Hell, the afterlife, Nether Realm, Nirvana, what have you. None of it really exists. Hell is where we stand and heaven is where we believe ourselves to be in the future. Hell are the thoughts that hold you to the shell you dwell in. For Ko'atal, the long years in Outworld had been hell beyond rolling a stone up a hill in hades. The Nether Realm was finally the heaven he had strived to reach for so very long.
Half way and one step forward.
That's the point of no return.
"We don't belong here." Nightwolf stepped forward beyond Ko'atal to oversee the land before them, then turned back to be sure this was the direction they must go. "Are you sure?"
"This is where I belong." He moved forward.
Around them a field of green. This layer was warm and invited them to move forward deeper within the long grass of those evergreen fields. There was no sun overhead, but the skies were river blue with streaks of white like clouds that moved to their speed and direction.
Nightwolf and Ko'atal moved with grace through the plains plane and crouched just enough to peak over the blades of green. Guarding the grime of the ashes of his heart, he kept silent and moved with Nightwolf in front of him, Ko'atal kept his eyes forward and always to the horizon, even as the plains continued without change and the sky followed them with no sign of night.
Always forward and always the world around them plain and still. It began to dishearten him as each blade seemed a copy of the next and the horizon as close as it was, always the same on the curve of it as where they stood.
"Keep moving." Nightwolf understood Ko'atal's thoughts and urged him forward with faster steps.
"It's all the same, we're going no where." Ko'atal wanted to stop, but Nightwolf was his guide, and there was no return. To stop would be to fail, to detach from Nightwolf would be to accept the Matoka's dagger in his flesh. They were only allies by means to assist the greater good.
"That's what they want you to think."
They?
The moment his boots stopped, just for a second, the world seemed to darken around him and motion in the long grass became more apparent, more certain that the blades were not stagnant but harbingers of something that followed them and too low to the ground to detect.
Nightwolf clenched Ko'atal's ear and shoved him forward to move faster. The two continued their pace, but now that it had been noticed, the objects in the long grass did not fade and the sky began to slowly grey.
You do not belong here.
Their thoughts betrayed them with a hiss of another's. His first glimpse was an outstretched arm of a sickening pale flesh attached to a six clawed and that scraped the earth like fleas under fur and flesh. With no weapons, to fight would be to die and to die in the Nether Realm would be to become its eternal prisoner.
Their feet moved with more urgency as the night chased at their heels and the beings became more and more bold. Acres of field scraped and devoured by the hollow void of the Nether Realm lead way to cracked and salted flats with plateaus and staggered boulders until they were finally free of the green, but out in the open.
"The oni will have us if we do not reach the edge of the world." Nightwolf urged.
The pale fleshed nightmares darted from the plains to the flats and became amorphous thoughts, unable to be seen by the naked eye until Ko'atal and Nightwolf would stop. Ahead was a plateau they could climb and oversee the curvature of the world, but so could the Oni.
What glimpse he could catch, the oni, five of them, merged their flesh with the ground, no longer pale, but a salted yellow and tan that cracked like the rock around them to disguise as they had in the long grass.
If you do not go, we will take you into us.
Nightwolf and Ko'atal ignored the voices and rushed up against the crevices and outcroppings of the nearest plateau that stretched like a tumor out of the world near ten meters up in a ninety degree angle.
Nightwolf skipped a step and traced down the rock just enough for Ko'atal to grab his hand and hold him from the reach of the oni that clawed at the dry skin of the earth for the Matokan.
"Pull me up!" He kicked at the claws that snatched his boots, and glared back up at Ko'atal.
The strength of the great Osh-Tekk leader was more than enough to pull Nightwolf back up and the two of them to continue their ascent, but his speed could not match Nightwolf's. Bigger, bulkier and thus slower, he now felt the scrap and clawing of gnashing teeth and nails on his big leather boots. Unable to see but a blur at his heels, he kicked down and reached up for Nightwolf who had finally climbed over the sharp edge of the plateau.
Too heavy, Nightwolf wouldn't let go as Ko'atal hadn't, but the weight on his heels bore down on Ko'atal. This allowed others to peel themselves over the surface around the two and just as Ko'atal reached over onto the flat top of new ground, they were surrounded.
Their feet no longer in motion, they could see the oni that appeared to melt into and burst like lava from the earth around them. Cracked like stone, and pale like the flesh the fiery white and yellow sun, they danced in blurs and stillness until each would move forward and form what it believed to be the best form to attack in.
Though weaponless, they could still strike, still grapple. The near fluid forms of the oni was like quicksand. Hard to the touch, but their fists easily scraped through their sandpaper flesh. Useless to hit, Nightwolf danced around the edge in hopes to let the burst of those fleshy volcanos erupt like a tsunami over the edge to crash into the foamy salt of the flats below them. One managed to miss and fell with a loud shatter like glass, but that did not fool the other two.
The one Ko'atal had punched into had closed its form around him and held him tight to its chest. He could feel the sandpaper of its innards scrap hair and layers of flesh off his arm. No grapple would help, he could pull his arm back, but it would then envelop him deeper into it.
As it absorbed him into its being, Ko'atal could feel his skin begin to bleed and peel like dust. His very essence had begun to scrape off of him and into the sickeningly pale Oni. Its flesh started to solidify with his skin tone, and flush with his blood.
Nightwolf faired no better, as the two at his heels slowly tugged on him to contend for which would absorb him. It was only until Ko'atal caught a glimpse of the burning sun that finally raised and heated the world around them that the Oni seemed to stagger, but this was no sun.
A chain whipped across the plateau and near pierced through Nightwolf's chest, but he had seen it coming. With the reflex of the Great Spirit he let the spear's chain wrap around the girth of his biceps and then the specter pulled him from his new hell within the amorphous Oni. Ko'atal was next and in seconds beneath the burning fire of Scorpion's breath the Oni melted and shattered.