Lust was unremarkable, and none of the distant souls that searched endlessly ever came close enough for Terzo or Mary to interact with them. It wasn't long until something new came over the horizon.
What Terzo presumed to be the next circle was different from Lust, the scenery being made of great mountains and hills, piles of... something, Terzo couldn't make it out, scattered across the horizon. The distant shapes of souls moving and digging through the piles could be seen.
"Is that..?" Terzo trailed off, squinting as he peered at the piles of what he now discerned to be food.
"The next ring?" Mary nodded, wiping away some of the blood that was dripping down his chin with the back of his hand (of course, more blood quickly replaced any he had removed), "Yes. Two down, seven to go."
"Gluttony, I presume?" Terzo wrinkled his nose, the great piles of food that they were approaching were obviously not fresh. The stench of rotting and fermenting food surrounded him and Mary, a sharp scent that was not enjoyable.
Feasts of rotting food lay before them, meat, fruit, and all other types of food was gathered on long tables and scattered across the ground, piled into towering mountains which souls climbed and added more food onto, all of it rotting and emitting a great stench, buzzing swarms of flies flitting around in dark clouds.
"This is disgusting," Terzo resisted the urge to gag, scrunching his nose as he looked around.
"Well," Mary grinned as he looked over to Terzo, "it's better than eating from a coffin, eh?" Mary looked at Terzo, a hopeful look in his eye as he waited to see if what Terzo assumed was a joke would land.
Terzo had no idea what he was talking about.
"...what? Yes?" Terzo blinked, "Is that a reference to something, or..?"
Mary sighed, looking disappointed.
"Never mind." The guide exhaled slowly, "I haven't been dead that long really. I was hoping you'd maybe heard of my music or something, we were called Repugnant. Eating from a Coffin is one of our songs."
"Really?" Terzo asked, intrigued by the glance into Mary's life before Hell.
"Yeah. I actually played the same festival as one of your brothers once, you know." Mary smiled at that tidbit of information, looking as if he were enjoying the memories the conversation had dredged up.
"Really?" Terzo's eyebrows raised as he turned to look at the man who, when he thought about it, he didn't know much about, "When?"
"2011," Mary sighed, "Maryland Deathfest. We both played Sunday, I think it was Papa Emeritus I?"
"It was, Papa Emeritus II wasn't until 2012." Terzo nodded, thinking back to whether or not he was at that festival, whether or not he had seen Mary when the man was alive, "Did you ever play with us again?"
"We never played again. Well, other than the small underground show that was inevitably a mistake, the one that got me killed," Mary snorted, rolling his eyes as he frowned, "Maryland Deathfest IX was our last show before we broke up for good. Well, we really broke up back in 2004, but I got a new lineup together for some shows thoughout 2010 and 2011. I really should have kept it like that instead of doing one more one-off show after Deathfest," Mary spread his arms wide, "look where that got me."
"I'm sorry," Terzo sighed sympathetically, but he was beginning to remember seeing a band called Repugnant, of a group of young men who growled and screamed in the death metal style, "I don't remember much of your music, but I do think I remember seeing your band at Deathfest. My brother and I were pointing out how similar your paint was to our other brother, the current Papa. You had a Ghost sticker on your guitar, if I remember right."
"Well, at least someone still remembers me, even if it's just because they thought I plagiarized my face paint." Mary wrinkled his nose as he grinned, "anyways, ready to get this circle over with? I might have a strong stomach, but the smell gets to even me eventually."
"Yeah," Terzo began to follow Mary as the guide began to lead him through the towering piles of rotting food, the Papa taking care to avoid stepping in puddles that dotted their path.
Imagine if he had a hole in his shoe, wet socks were bad enough, wet socks soaked in the fermented juices of whatever things had decayed into the puddles littered around would probably kill Terzo again and send him to whatever was after Hell, Super-Hell or something. Hell squared.
The smell really was something wretched. Terzo would say it smelled like something died and went to Hell, but... he really needed to find new sayings.
"So," Mary turned to speak over his shoulder as they walked, "welcome to Gluttony, third circle of Hell, blah blah blah. Unlike Lust, Gluttony is a self-centered sin. Think excessive acts of drinking, hoarding, or," Mary gestured to the piles surrounding them, casting them in shadow, "eating. Here in Gluttony souls will search for whatever they wish to indulge in, what their gluttonous hearts desire, but it will never be in the condition they wish. Drinks will be flat or fermented, food will be rotted, items broken. They can search for as long as they wish, but they will never find what they desire to have."
