Step into the Inferno

Chapter One: The Woman in Red

The first thing she did when she woke was grab the wrist of the hand that had woken her from the darkness of sleep. With an iron grip on the hand which started to yank away she quickly pulled it down in a matter of seconds getting a small yelp from the owner of the hand. All in a matter of seconds she opened her eyes and immediately released the man who had gently tapped her shoulder when she had been sleeping on the floor.

"What'd ya have to do that for?" Paris said as he reeled away, one hand clasped on his left wrist, "was only trying to get ya to wake up." Deciding that his wrist was not as badly hurt as the first suspected he dropped it to his side and looked at the woman who was quickly pulling herself from the floor. "Next time I'll get Jason to get ya up," he muttered.

"I'm sorry Paris!" Penelope stumbled as she pulled herself up gathering the lose nightgown she had draped over herself, "it's just a habit," she admitted weakly. Seeing that he had dropped his hand to his side she let out a sigh of relief, the last thing she needed would be someone with a broken hand. "You alright?" she questioned still feeling a thin scrap of guilt, Paris was not the strongest out of the six of them and was definitely not made for where they were now.

"Yes I'm okay," he said and wiped a few curls of dark blond hair from his bright blue eyes. He smiled a bit as he looked back up at her, "I guess it was really my fault either way." He started to walk towards the other side of the stone room which fed into another chamber by a small tunnel, "oh, and Jason wants to see you- according to him it's your shift."

Smoothing out a small bit of dust which had settled on her gown she wore she groaned and looked at the doorway to her right where Jason would most likely be waiting with his damned rifle still clutched in his hands. "If there could be at least one day when I could get more than three hours of sleep," she grumbled as she headed to the right.

"Well I could take your shift if you want," Paris buttered out from the doorway on the other side of the room; when she turned to face him she could see that a few red patches had blossomed on his cheeks. "Only if ya want," he said immediately dropping his gaze to the roll of blankets Penelope was using as a mattress.

"It's fine," she said as she made her way into the room that was positioned right beside hers, "you go and get some rest; you deserve it," she offered him a sympathetic smile.

"Thank you Penny," Paris said smiling with the set of roses that had sprouted on his cheeks quickly vanishing back to pale skin, "see ya when your sift ends!"

She watched as Paris went into the next room almost tripping on his own foot and quickly glancing back at Penelope to see if she had seen it. Quickly diverting her attention to the ceiling of the heated gray room Penelope started to make her way into Ajax's room which was positioned next to hers.

There was not much in the way of privacy there with only one room for each of the six people and the only way around the whole structure was by walking through everyone's room. It was especially terrible for Paris who had the room at the direct end of the structure making him walk through every single bedroom when it was time for his shift. Penelope had one less room to walk through but as she stumbled into Ajax's room she could see that he was currently quickly scribbling into the small leather bound book he claimed to not have.

"Sorry," Penelope muttered as she quickly cross through the room watching as Ajax quickly closed the thing and quickly sat on it, trying to look busy with something else.

"No problem," he said grabbing his water bottle and quickly taking a swig but by then Penelope was already stepping into the room right next to Ajax's.

Jocasta was luckily asleep with her face buried in the fur coat that she used to separate herself from the stone floor; her bright fans of red hair almost hiding her head in the makeshift mattress. Quietly stepping through the room Penelope was about to walk through the small hallways and into the next room when she thought she heard Jocasta mutter from beneath the mass of bright red hair.

"Not hungry… please go… go away," she muttered just before shifting on the fur coat sending streams of red hair flying, revealing the pale freckled face underneath.

Furrowing her brow at the mysterious muttering Penelope watched as she shifted in her sleep again and said something which was nothing but a mumble. Considering what had happened a few days earlier it as no surprise that she was having weird dreams, everyone seemed to be having their own nightmare of what had happened. Taking a mental note to ask Jocasta about it later Penelope continued across the room and stepped into Aeneas' bedroom.

Aeneas was reading one of the few books they had and was sitting cross legged in the corner of the stone chamber scanning over the text. Facing away from the small thin window that was positioned near the ceiling of each chamber he managed to catch the faded red light that filtered through the glass. She could see that the book he had was already faded and creased, having been read what she guessed could've been eight times.

Hearing her he turned from the book and grinned at her, "good luck prying that rifle from Jason's hands," he said and then quickly turned back to his book, flipping to a new page.

"He won't be so stubborn with me," Penelope said brightly as she passed through letting Aeneas slip deeper into whatever realm the book was set in.

