive a punishment." (The purple demon said with a deep voice before opening the cage door.)
Zeren and the beaten man rose up from the floor and walked towards the exit. Just before Zeren left the cage he was stopped by the demon.
"Wait a second, I remember you, you're the person who escaped the camp, follow me, you'll receive punishment." (He said before walking a considerable distance away without looking back.)
"It's my chance!" (Zeren said as he watched the purple demon before running away.)
The beaten man looked at Zeren and moved his head side to side in disappointment and pity.
"Poor guy, he just had to run away. Haa, he will learn from his mistakes." (The beaten man said before walking towards the mine.)
Zeren was running away when he suddenly felt something was wrong. "Huh, Is that my body? Why is the head missing?" Those we're Zeren last words before he died again.
'Another one that tried to be funny, when will they understand that it's pointless trying to run away from us? Doesn't matter.' (The purple demon thought before grabbing the headless body of Zeren along with his head and bringing it back with him.)
———————-
"Urgh! Where am I." (A groggy Zeren said while looking around.)
'This seems to be a small cage, I wonder what's going to happen to me now, I definitely died, I'm starting to believe that there's no escape from this place, that demon was so fast that I couldn't see him even when I died.' (Zeren thought with a frown on his face.)
Zeren kept on thinking until his thoughts were interrupted by an orange colored skin demon that's missing half of his jaw.
"Escaping and trying to escape again it's definitely unforgivable. We'll torture you until we think it's enough, but as a reminder, don't ever try to escape again if you don't want to receive a harsher punishment." (The orange demon advised.)
"I understand, can y'all please let me off the hook this time? I promise to behave myself." (A scared Zeren asked.)
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY! I'm being merciful here and you want to be let off the punishment?! You know what, you'll be tortured until I'm satisfied, the next time you think about saying something remotely similar to what you just said, you'll loose the will to live after I personally take control of the torture!" (The orange demon shouted in anger.)
"I'm very sorry, I really am, please let m hmmf-"
"Don't talk while I'm talking!" (The demon said while gripping Zeren's mouth.)
"I'm tired of this, wait here until I come back, if you even think about escaping, you know the consequences." (The orange demon said while walking out of the cage.)
"Damn it! I just had to ruin it, what do I do? Wait to be tortured, or try to escape, escaping seems impossible right now seeing as I'm locked and tied in place on this chair like thing, FUCK! Guess I'll have to wait then." (A scared and angry Zeren thought.)
After a few minutes, a red demon with six buff arms showed up.
"This is the troublemaker?" (The red demon asked while entering the cage.)
"Are you stupid? Of course it is, now punish him, idiot!" (The orange demon shouted with aggression.)
"Yeah yeah, Don't worry, I'll have a lot of fun with him, hehehe."