The tentacled beast from the abyss is unsettling to Silas to say the very least. Throughout his day, he remembers the feeling of tentacles shoving into the orifices of his face, the pressure and the widening, like his nostrils would split at any second. He felt violated and it was not easy to shake. There was no consolation in learning that he was not the proper meal for the beast, that knowledge did not take back the very intrusive violation and he could not force it out his mind no matter where his day took him.
Silas has been boycotting sleep as of late. Halloween is approaching and his demon guide alway seemed to ratchet up their encounters around the holiday like it was something sacred to him. And Silas could tell that his last visit was merely the set up to the crescendo; there is no doubt in Silas’s mind that the demon guide has something truly horrific in mind for him. So Silas drinks energy drinks to power through the night, and he is always chugging coffee or tea. By day three, he is noticeably twitching and his coworkers are worried for him. His wife tries to intervene.
“Silas, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you have to sleep. We should see a doctor before something horrible happens…” As she says this, Silas blacks out. His heart had been racing and he could hear it thudding his eardrums.
When he opens his eyes again, there is his guide and he does not look happy.
“You’ve been avoiding me! For days now, I’ve been waiting for you, the saint has been waiting for you, and you’ve been killing yourself to stay awake! You ungrateful ingrate, after all we have done for you, you would just ignore? Well, you’re here now I guess. So we can get on with it. And it’s not so bad you coward. You’ve seen the worst of it. The saint just has some parting words.”
The demon guide starts to walk and Silas does not move. He is standing with his eyes firmly closed. He is terrified, he dreads this reality that plunges him into hell for reasons that are never made clear and he worries that it will never end. But if he just stands still, if he closes his eyes and tries his best to tune it out, maybe he will wake up before he is forced to endure more of the torment.
“Don’t do this, Silas. You would stand here tuning me out? Trying to tune me out. I know that you hear me.” The guide’s voice depends and trembles with anger. “I cannot touch you, but you can feel me. You can feel my wrath gather at the thought of being ignored.” Then he snaps, and his yell makes demons stop still in their torture, makes Silas’s eyes spring wide open. “You will not ignore me!”
Silas is so afraid that he cries and pleads. “Please, please let me have peace.” He stammers.
The mood of the guide changes in an instant and he is smiling. “These skirmishes are to be expected. I understand that you are under stress. I’m happy to see that you are taking this more seriously. Come, the saint is waiting.”
Silas follows and he only focuses on the view in front of him. He doesn’t want to see the horrors surrounding him; the sounds alone are too much. And then he is face to face with the Saint who is practically a skeleton and hunched over in a wooden box made of sticks that defy the heat of the surroundings.
“Vostè té por.” The saint says, struggling through unspeakable pain.
The guide stabs his fingers with the thick, sharp talons through the wooden straits and the saint screams out in agony as they plunge into his back. “In English please.” The guide says.
“Silas, do not be afraid. Be heartened by your journey into the darkness and your miraculous emergence. I have not given up, I am still a loyal servant of God, even here, and He has brought you to me so that we can save man’s world from darkness.”
Silas is puzzled by the man’s commitment to a God that had obviously forsaken him. “Why are you here saint? Why would God let you suffer here just to one day meet me?” Silas is crying, he had not stopped since the guide screamed at him and now he is heartbroken at the sight of the saint who could not possibly fall further away from his God’s good graces.
“I tried to bring His word to the savages of the new world. Savage is a very strong word. They were misguided. They lived in a land that had not yet seen the glory of the Lord and they could not be blamed for their sins in His absence. But once He came, after we had braved the perilous waters and lands to find them and I brought them into my mission, I could not let them turn their backs on the truth they hungered for. Maybe I kept them against their will. Maybe I forced them to work to show penitence. But it was God’s work. You understand that? Sometimes hellish conditions are required to forge the truest servants of God. My current fate only bolsters my resolve.”
Silas shakes his head slowly. “But you are here for eternity. What could you possibly hope to gain from your continued devotion?”
“In hell you may not be forgotten. And a man’s legacy can do more for the faith of men than he ever could. You must do something with the knowledge that you have been given. The abyss will spill evil into man’s world and once it is out, there is no reining it in. You must warn the world against easy cruelties. I tortured men without regret, Silas. I fed the beast while I was sure that I was serving my God. Tell them that they must embrace empathy and avoid easy cruelties.”
The demon guide laughs. “Such an earnest man. Delusional, but earnest. Saint, your man Silas here is the worst bearer of your message that your god could scrounge up. And I assure you that the beast you are warning of has made its way into man’s world and is growing stronger everyday. You may not be forgotten, but your warning will fall on deaf ears.” The guide looks to Silas. “You will watch the darkness spread. You will see it and be impotent to stop it. Even if you try, no one will believe you, not the man who is made of money.”
Silas feels numb as he watches the guide dismantle the wooden straits of the saint’s confines then lift him high in the air. The guide laughs as he rips the saint apart with his claws.
Silas is numb, and then he wakes in a familiar place; a hospital bed.
PRL Serials 