It's strange how rapidly one's like can change. Take me for example, Kendrick Austin. I was a fairly normal kid, if a bit grim at times perhaps, but generally trying not to make a nuisance of myself. I enjoyed learning new things (ironically enough I detested school) and my teachers seemed to agree that is was a bright kid in my own right. I was fifteen when everything changed.
I was riding my bus to school, a fairly average occurrence, when the windows were suddenly blown in from gunfire. The bus swerved and crashed into a tree, launching me to the front. I gingerly stood and forced open the doors, falling out onto the rough gravel. I could smell the smoke from the engine and heard someone walking closer, the crunch from their steps seemingly everywhere in my dazed confusion. I looked up, the barrel of a gun the last thing I saw.
The next thing I knew I was surrounded by darkness, a deadly silence surrounding me. I felt like I was laying on a table, then I was suddenly blinded by lights. Gloved hands that faded into the darkness around my spotlight were holding various tools, some looking like surgical equipment and others that I couldn't comprehend their use. I couldn't move, speak or do anything to stop as they went to work on me.
After they had finished their agonizing work I remember being wheeled into a strange room covered in symbols of various kinds. They left me there for a few minutes before I had the sudden sensation of falling, the gurney disappearing from beneath me as I went faster and faster, twisting around in the air. As I fell I noticed I was coming closer to a light of sorts, but something felt off about it. I realized what was wrong as I passed the light, entering a realm that I wish I could forget.
I saw endless miles of torture and bloodshed, I had fallen into Hell. Dante's works didn't even scrape the surface of the real deal, his concepts but a pitiful shadow of the terrible glory of damnation. I saw others falling around me, people and things of all kinds and from all places doomed to the same place. We landed, our bones shattering and organs tearing as we crashed down upon one another in a heap of pain and flesh. It only got worse from there.
Damnation and places like it don't have the same rules as other planes. Time has no real meaning, anyone from any-when can be dumped together at a moments notice. Any attempts at timekeeping are dashed as tic-marks in cells fluctuate in amount at seemingly random intervals, the same going for any other method. Whether it was for seconds or years, all that mattered was that I was there. The world would constantly change around me, a fresh new torture worst than the last delivered at the hands of a new tormentor. I heard tales that people who served out a sentence were allowed to leave, but that never happened for me. I had to take my freedom for my own.
My chance came when a demon thought it would be a good idea to taunt me with a look-see into the mortal world. He had me chained above a crack that revealed a seemingly endless sea, the smell of salt and the feel of the wind blowing around me. I hung there limply as he mocked me for being so close yet so far when a sudden explosion distracted him. I felt strength like nothing before surge through me as an insane idea worked into my mind. I pulled against my bonds with all my might, working my legs against the rock face to aid my efforts. With and agonizing tear I ripped free, falling though the crack and into the world below.
