When Hell Sings

"A heart within your palm.”

~Chapter 4~

THE DEVIL WHISPERS:

“YOU CANNOT WITHSTAND THE STORM.”

THE WARRIOR REPLIES:

“I AM THE STORM.”

For what seemed like days I walked through the maze, between tall walls made of what looked like the stars in the cosmos itself trapped within butterfly nets made of green leaves and thorny rose vines. The thousands of blue roses pulsating light up and down the corridor like an endless Mexican wave, warming the air throughout the entire maze. It had of course lost its “Awe” around the fifth day of my wondering aimlessly and what seemed to be infinitely through a maze of looping turns, endless and maddening like a never ceasing drop of water on one’s forehead. For days I went without real food until driven to picking the strange flowers and eating them whenever my stomach called. “Not half bad for a non-existent, flower.” I said to myself as I picked petals off a glowing rose, lying down on the lawn with my back cushioned by the lush green grass feeling like a warm blanket your grandmother would have made for you; my eyes fixed on the moon above which hadn’t moved since I entered this blasted place, along with the night sky which hadn’t seen the sun’s rays flare through its air. Petal after petal flew into my mouth, me chewing them as if they were an expensive gourmet salad, filling me and satisfying my hunger. I drank no water but they refreshed me and quenched my thirst. “Could something just whoosh out and kill me already. Would really prefer not to be known as the guy who literally died of boredom.” I shouted out while I sat up and looked down the path ahead of me, continuing to stand to my feet with a desperate expression on my face eager for something to happen.

As I walked down the corridor starting to wish Hooded Creepy Thing would come back, I heard a loud and sudden cry for help echoing down the corridor and sending a burst of wind each time it sounded. The glowing dust being blown off the roses and into the air around me each time the breeze whistled down the corridor. Like fireflies, millions of them swarming the whole corridor before ascending into the night sky like rising stars.

“Help! Help me somebody!” The cries bone chillingly echoed off the maze walls with the bursts of wind freezing the rapid breaths leaving my chest. My eyes widened with fear as I scanned the corridor for any signs of life, while cautiously and slowly walking forward with my back slightly towards the wall of the maze. The loud cries abruptly stopped, leaving a lingering echo as the light from the glowing dust disperses into the night sky with the roses slowly dimming by the thousands around me, plunging the maze into darkness; like a pitch black hole found only in the deepest darkest corners of your lost dreams. I swiftly turned my head upwards and before my very eyes the midnight blue sky turned to a menacing crimson, the moon now looking like a silver coin lying in a pool of fresh blood.

I looked backed down into the darkness ahead of me and raised my hands to my face with an expression of utter awe as I starred at my skin glowing as blue as the roses did a few seconds ago. As if my body were made of dark and slightly dim neon blue lights, it lit up the area around me, the surface of my skin glowing like a night light drowned in shadows. “What the..!? Bridges don’t glow, come on!” I shouted out into the blackness that surrounded me as my eyes began to glow a bright yellow, shining light ahead of me like two lanterns on a horse carriage. I stood there desperately and moronically rubbing my arms with my hands attempting to remove the glow from my skin, when the front of my shirt suddenly caught fire and burned right off my skin, and like a piece of flash paper it turned to ash then smoke and blew away with the breeze. I looked down at my chest to find the silver crucifix scar and the Latin tattoos glowing white hot with the scorching heat clearly visible in the air as it radiates off my chest. As I marveled at the sight of my own chest with my mouth wide open in shock, my eyes turning from gold to a bright searing color like the white hot scars on my chest.

