In the deepest abyss of Hell, where black flames illuminated only to reveal even more darkness, the hall of the Princes was filled with an oppressive tension. Lucifer, the Bearer of Light, sat upon his obsidian throne, his imposing figure radiating an authority that made Hell itself bow.
Before him, the three princes of sin had gathered. Mammon, lord of Greed, in his gleaming robes of filthy gold, glared at the others with an irritated expression. Azazel, the furious avatar of Wrath, paced back and forth, his black armor sparking as if it wished to consume everything around him. Beelzebub, the gluttonous, rested in the darkest corner, his fly-like eyes spinning incessantly, a grotesque smile on his bloated face.
Mammon was the first to break the silence. His voice, heavy with disdain and anxiety, echoed through the hall.
— This man… this insect dares to defy the essence of what we are. Gluttony, Wrath, Greed… everything we have built, he destroys. He does not just oppose us; he dismantles us!
Azazel slammed his fist onto the stone table, cracking it. His voice was a thunderclap, laden with hatred.
— That damned fool knows no limits! He faced my fury and did not succumb. He challenged my flame with something even fiercer: purpose. A purpose I cannot destroy!
Beelzebub chuckled softly, his gurgling voice laced with irony.
— Purpose… human foolishness. But I must admit, he is persistent. He turned Gluttony against itself, transforming my feast into poison. This… this cannot continue.
Lucifer, who had been silently observing until then, raised a hand, silencing the dispute. His voice was low but carried a gravity that made the air in the hall even heavier.
— He is no ordinary man. That much is clear. He resists because he believes he is redeeming something greater than himself. He does not merely destroy our avatars; he seeks to eradicate the very ideas we represent.
Mammon crossed his arms, his scorn barely masking his fear.
— So what do we do? Let him walk toward us, destroying everything in his path?
Azazel growled, his red eyes blazing with uncontrollable fury.
— He may have resisted my wrath, but no one is invulnerable to pain. If he seeks justice, I will make sure to turn it into despair.
Beelzebub licked his lips with a grotesque tongue, a glint of malice in his eyes.
— He overcame gluttony? Then we will feed him with the very void he carries. I will make him swallow his pride, his hope, until nothing remains but despair.
Mammon leaned forward, a greedy smile distorting his face.
— And I will tempt him with what he fears most: power. Not just power over Hell, but over everything he wishes to protect. We will give him the world and watch as he destroys himself trying to hold onto it.
Lucifer finally stood, his overwhelming presence silencing any murmurs. He slowly walked to the center of the hall, his words dripping like venom.
— You are weak because you underestimated him. But I have not. This man is not merely a threat. He is a catalyst. He believes he can overcome Hell itself, but he has yet to face the essence of what we are.
He turned to the three.
— We will combine our forces against him. Turn every step he takes into a labyrinth of suffering. He thinks he is purging sin? Then we will ensure he is consumed by it. Let every victory weigh on his soul like a curse until he himself becomes what he swore to destroy.
Azazel grinned, wild and cruel.
— Let's see how much fury his heart can endure before it implodes.
Beelzebub cackled, his words oozing like bile.
— Let's fatten him with his own ego until he can no longer move.
Mammon nodded, his voice dripping with venom.
— And then, when he lies on the ground, I will make him wish he had never entered Hell.
Lucifer raised a hand, the flames around them erupting into a blinding glow.
— He believes he can defeat us, but it is time to show him the true Hell. You three will reclaim your sins, and I will wait for him at the sin of pride—if he even makes it that far. This human does not fear danger; he plays with the Seven Deadly Sins. Do not underestimate him.
—
The silence between us was suffocating, broken only by the sound of Hell's stones grinding beneath our feet and the distant wails of souls who would never find rest. The atmosphere was heavy, saturated with a heat that came not only from the flames but from the weight of the doubts each of us carried. Then, as if unable to bear the void any longer, Greed spoke. His voice was hesitant, almost as if he feared the answer.
— Does God really exist? — He clutched his sack to his chest, as if the security of his treasures could shield him from a truth he might not want to hear.
For a moment, no one answered. Gluttony, who usually could not resist a provocation, was strangely quiet, but soon her uncontrollable hunger found a different outlet.
— If He exists, then why this? — she said, gesturing around us with one hand. — Why create us and leave us to rot? Why create all of this, only to turn His back? I never understood… Does He despise us? Hate us? Or does He simply not care?
— He despises us, yes, — Wrath interjected, his voice boiling with the same rage he always carried. — Because only someone who despises their creations could do this. Create pain, suffering, abandonment. If He is real, then He is a sadist, a tyrant who delights in our misery.
I listened. The sound of their voices seemed as distant as my own humanity. Every word, every question was merely an echo of something countless souls had questioned before us. God. His existence. His absence. As if the answer would change anything.
— You speak of God as if He were a human tyrant, — I began, my voice sharp but hollow. — As if He thinks, feels, or acts like us. As if He has flaws or intentions. But what if He is none of those things? What if God is not just, nor cruel, nor kind, nor evil? What if God is nothing we can imagine because He simply… is? Because He is the absolute. Because He does not need to justify Himself to His creations.
Greed looked at me, his expression wavering between curiosity and fear.
— If He is the absolute, then what are we? Just a mistake?
I laughed, but my laughter had no warmth. It was dry, cold, almost mechanical.
— You consider yourselves mistakes because you believe everything should revolve around you. That is human arrogance, the same arrogance that brought us here. You think suffering should not exist because it offends your idea of justice, as if the world owes you anything. But what if even suffering is part of the plan? Not because God is cruel, but because He is perfect. And perfection has no flaws. He cannot err, and that means He cannot undo. God is as much a prisoner of His own perfection as we are prisoners of our weaknesses.
