New story. Hell on Earth will never see the end, but this one is something I wanted to write for a long time. Expect a lot of weird stuff and references to both the comics and the movies (especially Bloodline's original script and that "Book of the Damned" comic about Lemarchand.).
Please comment, so I know if I need to change something.
EDIT: After a couple of years, I finally fixed a few mistakes.
xx
The "Lament Configuration". This was the name of the puzzle-box Jane was holding in her hands. Weird name indeed, but that was not important. The only thing she wanted to know right now was how the hell she was supposed to open it. It looked like a cube, it was definitely a nice object to put on a table, but more than that...
She spent every free moment she had on that thing. But nothing. She seriously started thinking that the man who sold her the cube stole her money.
It was night. She had to sleep, her eyes were burning, but she couldn't stop looking at that "Lament Configuration". The day after she was going to look like a zombie, but it didn't matter. She wasn't going to give up easily. She wanted to solve that thing and...
...and WHAT?
She put it away, telling to herself that she was just a stupid. How could she even THINK that solving it was going to make something happen?
She glanced at it. It was so inviting...
She grabbed it again, looking at it. She WAS going to open that damn thing. Even if that meant breaking it. She moved her blond hair away from her face, then she resumed frantically touching it.
A few hours passed, when she suddenly got the right moves. That was it, the cube started moving by itself, and it turned into a star-shaped thing, or something like that.
When that happened, all around her the room became dark. The small light she kept on to see what she was doing suddenly flashed and the light-bulb exploded.
She almost jumped, scared.
The wall started glowing blue, and a cold sensation pervaded Jane's body.
She wanted to yell, she wanted to call someone, but her voice was stuck in her throat. She wanted to run away, but her limbs were lifeless.
What was going on? Why...
Chains flew in the air and hit the wall behind her.
"H-help me..." she whimpered, her voice nothing more than a bird's lament.
A dark figure came out of all the blue light. It was someone bald, with a long...dress? Cape? But it didn't look really tall...
"The Box. You opened it." the figure spoke.
"Who are you?" Jane was trembling.
"An explorer in the further regions of experience. Priestess of Leviathan. Sister of the Order of the Gash." so, it was a woman. It wasn't easy to tell, because both her figure and her voice were definitely NOT feminine.
She walked out of the strong light, and Jane managed to look better at her. She had a nail through her nose, and her throat was held open by wires that also pierced her cheeks. Her light blue eyes looked like a sky ready to fall.
Leviathan. Order of the Gash. What the hell was that?
"What the hell...?" she started, but the Priestess, as she called herself, put index and thumb in her mouth and grabbed her tongue. Jane felt the nails ripping her flesh and the warm blood coming out.
"Hell. Don't call that name in vain." still holding her tongue, she moved closer and brushed her lips on Jane's neck.
The girl moaned something, and the Priestess finally pulled away her fingers.
" 'Hhy are you 'hoin 'his?" she tried to speak properly, but her tongue hurt too much. All the metallic taste of blood that filled her mouth almost made her puke.
"You called me. And I'm going to show you all the pleasures that await you." she looked at the blood on her fingers with an interested expression.
Jane started crying. She didn't want that, she didn't...
Chains pierced her skin. She yelled, wondering why nobody came to save her. Nobody cared? Or maybe she couldn't talk anymore, and the screams were only in her head...
"Your flesh is so tender..." the woman whispered.
"Please..." she managed to say.
"I can feel your pain. I can smell it. It's so good..." she took a knife from her belt.
"PLEASE!" Jane was panting, and her heart was racing so fast she thought she was going to die "I'll give you anything you want...anything you want..."
The woman stopped. She stared at the girl, who fell almost lifeless after those words.
"...anything you want." she repeated mechanically.
"I want your body. Such is the law of the Configuration."
Jane half-opened her eyes. The Priestess looked calm, as if she wasn't about to...to kill her? Was this what she wanted to do? Or worse...but what could be worse than death?
"I'll give you someone else...I know some people who could...could open the box and you..." she stopped to breathe a few times "...could take them instead of me."
"Maybe I prefer you."
The girl shook her head, with more tears in her eyes "I'll find someone...interesting for you. Please..." the college was full of weird people who liked weird stuff. She could ask them to try that puzzle...after all, she was doing the Priestess a favor...
"So be it." she put back the knife and the chains returned in the darkness, making Jane fall on the floor, with her arms still wounded and bleeding.
"Thank you..." she whispered.
"Four girls. The same age as you...the same desire as you. Your friends." she said, before disappearing.
Jane opened wide her eyes in shock. Her friends? She couldn't give the Priestess HER FRIENDS...
What was she supposed to do? It was the only way to survive...
She dragged herself on the bed, falling asleep immediately.
But all she could dream of was a black hole swallowing her.
Luckily, it was winter. The large black hoodie she was wearing covered well all the bandages on her arms. The last thing she wanted was having people all around asking what happened. And what was she supposed to answer? That a crazy woman who came out of a cube tried to kill her?
