One

HELL ISN'T WHAT PEOPLE THINK IT IS. It's not a reign of fire, full of demons with horns on their heads and red-ish skin. There are demons, though.

But to be honest, everybody who dies and for some reason comes to Hell becomes a demon. And Hell as people think is a very subjective thing. Everyone has a hell of its own.

The judges of, what we call, the light realm, are very ruthless. They don't give a damn if you had to commit a crime to protect yourself, if you regret any mistake you made, or if you bullied someone at least once out of a joke. Everything you do that they despise is a reason for you to be sent to Hell when you die.

And it's a brutal realm. You shouldn't be worried about becoming a slave of some King whatsoever, because that's all bullshit. What you should be worrying about, is how are you going to break free from the nightmare.

Coming to Hell is being sent to live your worst nightmare over and over again. Until you can break free from it. And when that happens, you are already broken without any perspective of getting back to being who you once was, with a psychological more fucked up than before.

If you saw people you cared about being killed, you will have to see it all over again. If you were raped, you will have to go through it again. If your worst nightmare is getting killed, you will be killed thousands of times, each time worse than the previous.

You lose all of the humanity that was still inside of you. You become a demon. That's the only way to survive in Hell.

Once you break free from your nightmare, if you do, you will be able to meet the realm of Hell. And it's... Boring. Disappointing.

Don't get me wrong, before I was killed I knew I was going to come here. But I always expected it to be a realm of melting lava and red-skinned demons, and slaves and shit like that. No.

I was wrong.

It's quite similar to the living world, and you can even eat food and drink as well, but you do not need any of that or oxygen to live. Because well... You are dead!

Also, your body functions just right, but your heart doesn't beat anymore. The warmth is gone. But there is a way to feel warmth, that is, by practicing sex.

I never tried, but everybody says it's addicting.

Overall, you feel shallow. Enough to not give a damn about your situation. And of course, you do not age one bit, and your skin is kind of loose color because there's no blood running inside of your veins anymore.

But there are good things about being dead and in hell. Of course, there are. It can't all be just bad.

First, you see who was good and who wasn't throughout the whole human species. And let me tell you, in all the years I've been here, I've met people you would never believe were sent to hell. It's also good to talk to people from centuries ago who are still here, because of the not aging factor that comes with being dead.

Second, our body becomes extremely strong. Like, bizarrely strong. Probably because we lose our human inhibitions when we become demons after breaking from our eternal nightmare.

And the personality we had when alive, becomes enhanced tenfold. So you can imagine all the psychopaths who live here. Quite predictable.

You can become stronger by practicing, after all, we have all the time in the world once we can't be killed twice. Although there are way worse than death. Like being held captive by one of the seraphs from the Light Realm who loath all of us.

Or being tortured restlessly by one of the generals of the Light Realm. Believe me, I've been there, I know how terrible it can be.

There is a leader in the Hell Realm, his the worst of all of us. Worse enough to get the attention of the pretentious King of the Light Realm, who gave him more power and the pass to go to the Human Realm at least once a month and his generals at least once per season, that way they would have someone controlling the Hell Realm.

At least, that's what we know.

He's been the "King" of Hell way before I died and came here. And boy, it's been about 1177 years since I became a demon. So yeah, he's the biggest mystery in Hell.

And how did I get my hands on all of this information? Well, I fought to become one of his generals and receive the power to walk in the human realm four times a year. But I've never encountered him in my whole... demon life.

He has seven generals. In demon age, I'm the middle kid, the fourth out of the seven. While in power, I'm the third. Each one represents one of the seven deadly sins.

My name is Pandora Cassielys and I am the general of Pride. Gluttony is the oldest, female called Farai Gowon and is 9666 years. While Wrath is the youngest, a boy called Fukumori Toshimitsu who's 175 years old.

Envy, Gluttony, Pride, Lust, Greed, Wrath, Sloth; the power scaling of the Hell generals. While the Light Realm generals all represent Gratitude, Temperance, Humility, Chastity, Charity, Patience, and Diligence. Quite the opposite.

It's like having assigned enemies. The general of Humility, Bleddyn Baines, hates my guts more than anything. And in one of my legal visits to the human realm, he kidnapped me, once we can't use our power well there, and tortured me for 592 days straight. I can't die twice after all.

No one was sent to get me, so I had to find a way to escape and get back to Hell. So I did it and I took 4 of his graceful and pure underlings with me. It's been about two hundred years since that day and they are still in my place, being tortured daily.

I made sure to get four who my nêmesis considered his children. Two boys named Rhydian and Madoc. Two girls named Gwenda and Nia. Making sure they are as broken as I am after my years trapped in my nightmare.

It's going to make them stronger.

Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos are probably the only dates all demons in Hell are free to walk in the human realm for exactly 24 hours. But as generals, we get more four days in the year.

The seasons' solstice and equinox are when we go up there. We cannot choose, but that's not a problem at all. Not when most of us chose to become a general to get the privilege of going there, to see what's happening.

Winter solstice, on December 21. Spring Equinox, on March 20. Summer solstice, on June 21. And lastly, the Fall equinox, on September 22.