The air crackled and warped into a glowing oval. A burst of light followed from which a human figure emerged; a meteor shower raced across the red sky. From the cragged scorched earth a crowd approached. Their faces that'd been worn to listlessness craned up in attention. There was a woman standing at the center of the throng. As the portal's dying light vanished, it illuminated her face. She wore a grin. In her right hand she lifted a forty centimeter long pacific saury over her shoulders. It was stuck straight as a sword. It was far too big to be called a fish, massive, thick, fatty, and far too shiny. But indeed, it was a fish.
"So I made it! Well then..."
She brandished her blade in one hand then stuck out the other. Her stance was low, her knees bent. The frail, near shapeless souls hissed and murmured among themselves. Their bony limbs poked out from ragged tunics. Scars riddled what little flesh they possessed with a glow. They stood open mouthed with strings of drool spilling down their chests. She stood straight. Her grin was replaced by a puzzled frown.
"This wasn't what I expected. Doesn't matter, you're all still residents of Hell! Have at you!"
Across her torso in a bandolier and in loops hanging on her waist were rows of sardines. They were placed over a wrap and loincloth woven from holly olive leaves. The heat bounced off her skin against a blessed barrier. With one motion she threw three like knives dead center into the crowd. They split into three skulls that burst into ashes. She rushed forward and swung her saury; her muscles bulged. A shock wave flung rows of the beings beyond her head like ragdolls. They split apart like paper mache when they collided in the air or bounced resembling pinballs. The ranks closed in with each swath she felled. It hardly mattered when she marched on tearing through.
Each time one split apart it burst into puffs of musty burning embers. They amassed into a cloud that blinded her path, only to bounce off her holy garb. She coughed at the stench of scorched bone and dust built up over millennia. In an instant she took a leap of faith springboarding off the ground. A scream tore from her throat. She thrust down the saury to stab the crowd. Just then, a booming voice knocked the masses on their feet like a gale flattening a field. One instant her stomach fell as the ground raced forward; the next time stopped and she hovered in place.
"Insolent mortal, how dare you violate the punishment grounds! From where did you come, with such audacity?"
Her eyes bulged and her tongue dangled outward. The air grew dryer than kindling making her throat crack, her lungs burn. She went stiff and motionless as if a corpse in rigor mortis. Her breaths came in staggered short gasps. Time passed in the indistinguishable ground rushing beneath her. There were endless souls, endless dark shapes moaning in collective agony. It looked like an ocean, she thought. Her working mind couldn't count them all. There was a knot in her stomach. For a glimpse her eyes might've caught one form reaching up a hand to her.
Unceremoniously she was dropped onto a red plateau, like something from a B movie set on Mars. At last she looked up. The devil peered furiously back.
A/N: New mini series probably only five or six chapters maybe less. Been reading more, just finished Alan Moore's amazing Watchmen but that's got nothing to do with this save maybe influencing some themes on existentialism (and me reading too much Name of the Wind affecting prose tho that's a great novel I rec it for anyone into good stories) but for the most part this is stupid fun and also because of a friend.