Now looking as though I had two suns for eyes, I burned the hedges and roses that met my gaze, the hedges ahead of me burning in gold and blue flames like a twenty-five foot tunnel of fire; though the plants didn’t burn or get scorched in anyway. The grass at my feet caught fire and began to burn beneath me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I shouted out as I jumped up and down and blew at the now raging circle of flame that I stood in, my mouth filling with air looking as if I were a puffer fish and my eyes opening wide like those of the owl as I tried to blow out the flames to no avail. The fire rose to my waist, it raged and roared though it didn’t harm me and was almost cold to the touch like holy fire on human flesh. For a moment I stood there, as still as a dead tree on a windless night I stood in the flames with my eyes set on the glistening moon above me, the crimson sky sending down the salty scent of blood which fills my nose and seems to fuel the fires around me as I cracked my neck, looked back down and with a voice that I myself did not recognize; a voice that rustled the leaves in the hedges and echoed out into the abyss that was the maze like the voice of a deity. “Why do I feel like killing something!?” I said to myself as the giant hedges of fire burned in front of me, my eyes blazing like supernovas and fixed on the great inferno as if I were standing between twin pillars of blue and gold flames.

As I stood there looking up and down at my own body, my hands cupped in front of my me and looking at them as if they were the hands of a stranger with the look of unfamiliarity pasted all over my face, a huge menacing shadow passed through me from the back, came out the other side of my body through my chest and continued speeding into and through the tunnel of fire ahead of me. Like greased ethereal lighting it passed through me, a shadow in the form of the biggest horse I had ever seen, which towered above me as it sped through me leaving a trail of thick black smoke and what seemed to be glistening silver smelling of burning pine and spoilt meat. The horse’s eyes glowed as red as the sky above us with its flared nostrils sending out bursts of blood red flames as it breathes. The rider of the horse was another shadow sitting on the saddle of the horse, his eyes also glowing red and the surface of the hood he wore boiling like Hooded Creepy Thing’s hood; his face hidden in the shadows of the hood and barely noticing or looking down at me. He rode into the blazing tunnel with a flock of crows following overhead like a dark cloud raining death onto the land and not minding the flames that surrounded us, leaving me with the look of befuddlement now present on my face as I looked around in the maze. The rumble of its galloping sounding like war drums and leaving burning hoof prints on the soft grass, turning the green to a crispy black. “Um, I was just joking about the whooshing, no more whooshing.” I said out loud as I shook my head in protest and waved my finger side to side in the air. As I watched the shadow horse gallop away an explosion went off behind me, which colored the maze with a red light like the light from a flare.

Looking over my shoulder after the blast and the shockwave that followed had destroyed most of the maze in that area, I watched the hedges along with their roses swallowed by red flames sending clouds of black smog into the sky and flaming rose heads soaring through the air like asteroids. I stared down the corridor behind me and watched it get incinerated by a tidal wave of red and black flames heading towards me at breakneck speed. The monstrous wave of roaring fire was higher than the hedges of the maze, having what appeared to be a pair of black eyes formed by the smog and long thin teeth like those of a piranha on its searing face, the wave looking as if it were literally consuming the land along with everything else around it. The horse let out a blood curdling neigh which drew my eye back down the corridor of flames. “I’ll just follow you guys!” I yelled as I gazed at the horse and rider now already hundreds of meters ahead of me. Barreling down the endless corridor like a demon made of shadow in the crimson light blasted onto the hedges of the maze by the cataclysmic inferno that drew ever so closer to me with each passing second. I hastily took a step into the flaming tunnel, my cautious jog soon turning into a sprint that pulls the gold and blue flames towards me as I passed through them. Like an inferno magnet the flames peeled from the hedges and roses, the burning walls of the maze like two pillars of fire on both sides of the corridor following me as I ran from certain death. The dark horse getting closer and closer as I came up from behind it at lightning speed while running in a zigzag pattern desperately avoiding the flaming roses shooting through the air like golden bullets. As I was running I looked over my shoulder to find a zigzag trail of golden flames scaring the green grass that I ran on, like pyramids of gold burning beneath my feet and a luminescent trail of blue light coming from my back. The light having blue rose petals floating in it like petals in a pond which soon burst into flames and fall to the ground like raining fire. The roaring wave of fire closing in on the horse and me, its scorching heat warming the skin on my back as I watch the shadow horse now just a few meters ahead of me become more and more opaque with each second that goes by. Like a ghost fading back into its realm it slowly became transparent revealing a door about one hundred meters away, a door made of black wood with glistening silver lining, a silver wolf’s head and sapphire eyes as blue as my skin at the center of the door with the door frame being made of an ominous black flame, like a boiling shadow.

