Author's Note: This first chapter was written in 2004. The next two were written in October 2006. There may be some discrepancies, especially in style. Also, this is, I suppose, based off Milton. He wasn't an option in the menu. Have a nice read!
Hell is No Paradise
He must get out of this refuse pit. Its burning allure was lost on him now. The tyranny was driving him mad. It had not bothered him before, but after he had heard The History, he had begun to think.
He had thought about the comparatively free people of the Earth, and about what educated people knew (he was one of them now, he surmised), versus the lies and exaggerations others were told to keep them afraid and obedient. He wondered what the Earth was like to live in, and what had really happened so many ages ago. Was The History a web of lies as well? He thought about the Overworld, and wondered whether the Angels were really so hideous and evil. All of this led to his decision to leave.
He looked down at the many slaves straining in the pits from his hiding place behind a rock. They were covered with lesions, scars, disfigurements. Their chains had worn almost through their burnt skin. Whips lashed down on them, and he listened to their screams with relish.
He looked toward the Palace. His people were barely any better off. True, they were not whipped, but they were scarred, mind and body. They were often plagued by the same epidemics that scourged the slaves. This was from tainted food – when one's food is diseased, one will certainly catch it.
He absentmindedly scratched a scab on his left buttock, and immediately wished he hadn't. It opened and pus oozed onto his fingers. He swore, squeezed out the pus, then rubbed his spittle in the wound. A painful and disgusting procedure, but a necessary one. Yes, this Hell-hole – how apt a name – was no longer his home.
His gaze traveled to the Gates of Hell. How would he get through that?
Suddenly he heard the sliding of rock behind him. He whipped around, fearing an avalanche. A person, covered in dust, was lying on the ground, apparently fallen from the sky – or what passed for a sky in the Underworld.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
The visitor looked up at him in horror, and pointed to the steep incline behind them.
"There's a way out of the Underworld? To Earth?"
The stunned visitor nodded, still in shock at landing in this godforsaken place and being confronted by this thing.
"Thanks a whole lot," the demon said, and patted him on the shoulder. The visitor had not gathered his wits enough even to recoil. The demon began climbing the rock wall, then paused.
"Oh, and welcome to Hell."