Chapter 65
Noah
I’ve spent a great deal of my time organising my…basement. It’s a funny thing to call it a basement when it is quite literally hell, but I guess it is in the basement of our kingdom, I managed to meet a lot of the staff down here, but honestly, there are so many souls and staff to accommodate their punishments that I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever meet them all. Darius, the gargoyle we first met here, has become my right–hand man in finding my way around everything. He’s very much like a gentle giant, to me at least. I’ve seen firsthand what he can do in a torture room and that does not look very nice. There were so many rooms off winding hallways that it was a struggle to keep up with where we were; that’s exactly why I changed it all up. Funny to think that I can physically change what hell looks like. Now, if you come from the winding staircase from the castle, or if you’re transported in, you’ll land in one big metal cage, my reception area. It needs to be caged because I can’t just have souls wandering off until they’re found again. So they come to the drop box first, where you can see clearly what is to come. Once I’ve got them organised under a worker, they’ll be labelled nicely and clearly on the forehead with their punisher’s name and the time they’re to serve here. It’s all magic, so it’ll count down to the exact second how long they have, that way there’s no need to look them up to figure out their information or if they’re still meant to be here or not. I love organisation, sue me. From here, they’ll be transported into separate cages that hang from the incredibly high ceiling. I’ve created one for each of my punishers, and Darius is currently handing out rune necklaces to the punishers that will transport them to and from the cages when they’re ready to collect another soul. That brings me to the next step of my organising. Instead of a million winding hallways, I’ve created a sort of pit. Safe to say everyone was alarmingly shocked when I pulled every single wall down in this place and they were left standing in an almost completely blank space. I was able to create a speaker system of sorts to introduce myself and explain what was going to happen next. I asked everyone to move to the centre into a group, which ended up being a giant huddle of souls and creatures that probably spanned at least fifty football fields. From there, I created a circle of cells around them and I went in both directions, up and down, each connected with escalators, because it’s my hell and I can have escalators if I want to. Each room is a comfortable size, enough floor space for my punishers to complete their activities and a small cage inside each for them to lock away the souls when they’re not currently with them. I kept with the fire and brimstone look. Every wall is tough and pointed black stone with spots of burning flames and they’re decked out with every torture item I could think of in an endless void sort of closet in the corner that the runes the punishers wear will also be able to activate. All they have to do is hold the rune in their hand as they open the door and think of the item they wish to pull out. Easy peasy. The finishing touch to the pit is that right down the bottom is what appears to be the largest fire I’ve ever seen. I kept the rooms from starting a few floors above it, so whoever gets those bottom rooms will definitely be uncomfortable, but the main reason for it is that when a punishment is served, I want them to go back to Levi and be re–assessed. If their souls are still tainted and tarnished and they’ve learnt nothing in the way of remorse, then they won’t be released to the forgotten outside; they’ll simply be thrown into the pit of fire that will completely obliterate any soul into nothing. It’s basically an end–all to their lives. Even though they’re technically dead when they get here, they still have a lifeforce. The souls still need food and water, and their torture needs to be physically limited, or they will just sort of poof and be no more. So, a lot of what happens here in hell is just a mind game, some of it is physical pain, but it’s restricted to keep them here and they’re given the bare minimum: one bowl of slop a day and one cup of water just to keep them alive. For the most part, though, I can see what hell really is now. It’s a game of trying to rewire your brain in the worst way possible, through fear.
I’m busy sorting through the tablet and updating changes in my reception area that sits in the very middle floor of my hell. It’s a nice effect to have it as a cage, obviously with a glass bottom so I can see every direction, the million floors up and down, and all around me. I’ve had a few new souls drop in, but when Xavier shows up with one in tow, I’m curious.
“Hello brother, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
This work, Goddess of the Underworld by Sheridan Hartin, is an exclusive intellectual property legally contracted with NovelSnack. Any reproduction, distribution, or upload outside NovelFlow, AnyStories, NovelaGo, and Readink is unauthorized and constitutes copyright infringement.
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