Finally she entered Jason's room which was the only one of the stone chambers that did not have the thin stretch of glass to illuminate the room; it instead was in near darkness. This was mostly because where the small window was supposed to be was a dark stairway leading up to the only door out of the place where Jason spent most of his time. As she entered the room a voice from the dark stairwell called down to her.

"Hey there Penny!" the voice greeted her and she looked up to see that a darker shade which was sitting next to the metallic door stand up and move down the staircase. As it entered the thin trickle of faded red light which came from Aeneas' room she could see it was Jason done up in the old military jumpsuit he had found. Clasped in his hands was a sawed off shotgun which he carried with the same delicacy as a mother with a newborn.

"Haven't seen anything yet," he said and jerked a thumb to the tall metal door which kept them from the outside, "but I guess that's kind of a good thing."

"Guess it is," Penelope said, "another pack will move into the area before long, nothing to really worry about."

"Yeah," Jason said dripping the short neck of the shotgun until his knuckles became small white pebbles. "Do you need to fill up your water bottle?" he questioned and motioned to the small pump squatted in one corner of the room. Walking over to the matted fleece he sprawled out for his bed he dropped down and look up at Penelope still cradling the sawed off shotgun, "it's not like the pump is going to dry up any time soon."

"I'm fine," Penelope said and looked at the nervous way Jason was gripping the shotgun, hunched up on the golden fleece twisted with dirt and grime. "Something wrong?" she questioned, her eyes drifting down to the way Jason seemed to be clutching the weapon for dear life.

Seeing the way her eyes drifted down to the rustic thing his grip on it immediately loosened on the thing almost letting it drop down to the stone floor. Suddenly standing up he offered a nervous and somewhat apologetic grin and dropped the gun into her hands before backing off to sit down on the fleece. "Sorry Penny," he muttered, "it's just that being this close to surface lets the sounds come in from outside, just makes me a bit nervous."

"Well I'm sure that we're safe in here," Penelope said taking the gun into her hand and letting it hang by her side, "whoever built this place had built it to last." Seeing a small trickle of relief pass over Jason's face she offered him a smile and looked at the way his face still seemed to be pale and remembered the metallic door that stooped overhead of them.

"Something you want to say?" Jason said with an uneasy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Well if being this close to the door is freaking you out then me and you could swap places," she jerked a thumb to the small hallway which tunneled through all six rooms. "Only if you want," Penny said with a smile; she had found that the best way to get someone to agree with her was by always telling them that it was their decision. While no one really seemed to discuss any kind of leader most people did look for Penny if the pump got jammed or another hoard had appeared on the other side of the door.

"Well I'm not sure if you'd like it," Jason said still resting on the golden fleece and leaning against the stone wall, "me and Jocasta swapped rooms once and she pulled me out of 'her' room after a week." The last word came out as a question, the only time system the part of six had was when most people were sleeping (o'clock) and when most people were awake (o'clock). Ajax had a pocket watch but after a few weeks of finding themselves in this new place Ajax almost threw it out.

"I'm sure," Penny said offering a hand to Jason, "it'll be fine," she pulled Jason to his feet and then pointed down to the hallway to her room. "Now if you're tired of sitting here in the dark you can go sleep in my room and when my shift ends I'll come by and collect my stuff," she brought the gun up and let it lean on her right shoulder, "is that okay?"

"Yeah," Jason said as he picked up the matted fleece almost hesitantly before turning to the few trinkets he had placed in the corner. "And you're sure you don't mind?" he said fingers a few inches away from the old army tag that had once been in the pocket of the jump suit he was wearing.

"Not at all," Penelope reassured and took a glance up at the metallic door, "and again I'll pick up my stuff later so you can just push it aside when you get there."

"Thank you," Jason said as he plucked the last of his belongings from the floor, "of course Paris will have to come all the way here to see you every day."

Blushing slightly she turned to the stairwell leading up to the door, "nah, he wouldn't come here every day just to see me; we just live by each other." Paris was just a friend and he saw her as just a friend, right?

"Well I guess we'll see," Jason said and winked before going into Aeneas' room with his fleece and his trinkets gathered in his hands.

Rolling her eyes at the departing Jason, Penelope walked up the short flight of stairs and completely into the darkness that filled the space around the door. Leaning against the door she put the sawed off shotgun on her lap and exhaled, letting her mind wander as the warmness of the door seeped through her nightgown. Luckily she was short enough so that the handle of the door still jutted from the face of steel a few inches above her head, letting her rest her head on her shoulder without the lock and handle dig into the side of her head.

