Chapter 1

Jashin sits on the ledge of the cliff that holds his home; looking down at the lowest section of Hell, which is his kingdom. His father had given it to him on his 1400th birthday, 500 years ago. Despite his old age, Jashin still appears to be a boy in his late teens or early twenties. He has thick locks of forever-messy black hair, a thin but strong build, and pure black corneas. His father was a very great demon; he has the highest holding in Hell and is a god compared to the other average demons. Yeah, Jashin's a son of the Devil. Not just his son, but his only son and the Heir to Hell. He had been born of Satan's Jealousy and Greed.

Behind him is his home, carved into the stone; holding a black marble table with black, metal chairs. He doesn't know why he has more than one… people hardly ever visit him, and when they do it's a quick exchange of words; always strictly business. There are three other rooms. The room closest to the entrance, the bedroom Jashin uses when he has… um… guests over; complete with three different whips, several knives, a couple razors, one or two daggers, and a fireplace that was always burning with a brand of Jashin's symbol in the flames, always ready in case someone needed to be branded. The next room was Jashin's studio, where he tampered with animal corpses, taking off a head here and attaching it on to another corpse there, mixing and matching mostly. Across the hall from that is the Servant/Kitchen/Storage Room, full of seemingly lifeless skeletons, hanging from the walls by hooks. Above each one is an iron nameplate; there are several, including one "cook", three "cleaners", a "healer" (but he doesn't need that, he doesn't know why his father makes him keep that useless thing…), and lastly, a living young boy, who was Jashin's apprentice. He, Ben, had been a Jashinist in the world of the living and had found his way into the underworld just to find Jashin and serve him personally. The last real room was Jashin's bedroom, a very bland room with just a bed and a fireplace and a shower in a room connected to his bedroom. And then at the end of the hall was the area whose opposite side opened up, creating the cliff ledge which Jashin now sat upon, watching his dreadful kingdom.

His layer of Hell was where the worst of the worst went; they had had a huge import when Hitler's Gestapo soldiers were being executed back in WWII of First Earth. There are different sections; some for rapists, some for mass murderers, some for those who tortured/tormented people, an "other" section, from which the loudest screams came, and others. Liars, suicides and thieves and such are in the upper layers of Hell. The only two places worse than Jashin's kingdom are Satan's palace and a section of Hell that no demon, not even Satan, knew what's in it or who it was made for. God himself had made that section. No sound came from it and no one ever could see what was inside.

Jashin listens to the sound of thousands of screaming souls rise and fall, and watches the entrance to Hell, watching the new-comers. One catches his eye; it is a young girl. Jashin's kingdom hardly ever gets a female, and when they do get one it's always an adult. Two demons drag the unconscious girl through the entrance and towards the room which determines which part of Jashin's kingdom one was put in. Jashin notices a thin crimson line of blood across her forehead. So they'd removed something from her memory… She looks quite beautiful, with mid-back length black hair, now ruffled up a bit, pale skin, and petite facial features. She's wearing the common garments of the damned; white baggy cotton shorts that go down to the tops of the knees, and a plain cotton shirt. He watched as her thin legs scraped against the rough floor of this layer of Hell as she is being dragged until she disappears into the Judgment Chamber.

Jashin wants to know why she's here; he'll talk to Ben about it later. Ben was Jashin's assistant, sort of like a vice president or assistant coach.

Jashin decides he's hungry, so he rises from his perch and walks into the servant room. He touches the "Cook" with the palm of his right hand, a strange sick green glow comes to life inside of he skull, shining out of the eyes. Cook gets off of the hook he's on and bows down to Jashin, "How may I serve you, Lord Jashin?" bones chattering as he speaks.

"I would like you to fetch me something to eat, preferably something fresh. And I'd like a 1760 French bottle."

"As you wish…"

Cook rises from his bow and walks away.

Jashin decides that while he waits he will at least have some fun in his studio. As he opens the door a raven with small ram's horns swoops down and lands on Jashin's shoulder. Jashin smiles and strokes the raven's head, "Hey there Tom, did you miss me?"

