Chapter 1.6: Coward

"Why do you keep calling Plato, Aristocles," Savannah asked.

"That's his name, isn't it?"

"I guess, it's just no one really knows him by that name. He was called Plato because he was a great wrestler, his shoulders as broad as a long piece of wood."

"How… do you know this..?"

Savannah was suddenly bashful and tried to not get too excited. She loved reading anything to do with history and religion, spending her free time visiting historical sites, adding pictures to her vast personal collection.

Curiosity had killed the cat, in this case, Savannah.

"I just… like reading and learning cool stuff like this," Savannah whispered.

"That's kind of lame. You meat suits live for like eighty years, a hundred, max, and you read books?"

Savannah raised her arms in the air and let out a shrill noise, tired of the grown man that talked like a teenager and acted like an angry toddler. "It's my life, and I can choose to live it how I want! It's not like I go around, doing stuff bad enough to end up in the center of Hell ," she shouted.

"Hey! If you do just one bad thing , you end up here anyway!"

"So?"

"I already fucked up, and got kicked out of my home by my dad," Santos sighed. "I knew I couldn't go back, so why not just do whatever I want? I can-"

Santos smacked right into an invisible wall and stumbled to the ground.

Savannah shrieked, and gripped her camera, turning around in circles, trying to find the culprit, but there was none to be seen. She spun faster, as the voices started. She wasn't crazy, but Savannah thought she was and started to cry again, frustrated and confused.

Santos stood up, more upset about falling than the chorus of screams and mumbling surrounding him.

"Oh God, help us," Savannah cried.

The ground shook in anger and Santos was ready to end her suffering by giving her a final death. The tremors increased along with the mumbles that were now full of screams and wails, and Savannah screamed along with them.

Santos covered his ears and waited. Nothing scared him anymore except things he didn't know. Fighting, screaming, death, he was well acquainted with, the entire experience being just another bump in the road.

The screams of the damned had stopped but Savannah's didn't.

She let out another ear-piercing scream as the invisible wall in front of them faded away, and in front of them stood, The Gehenna Gate. Red mist seeped out of the gaping maw of a beast, curling around them the smell of rotting meat and sulfur stronger than before.

Santos finally knew the source of the smell he had been forced to endure and was ready to kill it. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, remembering that Savannah was still nearby, her screams still going on.

"Can you stop? This is not that bad," Santos said.

The beast's red translucent skin seemed to pulse, and the sound of a heartbeat could be heard, as Santos chided her for being overdramatic. "You're a soldier, this should be nothing," Santos scoffed.

"This can't be nothing," Savannah screamed. "It's watching us! Look!"

Santos looked up, and the monster's eyes leered down at them, yellow and bright. It started to cough, and gag, and out of its mouth, a person slipped out, rolling down its red bumpy tongue covered in blue spit and bile.

It was Gruesome.

She was more than happy to greet one of the many freaks that had taken her mother's chance at stealing a piece of Adamah, and without being told to, she went right over to Santos.

Gruesome still held the body of Coco Labelle, as she did upon Earth, but now in her own domain, her body was no longer burnt but fixed to her taste. Her skin was now red and shiny, her breasts bigger, and she was taller as well. Santos eyed her naked body only covered by tape over her nipples and a bikini bottom, aroused and disgusted.

"Why do you people never wear clothes," Santos asked.

"Don't be a prude, Lyrica," Gruesome giggled.

"Do you know each other," Savannah asked.

"Thank fuck I don't, all of these guys are nasty," Santos shouted.

Gruesome shook off the bile and walked towards them, her golden ankle bracelets jingling as she walked.

"Come any closer and I'll pop your head like a grape," Santos said.

"Oh, I know. I came to bring you with me," Gruesome said.

"Let's not," Savannah said.

"We're going, don't be a little bitch," Santos groaned.

"That's the spirit," Gruesome grinned.

Savannah wasn't sure who was worse. The half-naked young woman covered in blue fluid or the half-naked young man covered in black tar. She was starting to think the giant redhead protruding out of the ground was less dangerous than the two of them together.

Savannah sobbed and gripped her camera, needing something to hold onto, as she followed them into the mouth of the beast. She slipped, and hit her head against a giant razor-sharp tooth, cutting off an ear.

Santos quickly grabbed her arm, and pulled her away, as she sobbed even louder, her head burning from the venom, the blood pouring out her eyes and down the side of her arm and blouse. He dragged her deeper into the mouth of the beast and told him that she didn't want to do it.

"I don't want to do this either," Santos whispered. "Don't look weak in front of the enemy."

Savannah sniffled and nodded, holding her pounding head with the other as everything went dark. She fell again, but now there was nothing to catch her as she fell. Savanna instinctively tried to fly upwards so she wouldn't smack into the ground but stopped when she saw the ground fast approaching.

They were falling upwards, and she remembered that it was just like before.

When she fell into Hell, upwards, and had to fly in circles to get herself steady, it was quite easy. However, now with one ear missing, her body was unbalanced, the inner mechanism of her wobbly, and she flew erratically, too far to the left.

Santos flew towards her, just as they approached the ground, and swerved up.

Some strange, unknown force smacked him right back down, and he groaned on the cold tiles in confusion. The smell of sulfur was replaced by the sounds of seagulls and ocean waves.

Santos tried to turn his head and get up but he couldn't.

He broke his neck.

Screaming in exasperation, he knew he had to lie on the ground until his body had healed itself, and was stuck at the mercy of whatever fresh horror that would waltz its way towards him.

Savannah rolled off of him, and looked around, starting to relax. She wasn't in there long enough to know it was a trap, and Santos tried to communicate with her, but it was hard for him to speak. Something important had broken, and nothing but drool and grunts came out when he tried to speak.

Savannah stood up and looked around, but Gruesome was gone. She had done her job, to bring them there, and everything would be left to the others. Savannah saw Santos on the ground, screaming and twitching on the white tiled pool floor, and made an easy decision.

She flew away.

Savannah was a coward. She told herself it was okay because cowards live to see another day. She would get to see another day, but it wouldn't be a good one. Savannah flew around in circles, trying to find a way out. She flew too high up and was smacked right back down the ground, into one of the luxury pools.

With a loud splash, she sunk deep into the pool, the force shocking her entire body, and for a few seconds, the illusion was gone. It was long enough for her to realize she was in a trap.

The pale blue pool water was watery blood. She struggled to swim as she went up, not knowing that she didn't need to breathe anymore, the fear weighing her down instead.

Her terror increased as the blood that got into her mouth tasted delicious. Like a reflex, she swallowed more, and shame followed her as she breached the water. She rose to the top and looked up at the sky, lightning crackling above.

The cute inflatable pool toys were replaced by bloated corpses, and she scrambled out of the pool as fast as she could. Shaking and crying, everything snapped back.

Everything is fine, the voices mumbled. Nothing to worry about.

In defeat, she walked back to Santos, who now at this point, could turn his head and speak. He spoke his mind, telling her that she was a coward.

"You're nothing but an opportunist, a coward, and a-"

"I know," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. So sorry."

For the first time, Savannah couldn't run away from her problems and had no choice but to face them head-on. Every soul in Hell wasn't exempt from this, facing their sins head-on, their bad decisions, and fears.

Cowardice wasn't a good trait to have inside a prison.