Summary:

The following is for sure the darkest chapter of all, but I will keep my mouth shut not to spoil everything.
So be warned and buckle up!

Comments are greatly appreciated: please, let me know what you think!

Chapter:

After seeing all that, he was overcome with horror, destroyed, feeling shattered in a million pieces, and unworthy and ashamed to be there in that light.

He fell on his knees and cried, cried for what it felt like hours, regret and remorse tearing him apart: he obeyed to the Beast because it made him survive, and let it take complete control of his life.

Shield was right to try to put him down…

Skye was right to hate him… "Backstabbing traitor … Rot in hell … Son of a bitch … A Nazi, that's exactly what you are! … I wanna throw up … You should have run faster … I'm so glad I shot you …"

It would have been much better if she let Deathlock kill him!

It would have been much better if May had killed him, or if he had succeeded in his suicide attempts… Skye was right: he should have tried harder!

Garrett's words resounded in him: "All these years and you are still playing the victim".

And the Beast:

"Stop with this tearjerker show, you poor weak man!

I have supported you all these years!

If I had not been there, you would have been dead for a long time!"

"And it would have been better!

You made me become a monster, but it is my own fault, because I fed you.

I needed you!

I nursed you for years and years, I made you grow and you got a tight grip on my life, you became the master!

I wanted to fight you, but I had to face simultaneously the external world and I wasn't strong enough for both. It was too much and I succumbed to you.

Now I'm done with you!

Get away from me!"

But then he felt under himself the ground opening wide and sucking him down, down, far from the light into a darker and darker place.

It seemed the fall was never-ending, and everything around him become unbelievably obscure.

He saw under him a huge, enormous hole, terrifying at the sight and greater than anything he had ever seen, and he realized with horror that he was falling right into it.

When he entered it, he was flood by such a totalizing despair, by a so overwhelming hopelessness, that he started screaming like he never did before, terrified, asking for help, for forgiveness, for mercy! He was greeted by howls and screams during the fall and he started to see like an enormous valley, with some huge mountains around, all dark and lit by a dark, greenish, fat, almost metallic fire.

The heat was unbearable.

Everything that could hurt any of his senses was there: a nauseating and disgusting stink, like from rotting flesh burning with pitch and sulfur; a greenish smoke coming from all the fire that raged around; horrible visions of monsters and tortures and people suffering terribly; ear tearing screams, and curses, and blasphemies; squeaks, screeches, and shrieks; noises like from chains and clanking and wheels; thuds and rattles and bangs so strong that it seemed all world was going to collapse… and every now and then, there was the noise of the new inhabitants of that place, that trespassed the huge hole above in a litany of screams and howls and curses, falling down like a dense storm of hailstones.

All of them had written on their foreheads their sins.

He knew what was written on his: "Murderer".

But the worse happened when his fall ended and he felt he was pushed, all bend on himself, inside a tight space carved into the mountain, something like an oven.

There the pain become excruciating.

He felt like the walls of the oven pressed him on all sides, compressing, suffocating, crushing him; he felt his tongue pulled roughly outside of his mouth to the limit of being ripped off; his eyes burned like someone was piercing them with red hot iron drills, but he couldn't see who was doing that; his skull felt like exploding from the pain inside; and he couldn't move, nor change position, nor sit, nor lay down, nor stand, nor alleviate the pain in any way.

And all this was nothing, nothing compared to the soul's agony.

It was an oppression, an anguish, a sadness so deep, a so vivid and desperate sorrow that there aren't words to describe it. It was like a fire penetrating his soul, without annihilating it. It couldn't either be described as continuous death's agonies, because in death it seems that life is ripped away by somebody else, while here it was the very soul that tore itself in shreds!

He had in front of him all his sins and he was aware that he deserved all that pain. He knew, with sparkling clearness, it was entirely his fault.

A thunderous voice repeated continuously, rumbling around all the huge space:

"This is forever.

This will never change.

This will never become more bearable.

You lost God once and for all, for your own fault; and your sins, that conducted you here, will always be in front of you, and remorse will never fade.

You damned yourselves, and you will remain here, receiving the just wave for your actions, forever and ever."

But he hadn't still seen everything: a huge grindstone was coming his way with the din of thunder, making the ground tremble, and then he was pulled out of the oven just in time to be mashed by it.

He thought he had reached the top of pain some instants before, in the oven, but he had to change his mind: the remorse and the desperation he felt then was a thousand times worse. In that moment he felt the sins and the guilt of all the murderers that ever walked on the Earth, all at once.

That grindstone was the particular punishment for murderers, added to all the rest. Something was carved on it: "Murderers! This is your eternal torment for having stolen lives! You crushed others, so you will be crushed! Forever! God gives life, only God can take it away!"

And then, with horror, he saw his father and Garrett near him… but they weren't like before… they were monstrous! And they were saying, together but each speaking for himself:

"Grant, you are here, too!

You are here because of me!

And I will have you in front of my eyes for all eternity to remind me what I did.

Shame on me! What have I done! I killed your soul!

Shame on me!"

And then, changing mood and showing sadistic-masochistic smiles:

"But I hate you, so I'm glad you're here to suffer these atrocious pains for all eternity with me and because of me, even if your presence worsens my pain!"

But there was never end to the worse.

Somehow, like he was attracted by a magnetic force, he looked down and could see the bottom of the abyss, huge, immense, and pitch black.

Dimensions weren't like they were percept on Earth (probably due to the limitation of the eyes-brains system); here he could see like miles and miles afar. And the bottom of the abyss was really distant, but he could see it nonetheless, like he could prolong his eyes out of his skull till there.

And there… there was a throne, made by terrifying monsters.

Sitting on it there was the biggest and scarier of them in all his indescribable horror, watching all the tortured persons.

Watching him.

And he felt like fainting for the terror.

Nothing could ever be worse than that, in a billion years: Ward felt himself naked in front of Him, His stare burning into him, piercing him, reading all the most hidden secrets of his soul, and He… He smiled at him, a cruel, sadistic smile showing rotten sharp teeth.

His ugliness was indescribable.

He spoke to him:

"Good, son! I'm very pleased with you. You served me well.

But, you know, I'm not acquainted with gratitude, so I will not give you any prize for your obedience to the Beast I sent you all those years ago to become your loyal and lifetime companion.

Yes, that was Me: did you like my little gift?

Nevertheless, I promised you vengeance as a payback, and I'm willing to give you that. You deserve it: after all, you gifted me with your soul!

I promise you that soon Coulson will come here to keep you company!

Isn't it wonderful?"

In that moment he had an instant of clearness in all the mess of his head and it clicked: he suddenly became aware of where he was. He couldn't deny it to himself anymore, even if he wanted it desperately.

That monster was Satan.

This was Hell.

And he was damned.

Forever.

Notes:

I picked up on the web some Hell descriptions made by Saints who have experienced it: Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska, Saint Veronica Giuliani, Saint Anne Catherine Emmerich, Saint John Bosco... but I don't know if I rendered remotely the idea...