"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
What is Hell?
The dictionary simply defines Hell as a place or state of continuous punishment after death. It is where evil people go when they die. Hell is Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, Tartarus. Hell is a state of mind; it is living misery and torment. Hell is instant and forever. It is difficulty given physical form. Hell is an inferno. Its environment is a fusion of harsh living conditions.
Dante and his inferno was a well described epic of Hell. Dante's poem was of a Hell with nine circles, nine levels, of torture and torment. It was Hell, but it was only the surface of what it was and could be.
Hell was limbo filled with undeserving of Heaven's light but not tainted for the dungeons of deep Hell. Limbo was for the lost and righteous. Those who just had not found their way or merely rejected the bright light because it hurt their eyes and no one wanted to be around that many goodie two shoes. Limbo was heaven when compared to the rest.
Hell is a pit of fire, where the damn are its fuel. There is a pit, filled with damning fire and scrabbling, burning, screaming bodies of sinners. They are packed tight, no room to breathe even if they stopped screaming long enough to try. They claw and rip into each other, fighting to reach the edge where freedom beckons. But there are demons watching from the lip. Encouraging and taunting their efforts. They laugh and howl in glee as the sinners tear each other apart and are trampled. They reach out clawed deformed hands to the burned, hairless bodies, offer them reprieve from the pit as they pull them out only to throw them back into the chaos.
Hell was a wasteland of burned earth and violent storms. The heat of flames hissing forth through fissures in the ground, while the winds beat viciously and carried the acrid smell of burning flesh. The land littered with fallen bodies of those compelled to cross a raging plain, never getting far before being buffeted around by the rainless storm.
Hell was a dark forest with twisted trees in shapes of tormented bodies or grasping demons. Souls were forced to forever wander. Lost in fear and desperation, constantly hunted by the manifestations of their worst nightmares. Some souls didn't even know they were in hell, but felt it none the less. Souls that were trapped in an endless loop of horror, some of their own consciousness, for others, hell formed the pattern for them.
Hell was a place for punishment. Souls forced to complete relentless tasks only to end in fail. Souls forced to suffer hunger and thirst while the means to their ends always stayed just out of reach. Souls in solitude, bodies hindered and forced to endure physical pain of being eaten alive or flayed on a constant basis. Lost and insane with pain.
Hell is a place of confinement for evil spirits; a realm of eternal torture and torment. Inhabited by demons, both born and made. Created from the primordial chaos that birthed the universe and sculpted by the hate, fear, and rage of existence. While others were made, those fallen from Heaven's grace, and forced to remain in a new home that they could never call so. Hell was filled with the twisted souls of humans with a grasp still on the earth. Those souls that haunted houses, souls that waited for the foolish to invoke their name and draw forth their wrath.
It was in this hopelessness that Naraku now dwelled. In hopelessness, he suffered. In hopelessness he drowned. In hopelessness he cried. It was in hell that he learned to weep. He learned what it felt to fear and tremble. In hell, he learned that he was a mere gnat to what 'true' demons were. He was no demon. He was nothing. They had taught him that thoroughly. He had been put through physical, mental, and emotional torture. Found out things about himself he had never known. Or had been afraid to admit. Maybe the horrors were only lies planted by the devils. It wouldn't be the first lie they made him believe. It wasn't hard to fool him. His mind may not have been broken, but it wasn't whole. One torture, one existence; blended into another. There was no reprieve between the terror, one lead to another. No start, no beginning, only peaks. Never ending epic of pain, humiliation, and terror. A torrent of screams, jeers, growling and roars.
One moment you were being torn apart and digested by an unfathomable creature, and the next you were hanging from a thorny, barbed tree that penetrated and grew through your body constantly writhing and feeding from your blood and misery. No sleep, no comatose, no blanking out, no ignoring your situation. He wasn't even sure he had ever blinked. Maybe his eyelids were gone. He wouldn't be surprised. There were no surprises in hell. Just horrible realizations. Like the fact that there seemed to be something growing from the mud at the base of his home.