The horse and rider finally disappear before my eyes with the horse letting out a last blood chilling neigh which echoes even louder than the roars of the raging wave of fire now close behind me. Like I was in a battlefield the whistling of the flaming roses now as hard as diamonds when burning, ring in my ears as they fly past my head like rifle rounds from a firing squad. As I got closer to the mysterious door, the wall of fire got closer to me with every step I took, with the rising heat from the inferno now charring my spine and forcing a loud roar like that of a wild lion which shakes the hedges ahead of me and sends their leaves now looking charcoal black in the red light; looking as if the flames had already swallowed them as they flew into the crimson sky like they were the floating feathers of crows. The smell of my own roasting flesh filling my nose as I look back once more to find a humungous arm stretching out of the fiery wave, like the arm belonging to a monster made of red flame with long sharp claws made of the black flames and smog, similar to its eyes and teeth. “Oh crap, I don’t know where that’s been!” I shouted to myself in my godly voice as the demon claw closed in on me, like a shark chasing prey it moved in a serpentine manor down the corridor of the burning maze now almost completely destroyed. I looked back ahead and with the door now about twenty meters away I let out another animalistic roar as I leapt towards the door, my legs exploding with a loud and violent burst of gold and blue flames which launches me like a missile; sending me flying through the air as the maze walls are uprooted with my passing, and shortly after bursting into gold and blue flames as if I were the very wind in a fiery hurricane. The giant claw was now a few inches away from snaring my feet and the once breathtaking maze in which I wondered for days was now a dry barren wasteland, with the once lush green grass that covered the land being scorched clean off the ground and into non-existence leaving fine black soil; like I was flying over an ocean of gun powder. I approached the door which didn’t open as I flew towards it, why would I expect a door to open on its own. The sapphire eyes of the silver wolf head on the black wood door began glowing as the shadow flames which made up its frame began to blaze like the flames of a furnace with my drawing ever so closer to it. “Yeah sure why not, can’t be worse than what’s coming up behind me. Could it?” I thought to myself as I braced myself for impact with the mysterious door, expecting to crash right through it and turn it to splinters in order to get to the other side. I stretched my arms out ahead of me and let out a nervous but godly scream, “I’m gonna diiiiie!” I shouted as the fiery arm’s sharp claw scratched at my feet right before I went craning through the black and silver door, though not breaking it into thousands of pieces. I went right through the door, being completely swallowed by it like I was diving into a pool of water and leaving it rippling like it was a pond under a rainy sky.

When I emerged on the other side I crashed face first onto the ground, sending a shockwave that cracked the ground beneath me and sent earth debris flying into the air as if a warhead had struck the floor. I tumbled and bounced on the ground leaving scars on the earth before skidding for about fifty meters, leaving a long and wide trench in the ground with thick black smoke and golden red flames escaping from it as if it were an opening to hell itself. For a few seconds it was quiet, as I lay there wondering if I was dead yet with nothing but the choking blackness of the smoke in which I lay in to keep me company and the sound of crackling fire being my eternal lullaby. I opened my eyes which blasted away the darkness that surrounded me as sunlight once again shined down and kissed my cheek. I stared upwards into a now blue midday sky with a bird circling right above me high in the sky, a bird with black and brown feathers and a head of white with a long beak as yellow as the sun. Its massive wings almost eclipsing the sun were spread out as it soared through the air like a majestic slow dance with its feathers cutting through the sky like a steel breeze. Its squawk echoing down to me like a song that wakes you from a deep sleep, forcing me to hastily sit up as I take deep and rapid breaths while turning my head looking in all directions, now eager to know where I was.