Tom screeches in reply.

Tom had been Jashin's first creation; he was one of the few things Jashin had affection for. His father was not one of those; Jashin respected his father and his father respected him. And things worked fine.

Jashin walks to his wall of animal parts and considers what he feels like making today. He picked up a few parts then went to his table and spread them out. After a quarter of an hour or so Jashin set down his finished piece to walk about.

The mouse with chameleon eyes and spider legs looked at him for a second, and then scurried as fast as it could towards the door. Jashin laughed and walked after it to fetch it. It was rather hideous, what with the eyes bulging out of the tiny mouse's head, but he did like the look of the spider legs, so he took it back to his table and took out the chameleon eyes, replacing them with one albino and one black mouse eye. Jashin sets down his creation on the table to appreciate it. The little creature stares at him with its beady eyes, and then scurries to the edge of the table and down the leg. It disappears in an opening in the wall. Jashin holds up his hand by his shoulder for Tom to walk on, and then sets him down on the table. He walks out of his studio to see if Cook is back yet; he is, and is setting the table.

There lay on the platter a strong forearm and beside his plate a bottle of French blood aging back from 1760. Jashin pulls the head chair out from the table; it makes a terrible sound against the unsmooth stone floor. The arm fills Jashin's nostrils with the smell of freshly grilled flesh. Jashin picks off a piece of the arm with his taloned fingers and pops it into his mouth. He can taste the dry flames that cooked the meat, and since only the top layer of meat was cooked (just the way Jashin liked it) he could also taste and feel the blood pouring out of the bit of meat as he bit into it. Although the meat did provide him with both drink and meat, the drink still did not satisfy him because of its low value. He pours the French blood into his crystal goblet.

After he's finished eating, Jashin returns to the cliff's ledge to again watch over his kingdom. The sound of the thousands of suffering souls greatly pleases Jashin.

A few hours later, Jashin sees Ben running across the grounds, from the Prep Room to the stairs that disappear into the wall that led to Jashin's home. Jashin stands and walks to the front door to meet Ben. Ben meets Jashin in the hallway that goes from the top of the stairs to Jashin's front door. There's a thin layer of sweat on his pale brow, his shoulder-length dark brown hair pulled back into a small ponytail, as always.

Out of breath, Ben begins, "J-Jashin, you've gotta come down, come down. We're having some… um… problems with a girl we got earlier today." He starts back to and down the stairs in a brisk walk, closely followed by Jashin who wore a slight frown.

"What's the problem exactly?" Jashin asks. This had better be worth my time.

"I'm not sure exactly, sure exactly. She's got… I don't know, something; something that protects her from us, from us." Ben has a speech problem.

"…Well? Can you be a little more specific?" Jashin says, irritated.

"I, um, I don't really know. It's like… every time they tried to hurt her, something hurts them."

"What kind of hurt? Did you see any visible damage done to them?"

"Um… I don't really know what kind of hurt… And no, I don't think I saw any visible wounds or anything, or anything."

They arrive at the Prep Room; used to get people ready; mostly just making sure that nothing was lost on their way to Hell and seeing what caused them the most fear and pain.

As Jashin expects, it is the girl he had seen being dragged in earlier. She's sitting against the wall with her legs drawn up to her chest with her face down and arms covering her head.

A demon is throwing a fit trying to hurt her. He punches her and then screams out in pain. "GODDAMMIT! TELL ME WHAT'S PROTECTING YOU, FILTHY LITTLE WITCH!"

The girl's legs are still bloodied up from being dragged, but she doesn't have any bruises from being hit. Jashin doesn't understand it, they had been able to touch her earlier; when dragging her in; why couldn't they get to her now? Jashin approaches her, signaling for the demon to stop trying to hurt her, and kneels down to look at her. She's shaking with fright and is crying silently into her knees. He reaches out to touch her shoulder, and finds that when he touches her, nothing happens. He frowns and pokes her a few times; she flinches and tries to push him away. This irritates Jashin. He lifts his hand and slaps her for her disrespect, but the second his hand touches her, Jashin feels electrifying pain shoot up his arm.

