Some have said that our existence is a campfire, a feeble flame lighting up a tiny bit
of the darkness. Things lurk at the edge, waiting for the flame to weaken. Some
speculate about some among us who live in the fragile light of life, who, for whatever
reason, desire the darkness, and wish to give it a point of entry. They want to snuff
out our light.
And the things are all too ready to accommodate...
Late evening in the SGC commissary. Dr. Daniel Jackson quietly sipped some coffee
and ate a sandwich, thumbing through a few mythological texts. He barely seemed
to move, except when he flipped a page, his eyes shifted focus, or on the rare
occasion when he bit out of his sandwich, or took a sip from his now cold coffee.
"Daniel?", came the voice of Jack O'Neil. "Don't you know you need to stay away
from the commissary's pastrami? Especially right before bedtime? You do remember
that, right? Bed? Fluffy pillows? Clean sheets, warm blankets?" His head bobbed from
side to side emphatically, and smiled.
Daniel kept reading. Didn't even grunt an acknowledgement.
Jack craned his neck to try to get a look at some of what he was reading, "Dante's
Inferno...Paradise Lost...Ragnorok...Revelations...Persephone...nice sweet reading
before bed?"
Daniel continued reading.
"Daniel, we could have a mission in a couple of days. I want my bookworm to be just
as rested as everyone else," Jack said.
"I'll go to bed in just a minute," Daniel murmured.
"Ok, I've heard this one before. Daniel says to Jack, 'I'll go to bed in just a minute.'
Jack is satisfied, and sensibly hits the rack himself. Gets up for chow the next
morning. There's Daniel, still geeking out on his latest obsession. C'mon, Daniel, you
could at least clue me on what's on your mind," Jack said, eyebrows raised.
"Hell," Daniel said. "The idea that beyond what we call the material universe, are
reams of darkness, insanity, pain. And entities dwelling there wish to spread the
same condition everywhere else.
"Getting a little King-ish on us, are you, Daniel?"
"Lovecraftian is the word you want, Jack," Daniel said, looking at him.
"Yeah, the greeting card guy," O'Neil nodded uncomprehendingly. "Right."
Daniel sighed and closed his book after marking his page. You remember when the
Asgard activated the eighth chevron, sending you to the Asgard homeworld?
Allowing extragalactic travel?"
"Yeah...yeah...we met Thor, made some good friends. So?"
"Ok. Extragalactic travel. The Gate can do that with eight chevrons. What does nine
do?", Daniel asked expectantly.
"Um...this sounds like Carter's field," Jack began.
"I know." Daniel said. "She says we have no way of knowing yet."
"Yeah...ok. But what does this have to do with stories about bad places bad people
go when they die?"
"Well, there's that codex we recovered on P3R233?"" Daniel asked.
"The planet we found that Quantum Mirror?", Jack asked.
"If you'll remember, I took a few artifacts from that world, and I've been working to
decipher the information on them. The people who set up that facility apparently
dedicated themselves to travel, and recorded what they found, or heard of. I've been
trying to get a rundown of their stories, the places they knew of," Daniel continued.
"Ok. And?", Jack asked, wondering where this was going.
"Do you believe in Hell?", Daniel asked him.
"Of course. I have an Ex," Jack said. He then grinned. The grin wilted a bit when he
saw Daniel's deadly serious expression.
"No, I mean it," Daniel said. "Do you believe in a place called Hell?"