I found myself surrounded by dry, rough barked trees with brown leaves and seed pods hanging from the branches. The rattling of the seeds in their pods as the hot wind blew across the open plains in which I now found myself, lingered in the air coming from the trees stretching all the way to the horizon. The ground on which I sat had changed from the fine black soil from the maze and was now a hard surface like dried clay with small cracks all over it and greenish shrubbery which was almost completely dried due to the intense heat of the sun directly above. “Oh what now!?” I whispered as I got myself on my feet and dusted myself off with my hands, shaking the dirt off the clothes I now wore with the look of befuddlement on my face, wondering how my skin was back to normal after being as blue as the sky above and where the clothes came from after being turned to ashes a few moments ago. While looking around I spotted a tree about a hundred meters ahead of me, towering and casting a shadow over the rest of the trees around it with a wide trunk armored by thick charcoal black bark and long roots going above and under the ground like thread stitching a cut. It had thick leaves as orange as a sunset, like if pure gold were mixed with rich red wine, reflecting the sunlight around it like the glow of lava. Like a mirage it blurred in the air as the heat wave made it look as if it were a reflection in the water, “Good thing I can’t get sun burned.” I said as I looked up at the sun with one eye closed and my hand stretched up to the sky to cover my face with some shade. I took my first step towards the great breathtaking tree hoping to find some shelter and food along with some answers to the question that kept repeating itself in my head, over and over like an infinite echo in a bottomless pit, “Where am I, and why does it feel like home?”

And so I walked through the strange land, my feet beating the dust off the ground as I dragged them on the dry clay floor with my eyes taking in all they could of this new beautiful scenery. My eyes almost jumping from my skull as I see the strangest animal I had ever laid my eyes on, an animal that fills my heart with wonder as I lowered my head and hid in a nearby bushel of long grass as to not let it spot me and run off. It was a horse drinking from a small lake which was between a few trees that cast shade completely around the lake like a desert oasis, my breaths becoming louder with each exhale as I gazed upon the most beautiful horse I had ever seen. It was neither coated with black, white or brown fur like other horses I had usually seen, but was dressed in a black and white coat like an unbelievable contrasting rainbow displayed throughout its body. Was it a black horse with white stripes or a white horse with black stripes, I thought to myself as a large smile formed on my face and a sparkle flashed in my eye because of the sensational sighting of this mystic marvel. My mind telling me to go closer and observe the creature at a better angle and dare I try to touch it, “What are you?” I cautiously whispered to myself as I stepped out of the bush and tiptoed my way across a few meters of open space covered with succulent looking plants with purple and pink flowers, along with plum looking fruits growing on the top of the plant. The ground being riddled by dried thorn branches and twigs holding sharp thorns like wooden stakes about five centimeters in length making it a sort of natural minefield in which I had to be careful and tread lightly as to not make a sound while I crossed it as barefooted as I was. I snuck across the minefield doing my best not to make too much noise as the thorns broke under my feet with light stings that I barely noticed, all the while keeping as low as possible so the strange horse wouldn’t get scared off if it were to look my way.

Finally arriving at the tree line surrounding the lake, I crept through about twenty meters of trees with thousands of thin green leaves shaped like the feathers of a small bird; casting deep shadows on the ground below, shadows I was almost invisible in as I slowly but surely approached the unaware animal graciously drinking gallons of water from the sparkling lake reflecting sunlight which rippled onto the tree trunks and leaves around it. I moved as quiet as a desert breeze over a sand dune, moving from tree to tree and using them and the rest of the environment as cover while I continued to stalk the animal from the darkness in which I now resided. Like a wolf hunting prey I closed in on the black and white horse, looking as if it were the spiritual spawn of the love between the sun and moon; the most beautiful thing I had ever seen now only a few meters away as I watched it drink peacefully from behind the safety of the crowd of trees.

