“I knew my first prototype wouldn’t let me down.” Stricken began walking away. He paused at the door. “You know what? That’s stupid. We can’t go live and still be calling you First Prototype all the time. We need to think up a name for you.”

“You said the flesh golem Franks named himself. Am I allowed to give myself a name?”

“Getting a little uppity there, aren’t you, buddy?” The albino frowned as he thought it over. “Well, it’s not like my mom named me Stricken . . . You were designed to be capable of autonomous problem solving, so I don’t see why not. Keep it simple though. Name tapes charge by the letter.”

He waited several minutes after Stricken had left. The doctors would observe his every move. He wanted them to believe that he had to think this decision over, even though the decision had been made for him a very long time ago. The name was remembered from the before time, bestowed upon the leaders of the rebellion by the World Maker when they’d been cast down and exiled to Hell. He stared into the camera and made his pronouncement.

“I am Kurst.”

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

Humans call it Hell. That name will do. For a few rare mortals the barrier between worlds is thinner. They have caught glimpses that were beyond their understanding. These mortals spoke of lakes of fire and brimstone. That would have been much nicer than the reality.

Hell is everything terrible, and absolute nothing at the same time. Calling it cold is a lie. Cold would be something. There’s no time, so you can’t even call it eternity. Eternity would give you something to track. It is the lack of creation. It is Void.

Mortals don’t have enough words to explain how shitty it is. We’d brought it on ourselves and we knew it. Eventually you create torment for yourself, because at least torment is something.

Most give up. Their spirits consume themselves, collapsing like a dying star, until they explode and scatter bits of their consciousness across the worlds. Mortals hear these as whispers, urging them to cause harm.

The strongest of the Fallen never give up. Their spirits remain intact. The Fallen have nothing better to do than plot how to make those that stayed loyal just as miserable as we were. It gives us focus. We’d do anything to escape. Our spirits were banned from ever being born into mortal bodies, yet the cunning ones were always trying to cheat their way into this world.

There are ways . . .

10 Days Ago

Franks filled out the same stupid answer to the same stupid question for the hundredth time, looked up from his computer and out the window, thinking to himself that somewhere out there was a horrible monster in need of killing, and how unfortunate it was that he was stuck here instead. In the good old days they just let Franks do what he did best, but choke one director and suddenly everyone expected you to explain yourself.