Faintly through the door she could hear the calls of the things from the outside, the crackle of fire and the always constant low moan that seemed to fill the air. Normally the sounds of the outside would creep her out but the need for rest let her pass right through it, making her lean against the door like it was a bundle of cushions. Unlike Paris she had grown rather comfortable resting in this strange new place they had found themselves in.

Every so often the view of what was Jason's room at the bottom of the stairs drifted into darkness, wavering and wobbling into a strange half sleep. Whatever sleep that had eluded her when she was resting in her own room seemed to have turned around and was desperately trying to catch up with her, pulling herself down to the ground. Since time seemed to be meaningless in the small span of bunkers Penelope and the people she had started to call her friends now rested it simply flowed by as she started to slip into the black folds of sleep.

Soon enough her dreary shift of guarding broken up by sleeping slipped into stretches of sleeping broken by the occasional moment of guarding. The few times her eyes drifted open the world seemed dark and faded, moving slowly before her eyes as she spiraled down deeper in sleeping. Even with the sounds on the other side of the door, which almost seemed softer as she started to fall into a deeper rest, didn't bother her; the warmness seeping through the steel almost seemed to be calling to her.

After a while her vision of the stairwell and the room at its feet was lost in hazy darkness as she slumped against the tall door. Flickering in the midst of the swirling haziness was…

A memory.

An old memory at that.

She found herself in the Dock once again covered in the charred remains of what may have been a bookshelf standing opposite to her. When she manages to open her eyes she finds the entire room covered in chunks of fired metal and wood along with charred scraps of things she would rather not think about. Even after what could've been years for all she knew of lying on the ash covered floor she could still hear a distant ringing from the depths of her own head.

The ringing is distant but with the entire world around her being so silent it seemed to be screaming in her ears, filling the entire world with the constant tolling of bells. As she gets a look around she can why the world has become so silent, the dead lay everywhere some larger chunks surrounded by the burned scraps she had spotted earlier. Some of the corpses around her are still mostly intact with nearly full faces looking up at her with screams still frozen on their lips; making the constant ringing look like it was issuing from the frozen mouths.

Her stomach turns and churns as one corpse has only a red smear for the left side of their face leaving a red cracked line running across the rest of their face. It almost seemed that from the red gaping hole that had once been a mouth came the ringing, coming from deep inside the cracked chest of the thing laying next to her. Her stomach somersaults inside her sending whatever last meal she has slither close to coming out of her completely.

Slowly pulling herself to her feet she leans against a broken blackened column and steadies herself, waiting until her legs stopped quivering to start walking. Carefully avoiding the blackened things strewn on the tiled floor she staggers to the door which had been blown off its hinges, laying a good ten feet away in three pieces. None of it exactly registering she pulls herself through the ash coated doorway trying to desperately move from the remaining screaming face.

Now in the hallway that was outside the door she starts to move down it trying to find the breath to call for one of the guards she had seen scurrying around the place. However each room she spots is empty or nothing but a still smoking crater blown into the structure itself. Heaving in another breath she manages to drag herself towards the end of the hallways until she suddenly sees the door she remembered walking through, to the room where she found Paris.

Hobbling past the second to last door she reaches the final stretch of blackened tiled floor to see that the place where Pairs should be lying still knocked out is gone, nothing but a crude black outline has been sloppily scrawled on the wall. Something else is different as well; instead of a sizzling crater filling the very end of the wall the back wall is still intact and has a single broken body lying in front of her.

Unlike the few others she had spotted either through one of the other doorways or had woken up next to this body was not burned and torn apart, something else had killed it. Not seeing the exact cause of death, or rather not wanting to see, she could see that it was a woman in a red dress that was now torn and rumpled. Around the entire woman was a pool of bright red blood that still seemed to be spreading.

The woman's neck was bent at an odd angle, facing down towards the ground, hiding the face. However she could see that the mouth was stretched open and single drops of cheery red blood was dripping from the cracked lips. A scream stretched and warped a face that would usually be something of great beauty leaving the disfigured mangle a sight of pure horror.

Backing away Penelope felt a scream start to rise from her lips when from the hallway behind her came the sound of ringing, much like metal being tapped on glass. Turning around she

Tumbling forward, nearly falling down the stairs when a sudden beating sound comes from the other side of the door making Penelope wake with a start. Before tumbling all the way down she steadied herself and turned to face the tall metallic door which was rumbling in its socket, rattling and ready to fall. In mute shock she pulled up the shotgun and aimed it at the door as the thing pounding on the other side let out a stomach twisted scream.