As I crouched next to a tree, under the shade of its green rustling leaves I closed my eyes and with a large smile on my face I took in all of the harmonic sounds that surrounded me. The birds sung and tweeted while flying from branch to branch and tree to tree like a large family singing carols at Christmas, as the small fish splashed water when they jumped for the insects flying and buzzing over the surface of the lake, before diving back into the crystal clear water like dolphins playing in the ocean or sharks hunting sea birds. The seed pods in the trees rattled like hundreds of instruments in an orchestra, almost making my feet tap to their rhythm with the wind blowing the branches about, and knocking them against each other; hundreds of them sounding like the great applause of wildlife. I watched and listened to it all in silence, the beauty of life displayed perfectly in front of me like a colorful mural and its raw energy restoring my strength with each passing second of my being here. While pondering if there were any more of these horses nearby and any more strange creatures in this land for me to discover, the wind suddenly stopped shaking the leaves and rocking their branches, with the songs of the seed pods and the birds reaching an abrupt end; the watering hole plunging into dead silence. The strange horse brought its head up from the water and looked into the trees ahead of it with its ears twitching and rotating as it listened for sounds around it. I stayed still within the darkness of the crowded trees, as still as a tree’s shadow under a never moving sun, with nothing but the whistle of a light breeze passing between the trunks like the moans of a lost soul wondering around the forestry. My own heart beating against the wall of my chest so loud from anticipation that I could hear its rhythmic beat, pounding like small drums to the point I thought the horse would hear it all the way from the lake.

The strange horse turned to me, and seemed to be looking directly at me though without moving or getting startled in any way, it stared straight into my eyes all the while licking the dripping water from its lower jaw and almost gazing into my soul. When our eyes met I saw no fear present in the animal, only peace and innocence, as much peace as there was in mine despite being thrown into a world of Hooded Creepy Things, apocalyptic mazes and shiny flaming skin; a world of complete nonsensical madness. As I marveled at the moment my patience and silence had created, the bliss was suddenly broken by a dragging growl which echoed in the darkness of the trees and sent shivers down my spine; the wind itself ceasing its chilling whistle and making the air as still as an empty void.

I urgently looked around to find the source of the menacing growl which the strange horse did not seem to notice, though it kept fading in and out in my ears. Was I going mad or was my sense of hearing picking up sound from somewhere else, somewhere distant. ‘Why can’t you hear it?’ I thought to myself as I turned my wide eyes back to the strange horse, watching it dip its head back into the water and continuing to drink from the still lake. The deep growls in my ears became louder and louder with each passing second, until abruptly stopping and fading away like one’s dying words. As the world became as quiet as the cosmos with only the slurping of the drinking horse travelling through the air, a loud growl seemed to explode from the shrubbery near the lake sending the birds flying out of the trees and squawking in unison. My eyes not believing what they were seeing as they gazed at a giant cat pouncing into the air, the biggest cat I had ever seen soaring through the air like the birds above; its mouth wide open, revealing its beastly teeth like daggers along its jaws. I watched as its long mane blew in the wind like waves at sea with its muscular front legs stretched in front of it and its claws like switchblades shooting out of its paws which were as wide as diner plates. Its eyes looked like those of a demon, yellow and cunning, never wavering from the target ahead and barely noticing the sun blasting light into them as its nostrils flared and its honey brown fur glared in the light of the sun above it, like a murderous golden statue flying through the air. The strange horse having no time to react, for as large as the cat was, it moved as swiftly and as quietly as the wind itself; descending onto the horse which was oblivious to the coming of its doom, as it raised its head from the water once more only to be violently tackled to the ground by the giant cat. Its massive jaws wrapping around and sinking four inch long canine teeth deep into the flesh of the strange horse’s neck, while its razor sharp claws sank into the horse’s black and white coat causing long gushing claw marks as the cat held on and dragged the struggling prey to the ground. The two animals tumbled on the ground sending clouds of dust into the air as a life or death struggle unraveled in front of my eyes; though I watched from about thirty meters away, I heard the crackling of the horse’s vertebrae as the force of the cat’s jaws snapped its neck while it growled and breathed loudly and deeply with the look of an insatiable bloodlust present in its terrifying topaz eyes. I listened from the shadows of safety, listened to the bursting of the horse’s blood vessels as sharp teeth severed its arteries forcing blood to gush out onto the horse’s coat. Black, white and now red all over it laid there, neighing in pain with its weak breaths bubbling as it suffocated in its own blood. It struggled less and less with each passing second as it grew weaker and weaker until its desperate kicks and battle for life finally came to an end.

