I hesitated to reach out to grab that hand though I knew the safety and comfort it would provide me I hesitated. Why did I hesitate? I wonder Why did I not reach out for the salvation I had been seeking? I finally worked up the courage, the strength and the trust to reach out and take that hand… Something tied my body, something came out from the lake of fire and bound my body preventing me from moving and trying to pull me in the only free thing was that hand I was trying to stretch out to reach salvation. I struggled, I fought, I forced my hand to reach but, the more I fought the more chains tried to bind me and the more I struggled the further away the hand seemed finally after a tug of war with these chains, after I managed to stretch my hand out far enough I felt a piercing pain in my lower right back and my hand dropped. I turned my head to the right slowly to get a glimpse of what pierced my back and I discovered that there was a dagger attached to a chain that was coming from the lake. I saw my blood, my life force as it poured out of me and the blood seep slowly away from me and into the lake of fire. A tear had managed to escape from my eye as I caught my final glimpse of salvation… then the chains pulled me into the fire and the hand was even further away from me, so far it was impossible to reach.
The heavens had closed their doors to me and the hand disappeared and that was when I thought to myself. This Is why nothing good ever comes from love, joy, faith or hope, nothing good ever happens to those who believe and this is why I never believed. No that isn't right, this is why I had stopped believing all those years ago. In promises, in people and most of all in help because no one can help you. No one could help me then and no one could help me now. I'm sure it's the lack of belief that got me to this.
Preventing me from reaching paradise along with Akiko but yet it's having that same faith and hope that got me to where I am as of this moment. And after so long I finally decided to have hope one more time and it was taken away from me just like that. So easily? It takes so much to love, to hope, to feel, to care, to want, to have hope and faith and yet it takes nothing for all that to go away, for all of that to be destroyed in a flash and torn down in front of you.
"I'm sorry… Akira"
I entered into the lake of fire but the chains continued to drag me further down. It looks like I'm going even deeper I guess that's where scum like me belongs. I shut my eyes to the world and my ears to my suffering
"I won't be able to see you again, but at least you're in paradise and with that. Knowing that I'm happy"
You know that isn't true. You know you're not happy. You know you're lying to yourself so why do you keep going at it?! Why do you keep lying?! It kills you that you can't be with her in paradise and that you're here so why go on with the charades?
Oh, just shut up. You know just as well as I even if I admit it to myself. Even If I shout it out right now for all of hell to hear it won't change what's already happened. Nothing will so just stay quiet inside me and let's just burn. The chains kept on dragging me deeper in and so it continued as though it had no end.
Why hasn't it ended?
Where am I going?
Just where are these chains taking me?
Is there some depth these chains wish to take me?
The chains tug me back and forth violently. I can't say that there's an end in sight for me, maybe I should open my eyes and try to see.
In this lake of fire?
Are you mad?
Have you lost your mind from grief?
The pressure is too much, you're holding your breath as you are dragged further down. How do you wish to see inside a lake of fire?
Won't it burn my eyelids?
But it hasn't yet! Keep them closed!
But?
Keep them closed
The chains stop
It seems as though I've reached my stop, which is what I had thought before I was flung to my right then upward. I felt my body brush up against concrete and then I was thrown through a wall.
"That should be the end"
I said as I coughed up blood from my innards but the chains still wanted to rough me up a bit. They flung me several feet into the air and built up momentum and suddenly stopped. All the force they had built up was used to hurl me into the fire.
The chains that bound me had let go of me and when I could finally move I noticed I had a foothold so, I planted my feet in it firmly and rose out of the fire dramatically screaming. I was finally able to open my eyes and when I looked around me all I saw was suffering
Not too far from where I stood behind me were creatures ripping people apart eating them alive and some dead. In one's mouth, I saw the head of a child it had ripped out from the pregnant woman's belly and the other two monsters fought over the woman's leftovers tearing her to bits in the process
Her neck was partly severed from her body so her head extended off her neck a bit and turned facing my direction. The look in her eyes was of despair and emptiness, I watched as a tear dropped from her eye and she said to me run. Even from that distance, I was able to tell what it was she was telling me, the words that were coming out of her mouth, I could understand them perfectly but I couldn't move because I was paralyzed by fear. After she said her last words the creatures finished her off and devoured every last bit of her. Flesh, bone and blood nothing went to waste
I had noticed the walls surrounding us had imitations of water falls but instead of water it was lava that was pouring in, I looked upward and I could not see the sky or even an end just the smoke and steam rising from the fire I was standing in and monsters with wings hovering over me.
"I guess we were that deep huh?"