His body tensed and jerked reflexively. He tried to tame his muscles but they betrayed him and trembled in fear. The creature in the mud had grown larger, deformed limbs beginning to take form. The noises that escaped him had long since caused him shame and continued to do so now. But he could no more make them quiet, or force himself to seem aggressive; the noise, the keening, was just as he was; pathetic.
"Pathetic." The creature below him whispered as it began to stand to its full height, humanoid in appearance now. The mud, though wet only seconds before, now dried by the heat of hell and molded to the creatures scaled skin. Its head was adorned by tubular horns that ran down its head and into its back.
His fear and movements agitated the tree and it began to squirm harder and faster. The branches that grew through him caused his wounds to open wider and burn. The blood ran down old trails over his body and splattered on the ground. Sizzling upon contact and causing the air to smell of copper.
The demon observed his spilled blood momentarily before glancing back up at him. Upon making eye contact he flinched and tried to move away. No use, no hope. The creature began to climb up to him. His breathing became heavy as he simultaneously tried to escape and prepare his body for the inevitable.
It made no sound as it moved, yet each jolt of the tree had noises escaping his lips. He closed his eyes in hopes to…anything. Why do people close their eyes when scared? Were they trying to separate themselves from the situation? Hoping that if you couldn't see the horror, the horror wouldn't see you? Or by closing your eyes you unknowingly prayed for salvation? Naraku prayed for salvation and he knew it. Also knew it wouldn't come. He also knew that when he opened his eyes it would be there waiting for him. He knew it by the absence of movement. It waited for him to open his eyes, and if he thought that would deter the inevitable, he would wish for blindness. But not knowing what was probably inches from his fight, filled him with an anxiety he never knew before hell.
He opened his eyes and saw the demon staring at him. Its eyes were fairly human compared to the ones he was used to. It was fully anatomically corrected; female, and utterly normal besides the scales and horns. She stared blankly at his cowering with eyes that perfectly reflected the fires of its existence. Crawling and flying around her like parasites were tiny winged devils. They had no eyes and fleshy folds where they should be. As they stared at each other, the little creatures drifted over to him and began to chew on various parts of his body. Their mouths opened wider than seemed possible and where their teeth rendered into his flesh, a burning sensation flared through his veins.
"What's the matter, Naraku?" the demon asked, the sweet voice masking the evil he knew she harbored.
He said nothing and diverted his eyes. The devils were now slowly eating him while others lapped up the spilling blood. The demon paid them no mind and leaned in closer to him.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Though her words seemed innocent, they caused his body to tremble. She noticed it and hummed aloud to herself.
"Hm. Funny. If you had any liquid in your body I'd say you'd probably piss yourself now. It's funny." Despite her tone, her face remained expressionless.
"Just do it already."
Her eyebrow shifted as she looked up at him. "Do what?"
"Whatever it is you are going to do." He didn't raise his voice, he kept his eyes downcast, but his tone came out firm.
"Why do you fear me, Naraku?"
"Because you're evil, hell spawn, and I am shit compared to you. You hold power over me and you can do whatever you want, whatever pains me, whatever breaks me; whatever you can think of to destroy me. Because you're a real demon and fear is what drives you, it's what you were born from. I fear because this is what I deserve and what I will endure for eternity. The pain will never fade and none shall ever tire." He spat out his speech with practiced ease. Demons had conditioned him to praise their fearfulness and evil. Taught him how to correctly tremble before them. Mainly taught him how to be honest.
"Oh how the tables have turned. The once great and powerful Naraku, now cowers before a little human girl."
He stopped breathing and waited for the ball to drop. This wouldn't be the first time the demons had masqueraded as victims from his living days. His chest began to burn but he refused to play their game. Although, by not reacting he was only delaying the horror. The demons could wait forever, and though he was dead his body ached for mortal needs.
"What's the matter?" the demon asked, once he continued to breathe. "Don't you recognize my voice?"
The voice was familiar, but it could be anyone he had wronged, and he refused to let curiosity further entertain the demons. Because that's all it was to them. Entertainment. And he'd be damned if he was just going to give it to them; they were going to have to work for it. But they did enjoy their work.
"Naraku!" the demon snapped causing him to jump in fear. With heavy breathing he stilled himself and awaited the assault. "I don't have time for your fractures at the moment. We didn't have much interaction, but I was the one helping Inuyasha gather the jewel shards."