The area once again fell into silence as I marveled at the spectacle I had just witnessed, “Whoa… I don’t want to be next.” I whispered to myself as I began to move backwards towards the tree line making sure not to be seen by the monstrous feline. I crept backwards and watched the giant cat eat the flesh off the bones of the strange horse and licking the blood off its crimson stained fur; hearing the teeth grinding crunching of bone so loudly like it were happening right next to me. Step by step I kept moving backwards paying close attention to where I was stepping as to not make any sudden noises or fall over, else I’d attract some very unwanted attention. As I gazed at life and death itself unravelling ahead of me, everything suddenly stopped in its tracks as if time had stood still. The birds lingered in the sky without flapping their wings, the fish froze in the air above the lake surrounded by drops of splashing water floating in the air and common dragonflies along with other winged insects trapped in the fishes’ mouths. I looked to the giant cat to find it frozen as well, stuck with its tongue licking the cuts on the horse’s body. Everything around me, the branches and leaves included stopped swaying and froze in the now non-existent wind, as if I was now trapped in a lifeless wax museum. With utter confusion on my face I stood up and scanned the area ahead of me, still taking small steps backwards deeper into the shadows towards the tree line as the temperature dropped to the point that I saw my deep breaths freezing in front of me. The warm clay that I walked on turned to snow as snowflakes suddenly started falling onto the ground and on the leaves of the trees around me. Crystals of razor sharp frost covered the tree trunks as icicles like spearheads formed and hung from under their branches before my very eyes; the sun’s rays faded away like candle light that has burned through its wax and plunged the world into a blistering cold darkness.

I finally stopped and stood still, as if I were frozen as well, with a small icicle hanging from the tip of my nose and my arms folded in front of me as I rubbed my chest for warmth. My body shivering because of the cold, shaking like a leaf in a strong wind but unable to move like a man made of snow during a chilling winter’s night; as if trapped in my own body I stood in the soul sucking darkness watching my breaths freeze in the air as they left my lungs. As I stood amidst the frozen trees in a forest made of darkness, a blue flame began to blaze a few feet ahead of me and about a foot above my head. I stared at the ominous flame like a floating torch shining a blue light around the area in which I stood, and with my gazing upon the flame a shadow began to form on the ground right below it like an oil spill slowly getting bigger and turning into a large puddle of thick black liquid which soon begins to bubble and steam. I stood there now unable to move my fingers as I helplessly watched the puddle rise from the ground like someone slowly emerging from a pool of black water; I watched as its head emerged, followed by its shoulders, slowly rising and creeping from the puddle on the ground like a boiling shadow or a manifesting spirit. The figure stood in front of me, a dark steaming shadow beneath a blue flame wearing a silver lined hood and random images flashing were its face should have been. “We meet again young Beuren. Never would I have imagined you making it this far.” He said to me in a gurgling voice, like speaking with oil in your throat. “Hoo-hoo-hooded, Cr-cr-creepy, Thi-thi-thing! Ca-ca-can’t you just, sa-sa-say hello, li-li-like everyone else!?” I said to him with a stutter, the cold having frozen my lips leaving my eyes being the only part of my body I could move. “Wha-wha-what is this, pla-pla-place.” I asked as my eyes rolled around looking in all directions with my eye brows whitened by frost and my tongue wiggling in my mouth, struggling to push out my words.

He slowly pulled his arms from inside his dark robe, stretching each arm out to his sides; like a mummy’s arms made of glistening silver capturing the light of the raging flame above, the flame which he looks up at and says with a deep gurgling voice which echoes through the now seemingly frozen wasteland, “You are home! And you have much to learn… Now, let us begin…”