Terzo grimaced, he certainly wouldn't want to spend the rest of his existence here.
"So, did you live a gluttonous life?" Mary looked back at Terzo.
"No..." Terzo did indulge, it was rather encouraged at the Clergy, but he wouldn't say Gluttony was his biggest sin. He engaged with his indulgences a healthy amount, "I wouldn't say so."
"Hmm," Mary nodded, "I didn't think so. You don't seem the type."
"Thank you," Terzo replied, "...I guess."
A soul, halfway buried in a pile of what looked like cracked and bent vinyls, covered in overripe and leaking fruits like peaches and apricots, hissed at Terzo and Mary as the two passed their pile, the soul's outfit and pale skin streaked with the dark red juices of the fruits, creating an appearance similar to Mary's trails of blood - although significantly more pungent.
Terzo leaned away with a grimace as they passed.
"Ah, make sure you have your knife ready," Mary noted flippantly, "there are more things than just souls around here, more dangerous things."
Terzo had almost forgotten about the pocket knife the guide had given to him on their first meeting, but he quickly located it in his back pocket, and pulled it out to hold loosely.
"Like what?" he asked.
"Great big beasts, they feast on the rotting food here - and the souls." Mary grimaced, "Nobody knows what happens when you die here, and I for one don't want to find out anytime soon. If we see one, our best bet will be to hide and wait for it to move on. But keep your knife ready in case we need to fight anything off."
Terzo nodded, suddenly nervous. Their journey through Hell had been fairly easy up to this point, and the thought of dying and possibly being gone forever, being gone before he was able to find his brothers again, the thought terrified him.
Terzo went to continue walking after finding the knife, but he noticed Mary was standing still, the man looking at Terzo.
"...what?" Terzo slowly asked, just as he realized that Mary was looking behind him.
"If I told you to not look behind you," Mary slowly spoke in return, his dark eyes trained on something over Terzo's shoulder, "would you listen?"
Terzo looked behind himself.
"Oh, shit." He cursed.
Twenty or thirty feet behind him stood a tall animal, a beast. If he had to compare it to an earthly animal, he would compare it to a pig. Although this pig was about ten or so feet tall, had a muscular body covered with jagged spikes, and a mouth lined with gleaming sharp teeth that rivaled those of a shark.
The spirit that had hissed at them only a minute or two earlier, with the vinyls and fruit, was clutched in the beast's jaws, an expression of pure agony on their face as the beast bit down, audible sounds of bones snapping and cracking
The beast looked up, saw Terzo and Mary, and squealed as it snapped down the remains of its meal.
"Well, speaking of," Mary grabbed Terzo's upper arm, "run!"
Terzo stumbled as Mary darted away from the beast, but he quickly caught his footing and followed his guide, trying his best to ignore the sounds that were growing closer as the pig-like beast chased them.
"Right!" Mary called as they came up to a fork in the path, and Terzo dived to the right, hearing a crash from behind them as the beast slammed into a rickety pile of decaying meat and coins (presumably collectibles).
"Left!"
Terzo ducked left.
"Left!"
Again, he slid to the left, ignoring how his foot slammed down into a puddle of something and sent whatever it was splattering across his legs.
"Right!"
He went right.
Mary's commands continued for a while, the pair ducking every which way as they wound further and further into Gluttony, the sounds of the pig-like beast eventually fading from ear-shot.
"Well, I think we can slow down." Mary sighed as he slowed to a jog, and then a walk, "I bet you can see why this ring is not one of my favorites."
"Well," Terzo chuckled, "I can certainly- fuck!"
Terzo didn't know what happened, but he found himself on the ground, trembling and curling in on himself as the world fades into static around him.
Someone was screaming, a blood-curdling scream that only came from the worst of injuries.
Faintly, Terzo realized that the screaming was coming from him, that it was clawing its way out of his sore throat as he curled over himself on the disgusting ground.
He was in agony.
His neck was the source, it felt as if he was a doll and a child was trying to twist it off, as if someone was trying to seperate it from his shoulders.
His neck felt as if he had been garrotted with a sharp iron wire, as if someone had taken a knife and slashed his throat open, as if someone had taken an axe and sliced through blood, muscle, and bone.