He was silent as he studied her and then his face broke out into a rotten smile. "Kikyo's incarnation. So this is where you disappeared to."
He burst into laughter, his voice echoing loud and unnatural in the environment. The demon, no, the lost miko only stared at him and waited for him to get his fill. It's not that she felt he deserved a laugh, she only knew that it wouldn't last.
"Little incarnate. You've been in hell all this time?" He didn't give her time to answer. "They blamed me for your disappearance. Inuyasha and his flunkies. They blamed me and of course I took the credit. Yet, all along, you had gone to hell. Didn't know you had it in you."
"I didn't." Kagome answered him with a shrug. "I was sent to hell actually. My life traded for Kikyo's. She met a demon at a crossroads and made a deal. So here I am."
"Enjoying yourself?" he asked with a sneer.
"More than you."
Any further comment on his part was interrupted by roars in the distance.
"Well look what you've done. You've alerted the citizens of your lack of misery with your stupid laughter. And here I was only trying to offer you freedom."
"What offer?" he asked with a tremble, no longer afraid of her but of any approaching demons.
"Like I said; freedom. I'm getting out of here and I thought you might want to come along."
"Why would you want to help me?"
"I don't. But I will need your strength once we get back to the mortal world."
"And how are you supposed to escape this place?"
"Do you know how Hell works, Naraku?"
He said nothing, but felt his agitation rise. He didn't need a lecture when hordes of demons were probably descending upon him as she spoke. Especially not when she had just dangled a chance of freedom at him.
"There are three types of beings in Hell. There are those like you; bastards who deserve eternal damnation. There are demons; you've met them of course. Did you know there are many categories of demons? Some, you would never think to call demon, especially within earshot of them. And then there are those like me; a very small percentage, not even worth mentioning really. But there are a few here, mortals, who don't deserve Hell and came here under 'special' circumstances."
"Don't you hear them coming wench?" in his distress, Naraku yanked at his tree bonds and jerked around. "Set me free and lets be gone of this place!"
"All these beings use a currency." She continued with a deaf ear to his yells and subsequent moans. "Well, all except the damned like yourself. That currency consists of deals, contracts, favors, and trade."
Naraku tried to quiet his racketing and movements as that only provoked the imps and tree to devour him with fervor. He just had to endure her rambling until she got to the point.
"Normally, as a living being who inhabits Hell unjustly, my most valuable asset is my soul. Who would've thought, huh? Someone wanted my soul? So unusual for me. Many demons would gladly trade me safety or a ride back to the surface for my soul. Ask me if I sold it?"
He gritted his teeth at her.
"Go on. Ask me."
He said nothing and growled at her as she tilted her ears towards the approaching noises.
"They're getting closer. So, aren't you going to ask…"
"Did you sell your soul?" he finally snapped out, only to have a chunk of his side bitten out.
"Unfortunately no. Seeing as how I had experienced my soul being taken from before in the mortal world, I was a bit stingy when it came to it. So I traded other things to get what I wanted. A few memories here, an ability here, or there, a favor and exchange of services every now and then. Nothing I could offer garnered me an escape though. So I made do. And one day, I heard of your arrival."
She leaned against him now and gazed into his eyes. Her bony elbow pressing painfully into his chest as she propped her head up in her hand.
"Oh how the nostalgia enveloped me when I saw you. First for the old days when you were alive and I could smell fresh air that didn't burn the back of my throat. Then you reminded me of myself when I first arrived here. Naked, afraid, and with that slight glimmer of hope in your eye that this wasn't real. I saw that glimmer fade fast in you. I watched you for an unprecedented amount of time."
"You only have yourself to thank for this offer that I present to you. After watching you suffer, after watching your pain, and misery; I realized that I couldn't keep such treasures to myself. I realized that I must reach the surface and spread the tales of how you were broken. I watched you cry. The great Naraku, was nothing more now that a sniveling, crying, cowering soul, begging for mercy. Even now, I feel you tremble beneath me."