Gluttony let out a bitter laugh.
— So He is perfect, but made us imperfect? What kind of logic is that? If He is perfect, why not create a perfect world? Why not make something worth existing?
— Because you confuse perfection with comfort, — I retorted, my voice gaining weight but not emotion. — Some wish God had created another world. Other perfections. Something easier, gentler, just to satisfy your fragile and extravagant minds. But you do not see that true perfection does not exist to please you; it exists beyond any judgment. God does not make mistakes because everything He does is complete. Even pain, even suffering, even this place. You want God to be human because you cannot conceive of something greater.
The silence that followed was oppressive. Not the silence of peace, but of resignation. They did not respond, perhaps because there was nothing left to say. Perhaps because, somewhere deep inside, they knew I was right.
The truth is, God is neither good nor evil. He is neither just nor unjust. God is the absolute weight of everything that exists, of everything that ever was, and of everything that will ever be. He carries the burden of all He created and can never undo any of it. He is, and that is enough.
I kept walking, indifferent to their gazes. What they thought, believed, or feared did not matter to me. Perhaps, deep down, it did not matter to anyone. God does not need us to believe in Him, nor to understand Him. And in realizing that, I understood that perhaps that was what made Him God.
To my right, a twisted tree bled from its roots, while its branches held bodies that screamed in dissonant voices. Their mouths were torn open, stretching to their ears, as a black, sticky sap oozed from the cracks. One of them, or what remained of it, turned its head toward me, its eyes devoid of soul but filled with cruel understanding:
— Do you think you are different from us? — its voice was fragile, yet sharp as a blade. — We are not the sinners. We are the truth you fear to see in the mirror.
I kept walking, ignoring the challenge. But something inside me stirred. It was not guilt. It was fascination. Perhaps it was right.
Ahead, a river of flesh boiled like a diseased sea. People—or what remained of them—struggled to escape, but each attempt only sank their deformed bodies deeper into the ocean of agony. Arms rose, melted fingers grasped at the air in a futile gesture of despair. One of them screamed as his head emerged from the scarlet liquid:
— I just wanted to be loved! I just wanted someone to see me! Is that why I'm here? Is it?
His voice echoed, desperate, but the river gave him no respite. He was pulled back down, his body swallowed by the living substance, his scream dissolving into muffled bubbles.
I watched the spectacle, without compassion, without horror—only an indifference I was beginning to recognize as a part of myself.
This is how Hell works, I thought. It is not a punishment. It is a revelation. It is not their actions that brought them here, but the emptiness within them, now amplified until it became an eternal scream.
In the distance, a thin, contorted figure crawled across the ground, its legs twisted at impossible angles. Its eyes were covered by skin, yet it still saw in some way. As we approached, the creature whispered, each word torn from a throat that seemed to be shredding apart:
— They told me there was mercy… — its voice trembled, but carried a sadness impossible to ignore. — That all I had to do was ask for forgiveness. But here, even hope is a sin.
I stopped for a moment, watching as it writhed in its own pain. There was no pity in me. I knew that. But there was curiosity.
— Who told you there was mercy? — I asked, my voice escaping like a cold breath.
It laughed, or tried to, but the sound was a grotesque groan.
— They. The ones who never came to find me.
I kept walking, leaving it behind, its whispers fading into the wind laden with screams.
The ground began to change again, now made of cracked mirrors that reflected not my face, but fragments of the souls walking with and around me. Each crack seemed to tell a story—not of their sins, but of their reasons. A woman appeared reflected in one of the mirrors, her face half-consumed by flames, half pale as death. She stared at me and spoke:
— God saw everything. And He let it happen. He created us for this, didn't He? To be a reminder that even He is not perfect.
— No — I replied, my voice sharp as the glass beneath my feet. — He is not imperfect. He is the perfection you will never understand. He creates and destroys because only He can bear the weight of what He has done. You fell because you were not strong enough to exist.
The reflection laughed, but the laughter was a sob of pain. And I? I did not care. Because I knew there was truth in my words.
We reached a valley where bodies hung from chains that pierced their flesh. Each movement made their skin tear further, yet they kept swaying, struggling against gravity, as if escape were a possibility. One of the suspended figures whispered, its voice muffled by the sound of the wind:
— Does God really exist?
The words echoed through the air, like a challenge. I did not hesitate to answer.
So, I repeated once more. Everyone sought answers but never found them, and perhaps it was that endless search that defined what it meant to be human. To be human is to doubt, to question the very meaning of existence. The one who has no doubts, who carries all the answers, is God—and perhaps, in that burden, there is something terribly lonely. I did not wish to be God, nor perfect, nor absolute. I only wished to be myself, in the truest version I could reach—a vision of myself guided by my heart, even if it meant making mistakes and falling. And after reflecting on this, I looked at the figure and repeated the same words I had spoken to the sins before.
— God exists. He is the only constant here. But you will never understand what that means. God is not good or just, not in the way you understand justice. He is indifferent. He is the weight of everything that exists, of everything that has been created. He bears what we never could. You are here because He created a world that reflects yourselves. And that world demands balance.
Silence fell for a moment, until a more distant voice whispered:
— Then why didn't He create something better?
I turned toward the shadows, my eyes fixed on the emptiness ahead.
— Because we are not Him. Some wish God had created another world, other perfections, merely to satisfy their small and extravagant minds. But that would make you nothing more than puppets. This is the world you wanted, the reflection of the choices you made, even before you arrived here.
I kept walking, each step carrying me deeper, closer to whatever lay at the end. And in every soul I passed, I saw not only their pain but the truth that perhaps, just perhaps, Hell was the only true justice.