The screaming never stops; the sulfur burns his nose and throat, and the heat, God, the heat. It should be enough to burn him, to reduce him to ash, but his body stays as it is, and he just keeps wishing for a second death.
"Hello," his demon says, black eyes gleaming and making him sick, pointed teeth sharp as razor blades, ready to tear through his vulnerable flesh, "You're going to like today." He does not know if it is 'day', the only light that burns here is molten fire, cloying reds and oranges blotted out by heavy smoke that is a tangible thing.
The demon's mouth extends into a gross parody of a smile and he wants to pray for a second, but any word of God chokes in his throat. It has a hammer in its hand, held like a baby holds a raddle, almost carelessly, as if this amusement will soon be out weighted by the next.
"Open wide" those black eyes gleam and then there is a hammer bashing into his mouth, cutting his lips and breaking his teeth, and then the burning starts, a slow burn that eats away at his skin and he's screaming, screaming from the pain, wanting it to stop, stop, stop!
"Do you like it?" the demon's voice cuts over his screams, drilling into his ears until it's all he can hear, "I added acid, thought it would be a nice touch. Used it once on a monster like you, topside." The demon loves to tell him what he's added to make it hurt more, what little tricks he's learned 'topside' and he can only think of what it was before it was here, torturing him. It's worse than anything else because this is proof, this is proof that he's going to turn into this, a demon, a monster, he's going to hurt people just like this, tear them apart, and he's done some bad stuff in his life, some terrible stuff, but never anything like this.
The demon frowns; apparently screams are not the appropriate answer. The demon puts down the hammer and picks up a serrated saw. It lifts the saw to his throat, resting it on his Adam's apple and he can feel it move with his screams. And then it's cutting him, blood gushing out in a macabre splatter painting against the demon's skin. He wishes again that this would kill him, that any of this would kill him, but as his head hangs from shredded skin, he knows it won't.
The silence is defining, and when he chances a thought to wonder why it is so quiet, the demon answers, "there, now isn't that better? You're screaming was annoying." Oh. His vocal cords are cut.
That's one thing the demon doesn't like. It doesn't like to hear him scream. It likes the blood and the crush of bone under its hands and the splinter of his will, but it doesn't like the anguished cries as he knows other demons do.
The demon moves to his chest, takes a fine razor and cuts a design just over his heart. He can't see it, his head is hanging down, held on by one bit of skin, but it feels like a pentagram, surrounded by stylized rays of the sun.
"Doesn't do you much good, does it?" the demon pets the bleeding design lovingly, "you don't get possessed here, you get turned. Everyone gets turned." He wants to scream out denials, no, never, this will never be him! But he cannot, his head sways on its strand of flesh and his open mouth stays silent. Then there's a hand, talons going through his chest, distorting the bloody design, breaking his ribs like nothing and closing around his still beating heart. The demon caresses his heart like a long lost lover, he can only assume it is amused by how rapidly it beat and how he tries to get away, even as the hooks hold him in place and pull at the edges of his skin.
The clawed had constricts slowly, oh so slowly, squeezing it and thriving off the struggle as his heart attempts to beat. And then it breaks and he thinks, surely this is it, surely I am dead. But then there's a hand in his hair, pulling his head up to look at the mess of a thing in the demon's other, bloody hand.
"I've done you a favor." The demon grins at him, dropping the heart. He hears it land with a dull dead plop and he can't believe that he can still be here, still be feeling this pain when there is no blood flowing in his body.
"I've taken your heart. That's where all the troubles start, that's why I'm here." The demon grabs a hook, slams it through the back of his skull, and he can feel tears flowing from his eyes and his torn throat straining to make sound because surely this kind of pain cannot continue without some acknowledgement, surely this fate worse than death cannot truly be unending.
"Hearts are fickle, the want. They're more demanding than all the other filthy humans topside. I just helped you, took away your reason to be here…" it fondly pats the hole in his chest, "not that it really matters." The demon looks away from where his hand lingers, turning those gleaming, dead eyes to his face, and even after all this time, his body still fights to move back, to get away, even when he knows it's impossible.
The demon frowns.
"Stop looking at me like that. I've done nothing wrong." He doesn't know what he's doing to make the demon mad; he can't change it, even though he desperately wants to, if only to save himself from an iota of pain.
"I said, stop." It extends the bloody clawed hand and tears at his face, scratching up the left side entirely as he pulls out the eye with frightening ease.
"See?" it lets its claws slightly scratch the surface of the eyeball, and he shouldn't be able to feel it, but he does and it is sulfur and acid and smoke and pain, "or, I guess you can't." It crushes the eye in its hand and steps on the remnants of his heart and his body convulses.
It smiles at that, and its hand starts to go in for the other eye, his wide open eye that shows his fear and leaks tears that leave sooty trails down his cheeks. But then it's not. The demon turns just as he sees it, this light coming towards them through the fire. The light is pure, and as it gets closer, he knows his mind morphs it into something he can understand, something he can make sense of, because something this pure should be incomprehensible to a damned soul like him.
It looks like a slender person, neither man nor woman, whose skin has its own glow, who has blue eyes that look like the sky he cannot believe he had entirely forgotten until this moment. It brings with it power and grace and he knows that it is hurt but it is filled with such purpose, such intent, that the hurts are not something the demons can gloat over for they are signs of where the demons failed as this being had stayed strong. The light has wings, bright, glorious wings and he is crying anew, but they are not tears of pain.
"I have come to save you." It says slowly, and it sounds like everything good, everything right, and it hits him, this is an angel. He makes a gurgling sound in his throat and is filled with shame at having been seen like this by such a being of light and God. The demon does not balk, does not step away as its others have, but looks at the angel with its black eyes and seems to be fighting the desire to go towards it or run away. Maybe even demons want to be saved.
"You are the righteous man," it fills him with life, this feeling of salvation that courses through him like his blood no longer does, "Dean Winchester."
The heart on the floor, his heart, gives one spasm as agony replaces the hope.
"No," the demon, the demon, says, and he wants to scream in anger, make the angel turn to him, save him.
"God has work for you." The angel steps closer to the demon and the demon again wavers, wanting to go towards the light while fearing that it will burn up.
"I have work here. I take out their hearts; what He gave them, what makes them come here in the first place."
The angel says nothing, it looks straight into those black eyes, and something must happen, some silent communication, because the demon takes a shaky step forward.
"I-I want to be saved, but I am bad. I am a demon." It brings a hand to its chest, where its heart would be, if it even has one, "I still have it," it taps its chest "and it will bring me here again."
The angel smiles and he wants to hate it for bestowing such a gift on a demon, but all he can do is be awed, "you are the righteous man." The angel brings his hand to the demons shoulder, there's a searing sound, and then through that point light spreads out along the demons skin, burning away the blackness of hell. He can see one black eye turning green before the angel wraps them both in its wings and they're gone.
Another demon comes, later. It smirks down at him, its yellow eyes cruel like the black could never be. It waves its hand and he is restored, but he knows, he knows this is only a precursor for more pain.
"Well?" the demon pets his head, "how would you like to take up the knife? Give back a little of the pain you've been through?"
His eyes glance to the left, where the demon and the angel had been, where the demon had been saved, and anger coils within him.
"Yes"
I'm glad I've finally got this done! it's been in my head for ages! I hope you enjoy this different view point, I thought it'd be interesting :)
hate it? abhor it? want it put on the rack? do tell!