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.

He wanted to be in the field. The last update from Vegas said that MCB R&D had been able to track the portal and it might even be possible to launch a recon mission into the Nightmare Realm. Now that would be a proper mission worthy of Franks’ talents. Instead he was doing this crap.

Preferring to be in the field, Franks didn’t use his office much. It was as unadorned as his apartment. Most of the surfaces were dusty. There was a stack of commendations and plaques in one corner that he’d never bothered to hang up. All the paperwork and binders were perfectly ordered. The last time his office had gotten messy was when the cinder beast had destroyed this floor a few years before. He’d not appreciated the disturbance.