She looked around her. Nobody she knew. She only knew a couple of girls in the whole college, actually. And she needed to be fast, or else the Priestess could change her mind...she couldn't even think about it. Actually, since she woke up that morning, she could feel her presence following her, observing her. It was like having a heavy stone in her chest.
A girl with long red hair waved at her. Jane needed less than a second to decide that she just found the first one. That girl was called Mila, and she was one of the most beautiful girls in the college. Definitely a good victim for the Priestess...she hoped.
"Hi! Are you feeling okay? You have a weird face today..." Mila asked.
Jane shrugged and scratched the back of her neck "I didn't sleep." ...well, it wasn't a lie. Not completely, at least.
"Oh, ok."
The blond girl bit her bottom lip, don't knowing how to start. She felt guilty for that, but she didn't want to die...
"I spent the whole night trying to open this thing. It's like a puzzle, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work." she searched in her bag, then she took the Lament Configuration and showed it to Mila.
"It's a nice object." the red-haired girl stared at it, looking at the intricate drawings on the sides of the cube.
"You want to try?" Jane asked, pretending not to care at all.
Mila laughed "I'm a disaster with this kind of things. I'm just too stupid."
"Hey, at least tomorrow you'll look like a zombie, too. Anyway, when I bought it they told me there's something special when you open it. Like...I don't know. Actually, that man told me "this is the door of your pleasure" or something like that. No idea of what it means." she tried to wake up Mila's curiosity.
"Then why are you giving it to me?" she raised one eyebrow and stared at her friend with a half smile.
"Because I can't open it. I tried everything, but it doesn't work. If you can do it, then you can give me advices." Jane smiled with the most innocent expression she managed to do.
Mila took the Box in her hands and sneered "I think Lucretia could be much better than me with this kind of stuff."
"Look, whoever manages to do it is welcome, that damn thing is absurd. I decided to ask you because you made me think about it..." the blond girl shrugged and rolled her eyes. Damn, she needed to find another way to persuade her.
"Ok, I'll try it. I'm pretty sure I'll waste a day, but this thing is too nice." she caressed the Lament Configuration. Actually, she liked a lot the golden parts. They looked beautiful, and for a second she thought about asking Jane if she wanted to sell it.
Hearing those words, Jane mentally sighed in relief. If she managed to open it, she only needed to find three other girls. Two, if their friend Lucretia accepted the offer and opened it, too.
The two walked inside the class and searched for a couple of seats.
When Jane woke up, she found the Lament Configuration on the table, near her PC. She felt a knot in her stomach. This meant the Priestess killed Mila? This meant...
She tried not to think about it. If the Box was there, nobody was going to understand who killed her.
Now she needed to focus on the rest of the mission. Still three girls. One was Lucretia, but the other two...she needed to find some random girls of her age.
Lucretia had been a lot easier to persuade. As soon as she saw the Box, she asked to touch it. She said it was the nicest object she'd ever seen, and she almost BEGGED Jane to borrow it. The blond girl never expected that task to be that easy...even if she had to guess it. Lucretia always had an obsession for puzzles, symbols, all those things.
She tried not to think about what she was doing to her friends. It was terrible, she knew it, but she kept reminding herself that it was the only way to survive.
She glanced one more time at Lucretia, who kept staring at the Lament Configuration, before turning and walking towards her class.
And then she saw Mila.
Mila. She was alive.
How could it be? Jane almost fainted for the shock. She leaned against a wall and tried to reorder her thoughts. Mila was alive...that meant the Priestess didn't like her? She needed to know.
"Mila!" Jane called.
Her friend turned her head. When she saw the blond girl, she ignored her and kept walking.
Jane remained still. Definitely...something happened, but she didn't know what. She had no idea of what the Priestess did her. But that meant she wasn't really killing them...she sighed in relief. Well, at least she didn't have to feel guilty for what she did.
The Box was again on Jane's table. Lucretia needed less than she expected to open it.
Still two victims...
The third victim was a girl Jane had never seen before. She was tall and muscular, with a black mohawk, and the blond girl heard people calling her "Irene".
After seeing her at the bar in front of the college for a few days, she decided that girl could've been a good option. She managed to take advantage of her distraction when she went to watch a friend playing pinball. Jane put the Box in her bag with the note "open me". Ridiculous, but in the end all that mattered was the result. Especially because only after doing it, Jane understood that...if it didn't work, if Irene threw away the Lament Configuration, it was over. She had no way to find it again, and probably the Priestess was going to think she tried to get rid of her...and then...
She crossed her fingers and prayed that everything went well.
It was late night, but Jane couldn't sleep. Everything around her was cold, even if she was buried in the blankets. She checked if she was sick, but her temperature was ok.
When she finally fell asleep, blue lights started surrounding her. A cold fog started coming out of the walls, and four blurry shapes came out of nowhere.
