The boy raised his hands to clutch at his executioner’s arms, arms that did not know the definition of mercy. Little did he know that the nerves in his body had long been restricted by millions of microscopic needles shot through him seconds before. He heard his own endless scream rise up and out of the room, traveling through the streets of his underworld prison, rising up towards the cloth-like sky that never gave way to darkness.

“Fuck! Did you miss again Kay, because I swear!”, Yan screamed, although failing to look menacing with both hands pressed closely to her ears.

“Hey, it’s perfect,” his executioner argued. “It’s not my fault his eyes are crooked.”

“My eyes are not crooked!” The boy piped in defense from behind the group, not realizing that he was no longer in his still screaming, frozen body tacked to the wall with a now invisible arrow.

The three women fell silent, until Kay abruptly grabbed the back of his shirt and mashed his face against the face of his former, still living body.

“Shut. Up.” she demanded firmly. “If you get us caught…” The boy gulped at what he only assumed was the click of a gun pressing against the back of his head. He wanted to believe that the gun really could do him no harm, but here he was, apparently dead for the first, and not the second, time doubting the accuracy of his intuition in a realm where the laws of the living did not apply. How? The boy’s mind raced as he felt the pressure on the back of his head increase with each new, earsplitting wail coming from a mouth that he no longer had control over.

The boy closed his eyes in fear and frustration, his ten-year old mind could only take so much wear and tear in four hours before it was ready to give way. Just as he began to feel his brain pushing against his new, ghostly skull, the wooden doors of the hut flew open and a tall, gangly man stood panting against the door frame. “He’s…he’s b-bback.”

“Why don’t you send him flowers for us,” Yan fired at the newcomer, hands still cupped over her ears.

The boy opened one eye to analyze the situation, but the girl named Kay did not loosen her grip on him and the others did not look in the least bit phased. His body froze when his eyes met with Lia’s deep, dark brown eyes, eyes that he could tell were swelling with centuries worth of pain and regret, threatening to break through and drown the world in its ancient anger. In her eyes he could see a pain similar to the one he often caught in his brother’s eyes, a pain he could only spot in the stolen glances across the floor at night while pretending to be asleep. His screaming finally stopped, although how the boy did not know.

In a voice much lower and raspier than he heard come out of her before, Lia all but whispered, “With…?”

The man nodded and slunk to the ground, moaning and running his hands constantly through his ruffled blond hair with his head between is knees. “Now,” he hoarsely croaked, barely audible above the thunder that began to clap through the sky.

The thatched roof above them began to fade and the boy could see that the sky he thought could never lose its shine, darkened to a shade darker than his own soot and coal stained world, only to be lit up by the occasional streaks of lightning. His feet began to warm as smoke began to rise from the ground, smoke that encased the room in relentless bouts of ash, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and other familiar fumes reeking of death. He watched as the walls around him began to distort but instantly became distracted by the sound of pounding gongs and a nasal song that rang and reverberated against the pitch black sky. The boy fell to the ground as if some force was pushing against him, pushing him closer to the almost near scorching floor.

“Quick, take him Amal,” he heard Lia swiftly order as she picked him up and threw him over to the man now struggling to raise himself from the ground. The thickened atmosphere prevented the four from hearing his weakened cries of confusion as they continued to run from the wooden hut with the boy thrown over the man’s shoulder. He to watched as the ground below him began to grow longer with each leaping stride the man took, and glow the glow of the rivers of magma that filled his childhood. How were they still standing?

They soon leaped over the threshold of a temple the boy felt himself being dumped and pushed into a dark, cramped room, perhaps the broom closet. He flinched in pain as the man gave his arm a hard squeeze before breathing into his ear, “Look, I don’t know who you are but stay here.”

When he regained his strength, he desperately threw himself against the door and screamed to be let out. He had to know what was going on, he had to find our for himself because his brother was no longer there to keep him safe. He could not disappear without saying goodbye to his brother, he could not leave without knowing what had gone wrong. The boy stopped his frantic thrashing in the small three-by-three closet at the sound of blood-curdling screams that rose from outside. Following the bleak ray of light and smoke from a crack in the door, he peaked out to see true form of the inferno he had fallen into.

Through the hustle and bustle of bodies searching for a refuge that did not exist, the boy watched as each building burst into blue flames. He dearly wished what he saw had been the mirage it seemed to be, but he was in no desert and the agonizing screams he heard were too bloody to have come from his imagination. Burning, the city was burning and the people along with it. The boy now knew where he had fallen, Avici, the 18th level of Hell. From above, he heard a deep chuckle that echoed harmoniously with each additional cry of despair, three of which were sharper and clearer than the others that he heard.

No more than four feet away from his door lay his three captors, thrashing on the what looked to be the scalding ground, screaming through their clenched teeth. Geysers of fire burst from the ground around their curling bodies, as the man named Amal stood helplessly on the side, keeled over and shaking much like a opium-addict suffering from withdrawal. A body rolled closer in his direction, and the boy could tell it was the hazel-eyed girl despite her closed eyes, the one they had called Yan. Why am I not burning?, he thought as his hands flew to muffle his own cry while watching her body jerk and lurch forward onto her stomach, now noticing the searing red symbol that shone, or rather burned, on her upper back. The boy strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of a similar symbol burning the flesh of Lia’s left temple and Kay’s neck.

The burning went on for days, months on end; so long the boy slowly questioned his sanity in his not-so claustrophobic-friendly haven, so long that the boy stopped noticing the heavy cackle of the unknown voice that continued for as long as the burning did.

The face in the sky, now barely visible through the clouds of smoke, sounded its familiar alarm that almost could not be heard above the groaning, screaming and desperate pleas of guilt. 4:18.

Dark clouds began to fade and the buildings and roads returned to their regular state as if nothing had happened, and the people simply gave their bodies a shake, stretched and went about their day. All except for his three captors or saviors — which they were, the boy no longer knew. The boy threw himself against the door, which now opened with much more ease than it had before, and came to a tumbling stop next to Lia, whose body lacked the strength to even lift her eyelids. Her mouth dropped open and smoke came rising out.

“You….” she whispered.

An inch away from her face, the boy coughed at the deathly smell of the smoke rising into his nostrils. “Y-yeah?”

“What’s yer name, kid?” Amal asked, lifting him to his feet before pouring water into Lia’s mouth.

Silence. After being shot with an arrow beforehand, the boy had given up hope that these people would help him but a glance at the closet door told him otherwise. On the door was a yellow tag and some red calligraphy: a charm, a charm that had protected him from the same fate as every other soul during these torturous months.

“Ciro.”

–> Chapter 4