Once Upon a Time in Hell Ch. 03

After all, no one in the town was willing to help them.

"So you see, whore, you weren't missed! Your death was a boon to us all!"

"You slime," she spat. "You used me--"

"I raised you!"

"MOM raised me, you just beat me from time to time!"

"Oh oh, you still think of that woman as your mom, do you? Oh my, even under this ice my heart is warmed," he said, his voice dripping with venom and spite.

Sheila changed the topic. She wanted to find out more about her death. After her body was "found" it was later discarded, unmourned. Her remains were scooped into garbage bags and left at the curb like common refuse. Her father had made a point of doing so.

"I pity you, you remorseless wretch," Sheila finally uttered, feeling it from every fiber in her body. "We both look back on life, but where I seek greater insight, you remain as heartless as ever. You were indoctrinated. You bought into it. You will never learn the folly of your ways. I shall depart."

"I followed the law!" he yelled as they picked their way among the ice and faces. "I obeyed! I submitted! You did not!"

They walked on for a ways. There were no demons in this layer, just hundreds of thousands of criminals and traitors, frozen in ice. It seemed endless.

"Where are my brothers? I wish to confront them as well."

"Let's take a shortcut," Dien said, opening a portal. "Assuming this works."

They stepped through the portal, and found themselves in another part of the icy prison. They saw a massive demon frozen up to his waist in ice. He had three faces, a red, a yellow, and a black face, and each was chewing on a man.

"Satan," she breathed. "This is the very pit of Hell."

"Look around you. What do you see. Is your mother here?"

She gasped. Under her feet, illuminated for her to see, her mother and brothers were completely encapsulated in ice. The brothers were each frozen with their left hands in their mouths and their right hands jammed up their ass to the elbow. Her mother was bent backwards and had her head up her own ass and her legs slung over her shoulders so that her heels were on her breasts.

"Why are they like this?" she asked. "Why are they closest to the dark one?"

"It has to do with the greatness of that which they betrayed."

"They were traitors? But, my father murdered and raped me, and led my brothers to do the same. What he did was the worst thing of all. I was prepared to forgive my brothers, and my mother too, but I can't talk to them."

"Were you really going to forgive them? You cannot do this. Please reconsider, I did not bring you this far only to fail."

Sheila was speechless. She respected Dien like no one else, he had destroyed demons and helped her. She had been trained to forgive sins and excesses all her life, because it seemed like reconciliation was among the most sacred and universal ethics. Now, he was saying that it was not just wrong, but dead wrong.

He silently waited, cool winds whipping across his bare shoulders. He began to meditate.

Sheila bowed her head, and reflected on this scene. After a while, she spoke.

"Dien?" she asked, hesitantly. He remained motionless, but opened his eyes.

"Dien, I get it," she said. "I understand."

"You do?"

"I do," she said, nodding and forcing a smile. "I see now why they were worse even than the ringleader of the crime."

Dien smiled. He had much rethinking to do, but Sheila had already figured it out.

Suddenly there was a flash of light, and the two angels Dien had fought appeared. One held out his hand, and Dien quickly offered the pommel of the clabbard toward him.

The other spread his wings, and enfolded the two. Their vision faded to light.

"Dien, will I ever see you again? Goodbye! Thank you!" Her words grew faint.

Dien awoke in a rowboat, underneath a blue sky filled with clouds. He was in a canal, and his brothers waited for him at the private dock of a gorgeous brick villa.

His soul had been redeemed. He took a deep breath and looked up towards the mainland, at a gorgeous green slope stretching up into the clouds high above.

He decided to begin to climb it.