It was like they were walking through a long corridor with chains hanging from the ceiling, a corridor that just opened in front of her. Soft cries came from it, and the four shapes walked closer.
She tried to run away, but the door of her room was closed. She punched it, but her punches made no sound against the wood, that felt harder than a brick wall.
"It's so nice to see you again..." a whisper. It was the Priestess' voice.
"NO!" Jane cried "I'm doing what you asked me! I only need to find the fourth victim! Why are you here?"
She didn't answer. The other three blurry figures came out of the fog and the girl recognized them.
Mila. Lucretia. Irene. They were with her, all three naked. Why...
"So...this is what the Box does..." Mila spoke, then she ripped away the skin of her face. All the rest of her skin followed it, revealing what was under it.
She was wearing a short leather dress with a collar that stretched her neck, and tall boots. Her skin was pale, almost blue, and she had six long nails coming out of her bald head, kept in place by a circlet that made her look like she had a halo, like those you see in medieval paintings. Her face was still beautiful, even if she had a leather eyepatch with small nails on her right eye, and her left eye had blood tears and...looked bigger than usual? A second look revealed Jane that the Priestess cut the bottom eyelid.
This was the fate of those who opened the Box, then?
Jane looked at the other girls, terrified. They also ripped away their original skin, and they were bald, too. Lucretia had a long leather dress opened on her almost flat chest, but kept in place by hooks in her flesh. Her arms had stitches all over them, and a spiked collar was stitched to the skin of her neck. Her face had a terribly calm expression, but she had one nail above each eye, and one immediately under. To complete the work, three thick spikes came out of the bone of her chin.
And then there was Irene. She was pretty intimidating even as a human, but that made her even scarier. She was the only one wearing pants, all in leather, and the Priestess tore the flesh of her stomach open to reveal her internal organs. She had gloves, but the fingers of her right hand had been cut and replaced by short metal claws. And then, there was the face. She had a transparent glass eye that showed the interior of the eye socket. Her mouth had been sewn shut, but the skin around had been removed, so that everything looked like a creepy red grin.
Jane couldn't believe what happened. What SHE did them.
"Why...why are you showing me all this?" she asked the Priestess, trying to hold back tears.
"Because it's your turn now." again, the chains flew towards her and the hooks pierced her skin. It hurt, but Jane couldn't hear herself scream. Maybe she was deaf...maybe she was already dead.
She only managed to say "You can't...I still had to bring you the fourth one..."
"YOU are the fourth one. You didn't understand it, didn't you?" the Priestess took a knife and, as if they already knew what to do, the girls did the same.
When the four finished the work, Jane had all her skin ripped away, showing her bare muscles, apart from that on her head. Her eyes had been sewn shut, and they did the same with her mouth. She was wearing only straps to cover the essential and a pair of boots.
"You four will be my slaves." the Priestess looked at them "I know you want to remain on the Earth, and I won't stop you. But you'll come to Hell...someday."
Lucretia remained thoughtful for a second "But why? I mean...we could run away whenever we want, we can still look like humans if we want...these days we kept doing what we always do...once the Lament Configuration is closed..."
"Because you aren't real Cenobites, even if you look like us. Your wounds won't heal...and, even if you can see by yourself that not even our wounds heal, you're nothing more than four corpses, four dead things..." a small grin appeared on her face.
The four girls didn't reply. Air became as heavy as stone.
"And dead things rot." the Priestess was still grinning.
Mila opened wide her only eye, since the other had four nails in it "We're going to rot?!"
"You'll be alive, but your bodies will rot...unless you come to Hell and complete your transformation. But until you're on the Earth, your duty will be to find victims and make them open the Lament Configuration." she took the Box and moved her finger on the golden circle on the top. Slowly, it took his original shape and closed itself, before the girls could reply.
And then, there was only darkness.
Jane woke up. It had been just a nightmare...
She looked at her arms, she touched herself to check if everything was alright. She still had her skin, so it didn't REALLY happen...
But when she tried to speak, she couldn't do it.
She put a hand on the mattress to push herself up, and she looked around.
Suddenly, she felt a wet sensation on her hand. She looked at it, and noticed the blood on the sheets.
It was all true.
xx
Well. What do you think about it? No, Jane is not going to be the main character, and soon Pinhead will jump in the story, too, don't worry.
Anyway, on a completely unrelated note, I have to admit that Rammstein make an epic soundtrack for Hellraiser fictions.
Speaking of completely unrelated stuff...since I'm studying for an exam about History of Religions, I wanted to throw here a few info about Xipe (the book only calls him Xipe...), just because. He has clothes made of human skin, and he's the god of the human sacrifice and of all the religious rites where the man mortifies himself, because that's the only way men can sustain the existence of the universe. Actually, Xipe himself has been skinned, and this is because there's identification between victim and executioner, also during human sacrifices (with the victim that gets eaten by everyone, except the killer, who says "should I eat myself?"). Sooo...yep, all this stuff "lives" in the figure of Xipe.