9 Hell

Damien floated in the darkness of the void he called home, unable to move. He relished in the few moments of solace in between tortures. These moments, although brief, were the only peace he had known outside of his visits with Arthur. He tried to extend those seconds away from Braxes, away from the pain.

At the same time, these moments were a hell of their own. Damien did not know what torture would come next, and the terror and anxiety of not knowing left him in constant fear.

Then he felt it and began to scream loudly. A raw and sharp pain of five long talons penetrating his abdominal muscles and ripping holes in his intestines. He could now see the shape of the thing with its nails in his insides, a large hulking beast. It was Braxes and its red skin, now glowing, was the only light in the void. The beast started moving what Damien figured were indestructible nails through his body, splitting his internal organs slowly.

"Missed me, sinner?" Braxes said grinning widely and displaying hundreds of yellow sharp teeth that never seemed to align with each other, instead going this way and that.

The pain was agonizing and with every second the tears in his bodily tissue grew longer like the flowing current of five parallel rivers of pain, unrelenting and unstopping. Of course, he knew that his body would not go into shock, he would not fall unconscious, and would be awake for every last second of his torture. His skin, muscles, and internal organs began regenerating at the bottom ends of the tears, where Braxes had struck first, all growing back in an instant. Even though a part of his body had regrown, the pain of the tear there remained. A phantom pain that lasted and only seemed to exacerbate as the tortures continued.

As the cold talons of the monstrosity named Braxes continued to shred Damien's insides, the ten-foot-tall demon brought its face close to his face, its yellow eyes showing pure delight and its mouth had a grin the size of Damien's head. Drool dripped down the monster's cheek and down the two horns that extended out of its chin, one on each side. "Worship sinner, worship." the thing said laughing uncontrollably. Damien attempted to say the words of worship, but he could not get them out as his throat seized up when Braxes nails ripped through it, and then through his face. Damien died. Only to be reborn again, in front of the laughing Demon.

He awoke to find his body horizontal this time. "Worship Sinner. Worship." the grinning monster said mockingly.

"I submit to the Almighty. King of kings and Lord of the Heavens-." he said as a hole above him opened in the void revealing a pool of magma that began to pour over his entire body. The hot molten hellfire poured on him with the power of a thousand waterfalls, and his bones did not buckle under the immense pressure, but instead were burned slowly under the heat of the lava. One never grew numb to the pain, because once the bones were uncharred, and the internal organs regrew, the pain would remain as a phantom, and then when the body burnt up again the pain increased, the fresh burns adding to the phantom pain. This ever-increasing suffering made it impossible to get used to the pain.

Damien attempted to continue the words of worship but the lava suffocated him, filling his mouth and burning through the back of his throat. One moment he would see the hellfire pouring on his eyes, and the next his vision became blinded as his eyes were burnt through. The cycle repeated as his eyes grew back. Similarly, he would hear the demonic laughter of Braxes in intervals before it would fade into nothingness and back again. "Wors…. Sin….r." Braxes said, "Worship".