In that moment, Naraku felt himself a fool. This was surely a demon come to taunt him again. No way could this be the mousy little shadow behind Inuyasha. The sliver of all that had been Kikyo. This was a demon who fed off emotions. A psychological torture. Made him fearful, then hopeful. Rendered his ears with babbling and now made the vivid memories of his first days in Hell scorch his mind in fresh horrors.
"Do you remember the first time you cried? I do. They wouldn't stop flowing and sizzled on your face faster than you could release them. I could remember the smell of the salt drying in the air. Your demise motivated me into getting out of here again. And so here I am, with an offer you can't refuse."
Pushing herself up, Kagome grabbed a rolled up piece of parchment from one of the imps as it flew near her head. Rolling it out, she looked it over before showing it to him. He didn't see the need, since it was written in a language he couldn't recognize.
"This here is a contract, Naraku. A contract that will be between you and me. Do you want me to read it to you?"
He looked towards the ever growing noise and then back at the demon possibly toying with him, and he hesitated.
"What would you have me do?" he finally asked, resigned to at least suffer the less physically painful torture.
"Are you asking what I would have you do or what the contract would ask of you? You should really let me read it." With that, she seemed to roll the contract open more. Revealing a lengthy monologue that he didn't feel would be worth it.
"I agree!" he yelled. "Just get me out of here!"
"You agree?"
"Yes!"
"To this unbreakable contract with me without knowing its full details!"
"Yes! Whatever it says! What must I do to make it so?"
"Just sign on the bottom line." Suddenly caught up in his excitement, Kagome quickly reached out and snapped off a thorn from his tree. With its breaking, he yelled in pain as it felt as if she had ripped away one of his extremities. With only a glance in his direction, she dabbed the broken thorn in one of his bleeding wounds before forcing it into his hands.
"Sign!" she instructed him, holding the contract up so he could reach it. As his hand was pinned to his prison, signing was difficult and with the blood running low, Kagome had to take it from him and dab it in his side again. If she did so with force, no one said anything of it.
"Good boy." She commended him once finished. Looking the signature over, she nodded in satisfaction before folding it up. "Now eat it."
Any objections he had were muffled as a dirty hand was stuffing the leathery parchment down his throat.
"Now what?" he growled after his difficult consumption. "How are you going to get me down from here?"
"Now…" she answered him with an unsmiling face. "You wait until I come back for you."
"What? NO!" he raved, trying to wrench himself free despite the pain. "Let me free!"
"Shh!" she admonished him, her eyes wide and filled with warning. "This is a delicate situation. Hell is very frugal about its inhabitants and especially strict about rules and rituals. We must do things precise and at the right times." Glancing off quickly, she whistled for the imps before leaping down, the muck cushioning her fall. Crouching low, making herself inconspicuous, she began to stalk off.
"Wait! Please!" Either from the desperation in his voice or the use of 'please' had Kagome stopping to look back at him with surprise. "How long do I have to wait?"
"Until I come back."
"Then what am I supposed to do until then?"
She gave him a look that had never been turned upon him in life. He realized instantly he hated the look.
"I thought that was obvious; suffer."
On the eve of the centenary of a horrendous massacre, at the midnight hour, under the full moon, two souls found themselves crawling from the once reddened earth, still angry with death. Knuckles bruised from digging burst into night air and clutched at nothing. The earth swelled and fell away to reveal an arm, shoulder, and finally the gasping, sputtering head of a wide eyed woman. Not far behind a similar scene played resulting in the larger frame of a man.
Crawling more that climbing, they pulled themselves, naked and covered in filth fully onto the land where they fell into heaps of exhausted, moaning flesh. They said nothing as they greedily sucked in lung full of sweet air, obvious to the steam streaming from their bodies in the cool air. Long after they had gotten their fill they reframed from moving as their muscles felt raw and weak from misuse. They weren't complaining. Being as weak as a baby on earth was better than being strong in hell.
The air was so fresh and cool. The world resonated with the sound of nature. Insects and their mating calls, birds of prey, creatures scuttling through foliage. They luxuriated in the feel of grass on their face, the feel of it between their hands, and they loved the fact that the mud covering them didn't smell of feces in the slightest bit.