With shaking digits, Terzo brought his hand to the source of his pain, clutching at his neck, feeling warm liquid drip through his fingers as he pressed them against his neck.
His searching fingers felt something, a harsh line - a cut - that split his neck, that encircled where his neck had met his shoulders.
What was happening to him?
He pulled his shaking fingers from his neck, and felt his heart seize as he held them up to examine, as he saw them stained with red, red blood smeared across his digits and his palm.
His neck was bleeding.
His neck shouldn't be bleeding.
"Terzo!" Mary had dropped to his knees at Terzo's side, his skinny jeans quickly becoming soaked in the fermented juices of the decaying fruits they were knelt upon, "Terzo, come on!"
Terzo blankly stared at his bloodied fingers as Mary shook him, as Mary grabbed at him.
"Oh shit, Terzo..." Mary was obviously taken aback as he saw the state of Terzo's neck, his eyes widening with an expression of horror that the guide quickly fought down as he tried to get Terzo to move. The pig-like beast was still coming for them if the sounds of hooves trampling the ground and getting louder by the second were any indication.
"Oh, for Satan's sake-" Mary drug Terzo to his feet, pushed him to the nearest mountain of food that lined the path they were on, and shoved him into the pile, quickly diving after him.
Just in time too, as the beast trampled by just as Mary tucked them out of sight, their scents masked by the rotting food which surrounded them.
They were in a little hole dug out in the pile of rotting food and what looked to be glass figurines of some sort, Terzo dimly noted, their hiding spot most likely having been dug out by some poor soul that called Gluttony home.
"What's happening to me, Mary..?" Terzo looked up at the guide with a helpless expression. The agony had faded, but his neck still stung and ached, and blood still steadily dripped down his neck, falling in rivulets across his shoulder and down his chest.
"I..." Mary slowly rose a hand to graze his fingers across his own wound that his own blood seeped from, "I think something has happened to your body, Terzo. On Earth."
"My..." Terzo gasped at the thought of his body being mutilated and defiled, "my body?"
Mary turned suddenly, as if he heard something that Terzo wasn't privy to.
"I think we're about to find out," Mary looked back to Terzo, "another vision."
Terzo grimaced at the thought of seeing his body again, but it wasn't as if he could deny the vision.
"Go ahead." He lifted his chin, giving Mary easy access to touch his head.
Mary chanted the words, his eyes glowed white, and he touched Terzo's forehead, whisking them away to another place, another time.
"...a prop, for the photoshoot." Papa Nihil was speaking, an annoyed tone to his voice as he looked down at Copia. Terzo's father was holding a cardboard box, which Terzo guess was the target of the question Copia must have asked.
Mary and Terzo were standing beside a camera set-up, in one of the many extravagant rooms at the Ministry. Looking around, Terzo saw no sign of his body, instead finding signs of a photoshoot, a person he didn't recognize fiddling with the camera as Nihil and Copia stood to the side of a backdrop.
"Until you are completely established as the new frontman," Nihil was speaking again, drawing Terzo's attention, "we will need to make a bold statement with your introduction as frontman. Since you are not of the bloodline and the first frontman to not be Papa, you will need to stake your claim to the position of frontman."
Not of the bloodline? Terzo raised an eyebrow as Copia didn't fight back at that statement, but brushed it off as most likely being due to Sister not telling the old man about Copia knowing of his relation yet.
"Ah, yes," Copia nodded, visibly nervous, "I suppose that's a good idea."
"We're ready to get started," the photographer, his jacket was labeled 'Metal Hammer', perhaps he had been sent by the magazine, called to Nihil and Copia as he motioned them over to the setup of cameras and lighting equipment, "Just stand in front of the camera and I'll get you guys posed."
Terzo watched as Copia gulped nervously and moved to stand where the photographer directed him to, Nihil taking a place behind him at his shoulder, still holding the box.
He couldn't say why, but Terzo was beginning to get a bad feeling about that box.
"Alright, Papa Nihil," the photographer motioned to the box that Nihil still held, Copia twisting to look back at it as he did, "do you want to get him out?"
...him?
"Copia, you will hold him for the photo," Nihil held the box carefully with one hand as he opened the top with the other, reaching in and grabbing something before beginning to pull whatever it was out.