He lets out an involuntary gasp and falls back from the pain. He stares at the girl wide-eyed and looks down at his hand which still burns, but, as Ben said, it gave no visible signs of being hurt. Jashin recognized this pain; he had felt it when he had tried to climb to the surface; this girl is protected by God. Of course, God isn't in Hell; he never helps someone in Hell. So… maybe a ghost of his power stayed with her when she was brought to Hell? But that'd only be possible if God had been protecting her at the time of her death, and that would mean that she doesn't belong in Hell. But a heaven-bound soul can't be forced into Hell…

"Ben, I need to talk to you." Ben follows Jashin out of the room and Jashin shuts the door behind them. "First of all, we can touch her as long as we don't touch her with the intention of hurting her. And I need you to tell me the conditions by which she came to Hell."

Ben thinks for a moment, "er… she had been on the road to Heaven, to Heaven. She was killed, was killed, along with her friends at a high school shooting. Her friends had been bound to, bound to, the path to Hell. On her way to Heaven, your father told her where her friends were, were, and she loved them so much that she made a deal, made a deal, with him where she would take their place in Hell, in Hell. There were three friends, so that's why she was sent, was sent, to your layer of Hell."

What a stupid girl. Jashin thinks for a moment, but at the same time very brave… "Get some servants to clean out anything in my guest room that might frighten her." He will lure her into trusting him, and once she did, he'd ask her to surrender all that she had. If she did that of her own free will… She would lose everything that protected her. "Oh, and what's her name?"

"um… Emma; it's Emma. Is that all?"

"No; I noticed she had something removed from her memory; what was it?"

"The memory of ever going to Heaven; her friends; what she did for them."

"Alright; now go."

Ben runs off to find servants to fulfill Jashin's wishes. Jashin himself opens the door and walks back into the room. He walks to the girl who is still sitting with her legs drawn up, but her arms instead of being over head, as like before, are wrapped around her legs as she watches the demon, but switches her attention to Jashin when he walks in. He crouches down, balancing the balls of his feet. "Are you alright?"

Jashin can see the muscles in Emma's arms tense when he speaks.

"It's alright, Emma," he says in a soothing voice. "Tell me, is there anything I can do for you?"

Jashin can feel her confusion; that's a power of a god, sensing emotions. Though he really didn't need it now… Some can go as far as to hear the actual thoughts of others.

Emma's eyes move from Jashin, to the demon, and back again, "could you tell him to go away?" She says in a quiet; broken; wary voice.

It only takes Jashin making eye contact with him for the demon to know he had to leave.

After he's gone, Jashin returns his attention to the girl. He looks at her bloody legs and frowns; he didn't want to clean up the mess that she would make, bleeding all over his house. He reaches his right hand to her legs, she draws back. "It's alright, trust me, I'm just going to heal those scrapes and cuts on your legs. It might hurt a little, but it will be alright." He reaches towards her legs again, and this time she lets him. He puts his right hand over her knee, and slides the palm of his hand down to the ends of her feet, leaving behind not a scratch. Emma is squeezing her arms while he does this, from pain, or maybe distrust. She watches him closely. Jashin moves on to heal the other leg.

"What are you playing at?" she asks accusingly before he's done with the other leg. "When I first got here, everyone was yelling at me and trying to hurt me, even you tried to hit me. Why are you being kind to me now?"

Jashin puts on a warm smile, "It seems there was a mistake when you were being placed. You're going to stay with me until we get things sorted out."

"Then you're just going to send me back here, or some other horrible place?"

"Not that I'm aware of. As I know it, you might not even belong here at all." Jashin lies easily. Sure, some of it is true, but there's no way he's going to let her leave.

Jashin stands and offers his hand to her, "come on; let's get you out of here."

Emma looks at his hand for a moment, uncertain, and then cautiously takes his hand and lets him help her up. But she quickly takes her hand away and holds her arms.

