"Ahh," Wallace gasped for breath as he looked around. His face darkened as he remembered everything that had happened to him.
"Is this the place dead people go to?" he thought as he looked around. The place was fiery hot, with tongues of flames dancing around. He looked forward and saw flames with temperatures that could melt the strongest metal on earth in a second.
"Is this hell?" he thought as he laughed out loud.
"I was betrayed, and now I'm in hell," he said, laughing out loud.
"What have I done to deserve hell? I've always been careful not to do anything that goes against God. Why am I even here?" He shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Shut your mouth up," a voice was heard, and a man appeared in front of him. The man was clad in black and had a normal human figure, except for the cracks running through his skin and the thick magma coursing through the cracks, along with fangs protruding out of his mouth and claws protruding out from his fingers.
"This is hell, a place where everyone comes through after death. Coming here means no turning back," the man said.
"What about heaven?" Wallace asked.
"It's a fallacy, just a belief spread by the celestials to gain more power of faith from humans. The more power of faith, the more powerful the ruler of heaven is," the figure answered.
"Everyone in heaven is created by Arishem, the ultimate ruler of the celestials. It's cut off from the universe, and they don't accept souls," the figure answered.
"My whole life has been a joke, and now the belief I had always clung to is also a mere lie," Wallace smiled self-deprecatingly.
"Everything about the creation of the world has also always been a lie," he asked.
"Well, not everything is a lie, but the creation is definitely a lie. The universe and every life in it were naturally formed. Arishem was just the earliest creation of the universe, and due to some fortuitous encounter in the universe itself, he evolved and cut himself away from the universe, creating a realm himself and also creating underlings. The leader of hell, Lucifer, was once the most trusted subordinate of Arishem. He is in charge of collecting souls from the universe and giving them to Arishem to make the latter stronger," the figure answered.
"Time passed, and Arishem continued to get stronger, but there was a problem with Lucifer. He is capable of evolution. He evolved into a being that's broken free from the control of Arishem, an immortal. He ran away from the heaven realm while also taking the Karot with him. The Karot is the ultimate treasure that allows Lucifer to control and collect souls from the universe. Using the Karot, he created a unique environment, hell, that even Arishem dared not enter, and that's how we came about," the figure explained.
It took Wallace a lot of time to digest the information he heard.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I'm the fifth in control of hell, Yama, the one who is responsible for controlling the agents of death that guide the soul into extermination flames after breaking all their defenses," he answered.
"What does the extermination flame do?" Wallace asked.
"The extermination flames erase the memories of the soul and turn them into a soul pearl that Lucifer absorbs to get stronger," the latter answered.
"One way or another, I will be exterminated," Wallace said.
"Yeah, there's no way you can escape, so just render yourself defenseless so that it won't be too painful. Injury of the soul hurts a hundred times more than that of the body," the latter said, as a whip appeared in his hand, and he walked towards Wallace.
Wallace moved back with every step Yama took forward.
"I won't surrender easily," he said, as he turned back and ran towards a random direction.
"Looks like we have a feisty newcomer; it makes things more interesting," Yama said.
"Boss, let me play with this one," another figure appeared beside Yama and bowed; it was a lady this time.
"Play with him for as long as possible till he is defenseless. I'm going to see how the collection of souls is going with the other agents of death," he said, as he disappeared.
The lady looked at the soul body of Wallace running and smiled cruelly.
Wallace continued running for a long time; he did not know how long he had been running for, but no one was chasing after him. He felt it was a little bit strange, but he did not think much; he was busy trying to escape, even though he knew he was in the lair of the enemy, and there was no chance for him to escape.
After running for what looked like eternity, he finally saw a large and wide door in front of him. The door had souls like him glued to them, and they were wailing nonstop as if they were in pain. It was partly opened, so he entered without thinking much.
The moment he entered, it felt as if he had entered another world. "Ah," he gasped as he looked around. It was like a large passageway, and there was glass on either side of the passageway. Outside those glasses, there were red flowers making it look like a sea of red, but it was very beautiful.
"Bang!" He looked back, and he saw that the door had closed. A lady was at the door.
"Williams Velasco, you had quite the life," the lady gave him a cruel smile.
Suddenly, he heard eerie humming sounds, and he saw that those beautiful flowers turned into eyeballs. The eyeballs were wailing in agony as they all moved slowly towards Williams himself. He looked in fear as the glass around broke, and those eyes surrounded him, submerging him.
"Ahh!" he shouted as he felt intense burning pain that made him feel as if he wanted to die.
"The first test, nine deaths. Let's see if you can pass this test," the lady smiled and disappeared.
His world turned dark and bright again. He found himself in a private jet in the body of another man.
"Ahh, where am I?" he asked.
"You are in the body of another man that's about to die. You will experience his death," he saw the lady sitting across from him.
"Enjoy the first death," she smiled and disappeared.
"Hmm," before he could talk, he felt intense turbulence in the plane, and boom, one of the engines of the jet exploded, and the plane spiraled downward.
"No, wait!" he shouted, but no one heeded his advice as he was thrown around the plane, hitting walls violently, and everything violently.
"Crack!" the upper parts of the plane folded into multiple sharp knives, and
"Boom!" he was thrown. Everything played in slow motion as he saw himself getting closer to those sharp ends, and he felt the piercing into his skin in slow motion. He felt intense pain.
"Ahh!" he shouted. Suddenly, everything paused.
"I forgot to tell you that you are in another body that your soul is not compatible with, so the pain will be just like you are in your soul form," she smiled at him.
"No, please!" he cried, but she had already disappeared.
"Puah!" he spat a mouthful of blood out as he felt the heart-wrenching pain of shards piercing into every inch of his skin very slowly, like it had been slowed down by ten thousandth. Time passed very slowly as he felt it piercing into his skin. His body jerked violently as blood poured out of the wounds in slow motion.
"Ahh!" he shouted, but it did not stop; it continued. Finally, after a long time of intense pain that was enough to break any human, irrespective of their pain tolerance, the shards finally pierced into every part of his body except his head and his heart. His body jerked violently in pain as he felt life slipping slowly out of his body. He couldn't even shout anymore because his throat had been crushed. The pain hit every nerve of his body as he looked up while tears of blood poured out from his face due to the pain. Everything was even in slow motion as the pain hit him in full force, and life was slowly slipping away from his body.
"You know what's interesting?" the lady appeared in front of him.
"Looking at those pathetic lives in the universe like yours, believing in a fallacy that the heavens had created to make them stronger. Then finally, when you die, they harvest the power while your soul comes to us. You will be tortured by us, and the heavens you've spent your whole life believing in won't do anything to help you," she said.
He felt intense hatred, despair, and all types of negative feelings when he heard that. His body shook, magnifying the pain. He looked at the lady with hatred.
"I love that look and the negative emotion that comes out of your body the most; it gives me a thrill," she smiled as she looked at him.
Time passed by excruciatingly slowly as he felt life slipping out, and the lady smiled. The body was getting weaker, but the hatred in his body was getting stronger.
Finally, he fell into the arms of long-awaited darkness.