Mary had creeped over to peer into the box, Terzo remaining nearby the camera, and the guide abruptly turned to shout at the ex-Papa in alarm.
"Terzo, don't look-!"
It was too late for Mary to warn him, for Terzo to look away.
Nihil's hand cleared the top of the box, his gnarled fingers entangled with black strands - Terzo recognized the shade, the texture -, which gave way to white face paint - he recognized that shade, that hairline - , which turned to horrifyingly familiar features painted with Papal paint that Terzo had carefully applied almost every day for years...
"No..." Copia and Terzo spoke in unison, Terzo feeling as if his world was collapsing, his hand raising to clutch at his eternally bloodied neck.
Nihil was holding Terzo's head.
Terzo's decapitated head.
Blood was smeared around his - Terzo's, he was staring at his own head! - neck, around his stump, as well as being smeared around his temple, chin, and the sides of his face. Those smears held the shape of fingerprints, they held the evidence of how Terzo had been so carelessly handled and passed around from hand-to-hand without the respect a Papa Emeritus (no matter the current status) deserved. Without the respect he deserved.
Terzo felt the fires of rage lick at his heart, hatred growing and swirling around his chest as he watched his father emotionlessly hold the decapitated head of his own son.
"Copia!" Nihil snapped at Terzo's brother, who looked like he was in shock at the horrid sight.
"Nihil, you can't-" Copia protested, not accepting the head that Nihil held out for him, his hands twisting together nervously, "you can't expect me to hold that - him."
"I can, and you will." Nihil sternly stated, a dark look in his eyes, "Take him. Now."
"...yes, Papa." Copia reached out, and gingerly picked Terzo up from Nihil's grasp, securely holding him with one gloved hand curled below his bloodied chin and the other curled over the crown of his head, subtly smoothing out the hair that Terzo had always spent hours painstakingly styling to perfection - Secundo had always joked about how long he took, which Terzo always fired back at with a joke about his baldness and how it gave him a resemblance to the singer 'Pitbull'. The Cardinal held Terzo close to his chest, almost cradling him as he looked up to the camera.
Terzo felt like crying at the gentleness Copia treated his head with. Sister and Nihil seemed to have lost all their love for him, but Copia - only having just learned of their brothership - was so clearly mourning Terzo and shocked at how Nihil was treating the situation.
"Alright, stay still..." the photographer, seemingly unfazed by one of their subjects holding a bloodied head, Terzo's bloodied head, ducked behind their camera and took a few shots, "You can drop the poses, but stay there for a moment while I check the pictures."
Copia looked greenish, as if he was on the verge of puking, and unshed tears lined his eyes.
As Nihil's hand fell to tightly grip Copia's shoulder, a grip that looked to be more painful than reassuring, Copia held Terzo's head even closer to his chest.
"I'm sorry..." Copia whispered to the head he held, far too quiet for Nihil to hear.
Terzo heard though, even as Mary whispered that it was time for them to leave, Terzo heard Copia's apology.
"I promise I didn't know what they were going to do." Copia was staring down at Terzo's unseeing eyes, hunched over as he whispered to the decapitated head in his arms, "But I'll try to keep your legacy alive. I won't let the fans forget you. Or your brothers." Copia paused, "...our brothers."
Terzo felt a piece of his heart crack.
Sister and Nihil had stolen so much from him and his brothers.
With that, the Ministry faded away as Mary and Terzo returned to Gluttony.
"Well, I suppose we figured what that," Mary motioned to his own neck, as he glanced down at Terzo's, "was about. I'm sorry..."
"Well, you know," Terzo brought a hand to to motion at his neck, "at least I..."
Terzo trailed off, staring at his hand.
His hand, which he could see Mary through.
Unlike many representations of spirits in popular media, Terzo had been solid... until now. Now, his hand was opaque, wavering like a heat mirage as he looked at Mary through it.
"Mary..?" Terzo looked to the guide with wide eyes, a hint of fear in his voice, "What is this..?"
Mary, on the other hand, looked overjoyed.
"You're being summoned," Mary said, a grin growing on his face, "Time moves differently here, remember? Copia must have figured out how to summon you sometime after the photoshoot!"
With that, and before the ex-Papa would respond, Terzo felt as if he was yanked backwards, Gluttony - and Mary - falling away as a new location surrounded him.
"...Terzo?"