Author Introduction: This is a story I was working on back in 2011. It was a work in progress, and was basically an alternate Hellbound & Hellseeker, which told of how Kirsty and Pinhead shared a passionate encounter during the second movie at some point, and how it affected everything leading up to Hellseeker. It was an interesting idea that sadly never worked out. There was just too much complication. However, I still had bits and pieces on my computer, and I wanted to recycle. I've turned what little I had into a small one shot, and into an alternate conversation between Pinhead and Kirsty in Hellseeker. I've not only written some of my own dialogue, but I've also used some dialogue dropped from the Hellseeker script, which is a huge Pinsty hint in my mind. XD So, hope you love it! As some of my older readers will notice I've also decided to use the original title as before. Why not? ;) Please enjoy, and don't forget to leave a comment. Cheers! - Laura

Exploring Eternity

"We have eternity to know your flesh..."

It had been many a year since those very chilling words were spoken to her, fourteen to be precise, such words which roused Kirsty Cotton's almost dead senses, searing through her tough, impenetrable fleshy outer husk and into her very soul, resonating from one voice which always sounded so...inviting so...sensual. Such sensuality that made her skin tingle with the intensity of it.

It'd felt like a lifetime to her since she had stood in the presence of the pinheaded Cenobite, but it'd also felt as though their encounter had happened only the day before too.

Fourteen years. Nearly quarter of a century had passed them by.

Back then, she had been a headstrong seventeen year old, fleeing from such unimaginable pleasures her mind had yet to realise and understand.

Now she was a full grown woman...a woman with a broken heart longing for revenge, and deeply buried desires she'd not known were even there rising to the surface.

She was a thirty year old woman who now fully comprehended just what the Cenobite meant about having eternity to know her flesh.

After such a long time, a lifetime torturous in her memory, she stood mere feet away from the very instigator, the one who had uttered that simple if spine chilling statement, whom set her skin alight with the sensual thrill of his words and his very being...the very creature she had purposely sought out. She so very much wished not to feel desire for him, this horrific and mutilated creature in her presence, but she could not help it.

She was drawn to him, this other-worldly man before her.

She gazed upon him, trying to anticipate his next move, and in turn his coal eyes swam in the depths of her brown ones. The other-dimensional being had a very complicated history with this mere mortal woman, this once-young girl with whom had opened the portal to his world not once, not twice...but now thrice! It sat in her hands, entwined in her fingers, as they regarded the other.

To him, Kirsty Cotton had grown much older, much more pliable. Much more beautiful...hauntingly beautiful. Though to her, the Cenobite before Kirsty appeared to have changed very little.

His chalky white cranium was still tattooed in an intricate, bloodless grid, with a single pin inserted into each intersection. His eyes, as always, were forever inscrutable and dark as the night skies. He still stood a towering six feet tall, and ever proud and fearless. Tight leather continued to cling to his lean body - the skin of his chest beneath brutally peeled away and attached to the thick material - revealing bleeding raw muscle. Rusted old lethal tools still swung at his hips, hanging from a belt fixed through his exposed naval. But as always, Kirsty's eyes were ineluctably drawn to the Leader of Cenobite's head which was a brutal work of fine art with his halo of pins, and no matter how hard she tried she could not look away.

She was simply captivated by him.

It was the eyes, Kirsty decided, from which attracted and frightened her - along with his calm if commanding inhuman voice, for they emanated a breath taking intensity, a fierce singularity of purpose both admirable and fearsome. All it took was one look, an intense look, and Kirsty felt those coal black orbs burning through right to her very soul. Though essentially fathomless Kirsty had bore witness to many different emotions all in the space of a couple of seconds back that fateful day fourteen years ago. Many different emotions; pain, fear, despair, anger. They had all shimmered in those ebony eyes, and all thanks to a single photograph.

A photograph of a man he once knew a lifetime ago. A defiant and handsome looking man, dressed in an army officer's uniform.

Himself!

He had been human once, and it had come a shock to the both of them, him especially.

The pained look on his face still continued to haunt her, even after fourteen years. It was somewhat hard to forget.

"Kirsty..." he murmured in a low husky voice, cruelly if inadvertently bringing her from the memories she had tried ever so hard to forget, but it had been in vain. She could never forget him, and the sad blue-eyed man he'd reverted back to. But now she was dragged back into the present with a painful thump where he still stood before her.

"We meet again." His voice was still low but resonant as he continued with his greeting.

Kirsty noted as she stared hard into his eyes that they seemed dead and dark, but some place within those lifeless orbs she knew a pair of lively and bright sapphire jewels for eyes were dwelling beneath. So sad, but alive at the very least. Oh how she remembered them well, and they made her well up just to think about them.

As a few stray tears fell down her cheeks, her misted eyes scanned their surroundings. The outline of several other Cenobites were lurking nearby, masked in the darkness and in amongst the dangling chains, probably awaiting further instructions, though Kirsty couldn't care less for their presence. It was their Master she was more concerned with. It was him she had summoned, and before long her eyes are drawn back over to him.

"Why am I here?" she trembled helplessly, more or less to herself; asking that as if she didn't know why they were stood face to face after all these years. "How did you find me?" She knew why and how they had come to be here together, but seeing him again made her lose all reasoning and logic in her brain, the very armour she had worked for years to build up following the tragic day when he-

"You know very well why you're here. Was it not you who found me, Kirsty?" the Prince of Hell asked rhetorically, chuckling darkly and indicating to the immaculately polished box which was still sat in palm of her hands. She held onto it with sheer strength, fearing that any moment it would leave her warm, protective cradle and fly straight into his seemingly waiting grasp. It did not. "Did you not seek out the box of your own free will? Did you not wish for my presence when your fingers stroked the very exterior? Do you not require my assistance in concerning your ever loving husband, Kirsty? Ah, sweet girl, still playing the innocent. Still denying your true intentions to the last."

