This is Hell

And so, he smiled. With a myriad of tears showered onto his face, his lips started revealing a beautiful arc, complementing his handsome face: his teeth could be seen completely, and this smile was not one of grief, nor pain - it was one of happiness, of relief: it was the smile of a little boy, in the mask of a man.

He didn't need to think any longer, he ran, he ran, and he ran, all the while laughing and crying at once. He ran as fast as he could: defying the laws of physics and surpassing the speed of sound. In a matter of seconds, he had reached the portal. It was enormous, now the size of a mountain. Slowly, Oriel stepped one foot inside, his heart hammering continuously, anticipation evident in his face.

Now, he was wholly engulfed within the 'black hole'.

He was paralyzed, his mind completely, frozen.

For this here, was not Earth.

...

Oriel collapsed on the spot. It was too immense for him to handle. Though his resolve was steel-like, and he had prevailed over thousands of years of deprivation, - this was extravagant. It was too excessive. It was unneeded. He did not deserve this. Why did he deserve this?

To be expectant of salvation yet met with devastation. To forget his family yet be rewarded with insanity. Who could endure such inhumanity? But, this, this was inevitable.. This was his miserable fate. This was the cruel reality that creeps to us all. A reality we all so dearly try to escape.

Years of accumulated lassitude, hope, and anger; a myriad of emotions boiled inside of him, all to flare at once.

He dropped to his knees and slept. He had a sound sleep. No one perturbed him. And he dreamed. He dreamed of Earth. He finally recollected the warmth of his mother, the face of his father - he dreamed of his life...

..

A boy rested on a big sofa at home, and his whole family was watching TV - the child looked no more than six years old, safe in the embrace of his mother's soft arms, laughing as his father teased him and his elder siblings displayed amusing facial expressions behind him.

But his mind was travelling to strange places, something in his thoughts appeared to be luring him to do something; no, it was more than that. It felt as if he'd lost a piece of himself. It said, 'Do it'; no, it chanted it. Like some cult, it kept chanting, and chanting, and chanting. 'Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Commit to your duty! Do it!' It only stopped after an hour or so, following the child screaming that his head was going to blow up.

Even after a thorough examination, it was determined that nothing was wrong with the boy. No doctor could explain the situation, and so, this became an irrelevant situation of a child experiencing a minor hallucination. Maybe it was an illusion after all.

The child was still a youngster, so he believed what he was told. No one doubted it. It was an illusion. This was a fact. He, too, had no idea what the words meant. And so, he kept smiling, for the remainder of his peaceful 5 years of life.

…

A dream of comfort was Oriels' craving; to dream of such a dream, was a dream of his. Yet still, that held true. After all, a dream was only a dream. A fantasy fabricated by the brain, or perhaps, a past memory of a being recollected subtly into ones' unconscious.

…

Finally, Oriel arose from his slumber. Something seemed to tickle at his mind, yet he couldn't grasp what it was. He felt like he had dreamed of something consequential, but he couldn't recollect.

…

I feel like I don't exist. My body is nowhere to be found. Huh? What am I anyway? Who am I? My senses are non-existent. The concept of 'seeing' is foreign, as though such a thing hadn't existed in the first place.. It's not the darkness that I see. It is simply nothing. An empty space. A nothingness beyond human understanding. Something my brain cannot even begin to fathom.. I feel empty, and the space feels empty. What is space? What is nothing? What is it to become nothing? These thoughts linger in my mind as I suddenly gain consciousness, finally feeling a peculiar sense...

It's fast. It's really fast. This is insane!! I feel like I'm free! I fly through eternal space at an impossibly fast speed. Hehe, it's like I'm on some top-quality drugs!! Huh? What are drugs though?

I blackout again.

…

Hell: regarded as one which inflicts anguish for the living, damning them for eternity; long-lost souls drift in a space void of life, as they adjure for mercy. Their howls echo for millions of years: pride, arrogance, and pomposity fade away with time, and then, they roar, they bawl, they shriek – they beg for mercy, lament their wrongdoings; - only to be ignored. And so, the cycle is eternal, repeating itself. This was hell.

However, Oriel was welcomed with rivers of exquisite blood drifting composedly into the distance; and a myriad of colossal, dark trees rocketing into the empyreans - their roots blazing in effulgent flame, oozing magma to the ground, spilling the ground with saccharine juice.

He stared in a daze. It was a magnificent sight.

Contiguous to the rivers, diminutive, black mountains prevaricated in different forms; rows and rows loomed into nowhere, their tips razor-sharp, embedded deeply into the ground; others, reaching high into the firmament; their colour so dark – commensurable to black holes. It seemed that he could put his hand into the 'space'. What was surprising, however, was that the 'mountains' did not waver in the slightest, though some had the 'top' facing the ground and a 'bottom' which soared into the sky. This gave them a tinge of mystique instead - a grandness Oriel couldn't quite touch upon. Regardless of which, the view was exhaustively ravishing, and he couldn't seem to lay his eyes off them.

He turned around; he was revolted. It was the first time he had ever felt something was disgusting to such an extent. Rotten corpses were omnipresent, sprinkling the previously enticing site with horridness. Organs were splashed at virtually every possible place: savagely contorted hearts sprinkled along the floor like an embellishment, whilst on top, hairless bodies of deformed monsters lay, with shrunken heads and inverted torsos – humanoid beings, desolate and burned, were buried beneath the countless monsters; their remaining pieces of sluggish pink flesh wandering.

Blood slivered out of bodies and composed a detailed pattern, a 'rune' - until forming a straight line on the other side, lining up orderly to reach their paradise. Their paradise, of course, being the comely rivers, which stretched out into the horizon. Only then, did Oriel realise how dreadful the process of composing such a, still, exquisite scene, was.

At that moment, he faintly heard something rumbling; no – it was growling. It wasn't a loud noise, but not quite enough that he would not hear it.

Suddenly, only about 10 meters in front of Oriel, a creature had appeared from thin air. Standing at 10 feet tall, it had four limbs, its posture like that of a human. However, the head was of a lion, its lower body that of a dark venomous snake, and long spikes elongated from all over its torso. Its claws were as sharp as its' canine teeth, yare to rip apart anything in their way. The skin of the creature looked smooth as silk, contrary to its vigor; its' fiery orange glow circumventing the monster.

And then, it moved. It sprinted towards him, ready to devour his flesh.