Into the night a sudden laugher broke the tranquility. It was throaty and cracking. It was the laughter of someone unaccustomed to happiness. Desperate, relieved, and a little mad. Touched.
Kagome forced herself to roll over onto her back and barely gave the laughing Naraku a glance. She didn't smile, she didn't laugh, she didn't even cry in relief. She only appreciated the moment. Staring up into sorely missed sky, she could only appreciate it.
"I must thank you, little Miko."
The voice jolted her into awareness and she realized she must've dosed off. As she focused, she saw that the sky was not the same one she had admired before. Some time had passed. She guessed escaping from Hell tired you out more than you would expect. As a dark figure loomed over her, she turned a lazy gaze over to Naraku who stood over her now with a satisfied smirk.
"I had my doubts about you and your plan, but you pulled it off. I thank you for this." He spread his arms out to indicate the world around him. "I never thought that I would see, smell, feel this ever again."
She continued to look at him with indifference as she barely managed to contain a bored sigh.
"But I fear this is where I friendship ends."
Of course.
With his smirk growing wider, Naraku made to move. To kill her. How, she didn't know, his body language never made it far enough to tell. What it did tell was that he was surprised and horrified. By what? The pain. Clutching his abdomen, Naraku crumbled to the ground and screamed. The sound of it pierced the air and sent sleeping birds into flight.
Sighing, Kagome rolled onto her stomach and forced her achy muscles to lift her up. Ignoring the pained yells of Naraku, she wobbled around the area like a newborn calf. Once she felt capable of moving without the use of trees she made her way to the fallen demon.
"That wasn't very smart." She told him, meeting his hate filled stare without blinking. "Not reading the contract. Not having me read it to you."
He made to lunge for her but his strength left him as the pain intensified.
"That way, you would've known." She continued. "That while under contract with me, you are to remain loyal. That means no betraying, no harming, no killing of me. You are to protect me from harm, enemies, forces of nature, and myself. Failure to do so will result in you being sent back to Hell via the contract. The contract in your belly."
She began to walk around him, observing the angry red color of his abdomen.
"Did you feel that heat? Felt familiar? That was Hell, opening in your gut to slowly consume you from the inside out before sending you back to an internal damnation."
She crouched down to look into his face. "So you might want to curb that murderous intent of yours. Only way to soothe your fire. Can you do it? Or will be able to use your belly as a glow torch?"
It took a while, but the embers in his stomach disappeared and his pained breathing evened out.
"Good boy."
"What's? Wrong? With? My? Body?" His eyes could barely open and it was a strain to even talk.
"Like I told you. Your powers belong to me. You died and now this body belongs to me too. If I wanted, I could sap your strength with a thought. I could leave you as weak as a twig and snap your bones. A precautionary for myself, and maybe a little entertainment when the mood fits." She shrugged.
Laying down beside him, she raised her hand and dangled it over his face. "You see, I can weaken you with a thought, but your strength is returned by touch."
As she said it, he focused in on her hand over his face, could feel salvation and strength on the tip of her fingertip. He tried to reach her, ease his head up to gain access to her caress. But his body grew weaker to the point where he could only lay down in exhaustion.
"Almost had it." She whispered.
He turned to her, his hate making his face hot. She was so close, but as much as he tried to reach for her, edge closer, she would only inch away from him, keeping herself barely in reach. The world began to darken around the edges, clouding his vision. Was he dying again?
"So let's get this straight now. This friendship you so called yourself ending; never existed. You are my tool to use. I am your contractor. You serve me for as long as I live, and when that ceases to be, you will return to Hell where you belong."
His last view was of her gaze on him. He expected her to smile. To gloat at his weakness and her hold over him. Expected her eyes to flash red, and give him a glimpse of the devil that he knew to reside in her. She had to be possessed. This wasn't Kikyo's incarnate. Not anymore.
But she didn't smile. She didn't gloat. No sign of possession was hinted at and she only watched him with boring brown eyes as exhaustion took him.
With Naraku unconscious and learning a valuable lesson, Kagome relaxed into the grass and let the lullaby of nature lure her into a well needed sleep. It was nowhere near peaceful, but it was well deserved. Yet it wasn't enough. She deserved so much more.