Kirsty looked as if she were struggling, confusion mapped upon every inch of her face. She hadn't known what she was thinking when days before this moment she had purposely sought out the box, with him in mind. He was the first one she had thought of after uncovering the deception of her cheating and manipulative husband, but she was not certain of why. Originally, she thought this Cenobite to be dead, as sure she had witnessed his tragic death years before, but he was certainly alive and well. That was for certain. But instead of kindly pale blue eyes staring into hers, she was met by deep never ending pools of obsidian black gazing right into her soul.

She closed her eyes, her thoughts never leaving the pain of her troubled life, of the unhappiness she was undergoing at present with her latest beau. Of how confused she was over this whole situation. Her confusion over how this Cenobite was back in her life, despite purposely seeking him out, made her mind ache. She thought that, if indeed he would have survived all those years ago, she'd had lost him forever...

"I never lost you, and you never lost I, Kirsty..." he told her, as if reading her thoughts. "I've waited. Watched and waited. Seen how the bud blossomed and ripened into firm fruit." He paused briefly, placing a slender finger to his chin as if in thought, his eyes never leaving hers. "But what to do? Pluck it and consume it? Or watch it fall from the bough, rot and wither into dirt? You opened the door long ago, and it shall never be closed, not until I get what I came for."

Kirsty shuddered at the intensity of his words. "My soul."

A ghost of a smile was visible on his lips. "Ah, a little understanding at last." he murmured, sounding almost pleased, but then evidence of possessiveness and perhaps even jealousy began to gradually reveal itself within his cavernous voice as he continued. "It is mine, Kirsty. I possess it utterly. More completely than your pathetic Trevor ever could in his haphazard couplings." He emphasised that last part purposely, smiling sneakily as he moved slowly toward her. "I touch the deep, dark, secret centre of yourself. And you know it. You welcome it."

"I...I came to you for help!" she cried. Having realised what she said, Kirsty's eyes then widened in shock. She had sought him out...for comfort most likely...for protection surely. Sex...maybe. And very most positively...revenge...

Had she gone mad?

Possibly.

The urge to wince in both fear and disgust fled from her, only to be promptly replaced once again by wanton lust and desire at his words, and he chuckled inwardly, sensing her confusion. She was lost now, and as the minutes wore on in this dark and dismal place called Hell she no longer felt she could return to her former life, to confront her husband over his infidelity and cruelty, and demand a divorce...oh no. That was not enough any longer...she wanted more. She wanted to make Trevor suffer, just as her uncle Frank had years before.

But more so than anything, she wanted to see him again.

Deep down, she wanted to be with him, the vivid memory from fourteen years previously playing once again in her fragile mind, aiding that desire and clouding her judgement. Her heart continued to pound uncontrollably for him. He, on the other hand, never breathed a single word about their encounter which occurred all those years ago, of the look of understanding...the tenderness, the smiles shared between them. But Kirsty knew damn well he remembered. He had given his life for her. Who would forget something like that, even after so many years?

"Help?" he guffawed reaching over to caress her cheek almost longingly, making her heart race beneath her rib cage. "You seek more than just assistance from me, Kirsty. The fear of your own welfare discovering how your loving husband was planning to rob you of breath for financial gain made it the very convenient excuse, did it not?"

Kirsty never replied, merely stared at him with her brown eyes glistening over. The Cenobite continued.

"You long for this world, child, long for an end to the banality of your mortality. And you want for me to show you. You always knew this day was coming. Felt it deep within your soul, did you not?"

Kirsty chose not to reply to him, but could see him edging ever more closer, and cold shivers of electricity cascaded up her spine.

The pinheaded being continued, his voice laced with temptation. "When you woke in the dark, slick with sweat, terrified of something you could not name, was it because I walked in your dreams? When you paused at an innocent street corner, suddenly unsure of your place in this world, was it because I stood unseen beside you?"

By the time the last word rolled from his tongue, he had gotten so close she could feel his breath - cold like the winter breeze against her cheek, his ever creaking leather uniform almost touching the woollen material of her top. His hands had grasped her hips, and the tips of his fingers dug within the flesh deeply which indicated a need to mark his territory. She breathed heavily, almost in arousal.

"Please..." she breathed, pleadingly and looked into his eyes once again. Was there nothing of which remained of the heroic army officer behind those dark coal eyes, beneath all that leather? Behind the mocking smile?

Was he truly dead? Was all that remained of him just all darkness?

No. She dismissed what she was thinking as her eyes still lingered on his. Of course man and Cenobite were one and the same; though he never said in so many words, she could tell he was not impressed by Trevor, and his treatment of the woman he had proclaimed to love.

By this point, Kirsty had closed her eyes, refusing to let further tears fall from her brown eyes - but also refusing to let what had happened between them nearly quarter of a century ago dictate her logic, but it was fruitless. She felt his fingers to dig deeply into her hips, and the cold tips of his pins grazing slightly against her cheek.

Maybe he was right; maybe there was more to this meeting than simply needing his assistance in punishing Trevor. Perhaps she did long for this world...and him...

But for the time being, they had much work to do.

"Wait!" she breathed, opening her eyes to gaze upon his once again, noting that familiar cold smirk weave its way across his lips...whilst at the same time a whole haze of memories from years previously ran through her mind ceaselessly, forcing her to re-live them once more...

With those thoughts in her mind of the good human being he'd once been, Kirsty willed herself to relax in his presence. After all, she had been the one to call for him out of her own free will. She'd wanted his help, wanted him to aid her like he'd done fifteen years prior.

For looking into those beautiful if endlessly dark orbs, she could see hints of the noble, heroic soldier from the old photograph she had uncovered so long ago.

The End