PRL Serials

Silas wakes up. He is in his home, in his mansion, in his bed next to his wife, and he looks over at her with a smile. 

It has been a solid month since Silas last saw hell. He and Adam had been trying to figure out a way to gain access to the woman who had managed to burn Silas’s soul and then his body when he met her in hell. She had revealed to Silas that every human soul from his existence was drawn to hell by her magic that she did not bother to explain, and Silas believed her because he still felt the pain on his arm where she had grabbed him; her power was undeniable. When he went to hell after that encounter, he would look for her, though his demon guide laughed at him and told him that his pursuit was futile. 

“Even if you find her, she will not help you,” the demon said. “You are the worldly reminder of the life that was taken from her. You are the reason everyone suffers and you can do nothing to stop it.”

Silas mostly feigned his frustration with the demon guide; he needed the demon to believe that he was frightened so that he could continue his pursuit of the woman. He and Adam had developed a plan to map hell, and Silas had to maintain the personality that the demon was used to so that he would not become skeptical and notice Silas counting his footsteps and noting the various rocky pathways that they walked over. 

Silas had never tried to draw a map before, but he and Adam figured out ways to reconstruct his experiences in hell so that Adam could create a map as he had learned to make from a website. Adam tried his best to draw it to scale and he used grid paper that he would tac to a wall to add to previous sections that Silas described to the best of his memory. Adam always wanted to know more about the ways that the souls were being tortured and the demons that did it, but Silas hated to recount that part. He never became numb to it, the spirits that had bodies by some magic that the demons were delighted to ravage in unspeakable ways, it never became easier to see and his soul wept for all of them. Working with Adam to find the woman gave him hope for the first time that he might actually be able to do something, to help someone, maybe even himself. 

But about a month ago, while Silas was in hell and the demon guide was telling him about the red energy that had been rowdy in its corner of the dark realm, “like it was suddenly excited by something that only it could feel,” the demon explained and he wanted Silas to see it. Silas went along with the idea in order to see more of hell that he had not before, and maybe he would come across the woman. But something happened as they made their way. