Prompt 4: Gehenna

Prompt: Pick a name, a place, thing and an emotion and write a short horror story about it.

Name: Silas.

Place: Gehenna.

Thing: A nail.

Emotion: Grief.

Dedicated to Peculiar Praise❤

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There was groaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

At this point, he was too tired to scream.

There was no sense of time here. He didn't know if he's spent a week here or a thousand years.

There was no reprieve, no rest and worst of all, there was no water.

His tongue had shrivelled up. His mouth felt like sandpaper. He was amid the red and yellow flames, enduring torture for the rest of eternity.

The worst part about Gehenna is that you never forget your crimes, but you always remember them.

That regret coupled with the toture was enough to make any man mad.

Silas used to be a wealthy man, from a well-to-do family.

As though that wasn't enough, in his greed he sought for powers beyond him, powers money couldn't buy and ended up signing several binding contracts. Ones sealed in blood.

Through this contract he came to be among the top one percent.

This was a man— along with many just like him— who ruled like a god upon the Earth. These people controlled everything, from politics to entertainment, to industries to the culture, economy even down to the nuclear family.

These people have caused the downfall of many, many of who he found in the pit. He helped put them there.

He was the reason they forsook God and went the way of satan.

It was true that hell existed.

It was the twenty-first century and not many people were given Silas as their first name but he came from a Jewish background. Though he had been raised with the knowledge of God, He did not know Christ.

But even the God he knew he would later trade for the powers of this world.

Silas was a man that moved the world, he walked with the shadows, and he knew the powers that be that ruled this world. He knew that there was such a thing as the light but like a fly that hated the light, he hid.

It never paid to be good. That was what he always said. Often seeing the good dying untimely and being unfortunate. He noticed that more than half the time it was people such as himself who prospered and made it to the top.

Why then would he do or be good? It profiteth not.

He was drunk with power much like his father, the one who has been since long ago, the serpent, the hater of man and bringer of destruction— the devil.

The devil hated him as well since he was human but humans became futile in their thinking, hence joined hands with the one who hated them the most, all for fame and glory.

But where was the devil now? While his skin tore from his sinews?

While his bones cracked and snapped, turning at an absurd angle at the intensity of the flames?

His god abandoned him. No wealth or riches could deliver him now.

The people he had indirectly caused their deaths numbered in the millions, and the families had had a hand in destroying, hundreds of thousands.

He promoted abortions, promoted perversion and confusion of self.

He along with many at the round table promoted the idea that a man can be a woman and a woman could be a man.

He helped pervert morality. He drowned in the knowledge of it.

His consciousness became elevated to the point where he felt more than human, he felt otherworldly, like an idol who could do and undo.

He had no regard for the God of the Christians.

He had had the misfortune of meeting some of the children of light.

They weren't many but they could pack a punch. A prayer from them could reduce a century's worth of effort into dust. He hated them with a burning passion.

He hated everything they stood for.

Even while being at the very top, it felt like there was nothing he could do because of them.

Until one day. This day was a very special one.

There were in one of their many hideouts, far from the prying eyes of the normal civilian, deep in the woods of California, in one of those many mansions.

A man was crying out.

They were in the cellar. This man had been chained to the floor, naked and beaten till his whole body was covered in his blood.

The only thing he had on was the cross.

Silas was among the crowd that was mocking this man.

"Repent! Repent for the time is at hand," the mangled man had cried.

"Though the wicked grow tall and mighty like the cedar they shall be brought low. Again you look and they shall be no more. They will be like those that went down to the pit long ago. This shall be your lot if you don't repent!"

While the man was yet speaking, another man held his head back in annoyance and slit his throat.

Everyone wearing the red robes including himself had laughed calling the man as he bled out, a fool.

"Go meet your God," Silas mocked with a taunting smile on his face.

Then they nailed his dead body to a wooden cross outside the mansion. This cross had scratch marks and blood all over it. Some of the blood was still fresh.

It was a ritual. To re-enact the nailing of Jesus again on the cross using the very people He died for.

There were three nails. Each one was about six inches deep. They nailed both wrists and both his ankles.

They danced around the hanging body only to set it ablaze.

Silas groaned as the memories played out in front of him like a movie.

The fire was burning within and around him, he was bursting open across the seams.

Other than the flames there was nothing but darkness and the wails of millions that have inhabited Gehenna over centuries ago since creation.

His entrails were gushing out of him and pouring out into the fire beneath. He had already died a thousand deaths.

The pit he was in was just for a man his size. The man beside him had kept quiet.

He glanced and was briefly able to see a bit beyond the flames. Half of his face was missing, which was why he couldn't scream.

The worms were eating him up. They were unaffected by the heat.

Both Silas's hands and feet were chained, much like how that poor man in the cellar had been chained.

"God forgive me."

Immediately, there was a great screech then silence. A strong foreboding descended in the pit that he was in.

That name was taboo. He knew it but he called out to it occasionally.

The God of the Christians was merciful. Surely He would eventually hear his cry.

There was a loud hiss in the air.

"Silassss," the serpentine creature hissed out. Silas had to look away because, in all his years of practising witchcraft, he had never seen a creature that horrid.

Its face was supposed to be that of a snake but it was split into two. It had two eyes facing the opposite direction and a mouth, nose and tongue split into two.

This snake had six pairs of human arms a pair of breasts and a golden lock of hair.

"That name issss forbidden." Its eyes were like a furnace.

In the blink of an eye, the creature took him and began eating him up.

It first took an arm, then a leg and by the time it bit into his head, he died only to be reawakened a second later to experience hell over again.

In Gehenna, there was no peace for the wicked.