Jashin is tempted to hurt her, but knows he can't and that doing so would make him lose the little trust she had for him. It will all be worth it. To see that look of shock and horror on her face when she realizes what he'd done… And what he would do to her… It gave him goose bumps. He sighs and says again, "come on." as he walks out of the room. The servants should be done cleaning out the guest room by the time Jashin gets there. He can sense her following him, and so continues across the grounds. They make it to the stairs and Jashin looks back to see how she is. She's still pretty weak from her arrival, so she's a little shaky, but other than that; she looks pretty good. Jashin walks up the stairs, and has to walk slower and slower for her to be able to keep up. When they are about halfway up she stops and sits down; dizzy and out of breath. Jashin comes down and moves around her so that he's standing on the step below her. "Would you mind if I picked you up? I don't know if you can make it by yourself and we'd get there faster if I carried you."

She doesn't look at him very long this time before she says, "no, I'll be fine on my own." She stands and turns around and starts walking up. Not even four steps later she stops and sways on the spot she reaches out for the handrail, but there is none. Jashin hurries up and catches her.

She gives him an unkind look, "fine…" she says quietly.

Jashin puts one arm under her upper back and the other under her knees, and picks her up. He walks up the stairs; being careful as to not let her hit the walls. Emma refuses to look at him the rest of the way up. By the time they get to the top of the stairs, her eyes are beginning to droop. And when Jashin carries her into his home and to the guest bedroom, she's not even awake anymore. He lays her down on the bed with the fresh sheets and a comfy feather pillow. He pulled the covers up over her so that she wouldn't get cold. Jashin stands over her and watches her breath calmly into the pillow. He felt strange, he knew he didn't mean any of the kind acts he had displayed to her, but still, he had never before shown anyone such kindness. And it felt… well… strange.

Jashin leaves the room and shuts the door behind him. He has all this pent-up energy and needs to let it out. "Ben?"

Ben steps out of the servant room, "yes Jashin, Jashin?"

"Go and get me a virgin, will you?"

Ben rolls his eyes, "fine." He heads out of the room.

Jashin wasn't very happy because he was going to bloody up his own room instead of the guestroom. He looked into his room to see if there was anything there he could use in replacement of what he had before in the guestroom. He smiles when he finds that his favorite whip, the one made of several wires with metal thorns all up and down it that were made to be heated, which was why all but the handle was in the flames of the hearth; his cat's claw, a rake with sharpened ends; and shackles bolted to the wall at just the right height so that they girl would have to stand on her toes in order for the shackles to not dig into her flesh, which they would anyways. They even put in his brand, which was a circle with an even triangle in it, touching the edges of the circle, in the fireplace.

In not too much time, Ben comes walking in with a beautiful young blond who is smiling and laughing lightly as she talks with Ben. When she looks up to see who is standing before her, her facial expression changes drastically. "Oh God, no!" She cries when she sees Jashin smiling at her with his sharp teeth and greedy eyes, taking in her body. "Jenifer told me about you! Sh-she told me what you did to-!" While she cries out she's trying to back away from Jashin, but Ben holds onto her. "L-let go of me!" she yells at Ben. She hits him hard so that he lets her go and starts to run towards the door but is stopped by Jashin as he grabs her wrist. He twists her arm and puts it against her back, having her back against him. He wraps his other arm around her waist and holds her close, roughly kissing the back of her neck.

"Good riddance," says Ben and leaves the room.

The girl is crying now, whimpering in a small voice, "Oh please God… Oh please help me… I'm so sorry, just please help me…"

Jashin sickly grins and whispers into her ear, "You'd better start praying to another god, girlie, because that one's not going to help or hear you down here…"

She screams and fights against him, trying to break his grip, but he's inhumanly strong and so easily keeps hold of her. He pushes her into his room and follows close behind, shutting and bolting the door behind him.

It's a good thing Emma's totally out of it.

Oooh, did you catch that the boy, Ben, is the servant who's also in The Dark Road?

The story begins with a little history, you meet the characters, and soon the story will be put into action.

Read and Review please! :)