In a flash and without a word she dove forward to the door and found what she was looking for, a small handle sticking from the middle of the door. Pushing the handle into the door and then sliding it to the left a small section of the metallic door opened revealing a small rectangle view of the outside. Not wasting any time she backed up and placed what was left of the maw of the shot gun in the newly made opening and squeezed down the trigger.

Taking a few stumbling steps backwards as the gun recoiled into her shoulder she let the gun drop to the ground as the pounding and screaming from the other side of the door was cut off. Looking at the door now she could see that a hazy red light was shining in from the opening she made which was no longer being obscured by what had been standing outside. Pressing her face to the door and looking outside she could feel the heat that came with the light, the dry heat of the outside; she could see the thing lying down at the door.

"What was that?" Aeneas questioned as he appeared at the foot of the stairs, looking up at Penelope who was closing the small viewport she handmade in the door and was now working on the many locks. Glancing down she could see that Jason and Jocasta had joined Aeneas at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her in shock.

"Me getting dinner," she said with the faint touches of a morbid smile on her face. Finishing the last lock on the door Penelope scooped up the shotgun from the ground and gripped the surprisingly cold door handle, ready to fling it open.

"I'll help," Aeneas said as he ran up the stairs and had just enough time to get to the top before Penelope flung open the door, letting in a flood of hazy red light. Aeneas almost found himself falling back down the stairs as red light filled his vision and the twisting calls and cries of the outside world filled his ears, but he pressed forward. Looking through the door he still felt the shocked amazement of when he had first woken up in this place.

Penelope came from the door first reaching into the pocket of the nightgown she was wearing and pulling out the pocket knife she had found when she had first came here. In one swift movement as she dove forward she drew out the knife and looked at the thing she had shot that was looking at her with a single remaining eye.

Neither she nor any of her friends knew what to call the things that occasionally wandered near the door but whatever things they were they were absolutely disgusting. The upper right corner of the creature's head was gone leaving only an ancient and musty skull surrounded by withered skin. The rest of the face was a strange vaguely man shaped face but twisted with the features of a pig, its biggest attraction being the deformed snout rising from above the distorted maw of its mouth. It's body was in the shape of a man but seemed more like a boar's form stretched and molded to fit into it; part of the torso was worn away as well to show glistening white bones.

Paying no mind to it she brought the knife down on the things throat as it tried to gurgle out some kind of pathetic excuse of speech. Slashing it across the throat a hoarse scream came from the mouth before its remaining eye started to roll and flicker about in its socket. Suddenly the thing was pulled away from her and she turned back to see Aeneas latched onto the feet of the twisted thing and pulling it through the door, but its eye was still lingering at the air around Penelope.

As the black eye finally stilled and the head was yanked through the doorframe she started to run back through when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Or rather someone standing almost out of the corner of her vision.

The land around the outside of the door was a twisted red terrain, full of strange red rocks that seemed to have been melted and then frozen at strange shapes. The entire place was mostly a large dome in the red rock and was open on one side to the world beyond the strange cave. All at glance she could see the twisted cliffs at the edge of the dome which led into the burning sea of fire that seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction.

Jutting out from the edge of the dome was a natural bridge which stretched away from their current hiding place and was also the route the strange creatures took to find them. However instead of Penelope's friends or another twisted monstrosity there was a figure standing on the edge of the bridge, looking out over the sea of fire. Dark against the bright haze of the burning ocean it took Penelope a few seconds to realize what the thing was.

A woman in a red dress stood on the very edge of the opening, feet dangling over the lip and over the boiling sea of liquid fire far below. In a few quick seconds the woman raised her arms almost like she was going to try ad fly over the bubbling red fire far below her but when she lurched forward she dropped. Without a sound the woman tumbled over the ledge and out of sight.

Penelope began to scream.

A/N: A new story has appeared! After a good three months of silence I'm back! I've had this idea in my head for a while now and I think I was able to transfer it to a story pretty easily. About a year ago I saw a random video of these guys who had been going into the Nether for some netherbrick when the server crashed and when they came back it turned out all the Nether portals were shut off. So they were stuck, no one had any flint and steel to relight the portal, and had to look for a second nether portal and from that moment on I realized I wanted to write about it.

So ya got this! I hope ya like it!

(P.S. Bonus points if people can guess that theme with the names! Even though it's kind of obvious if ya get down to it XD)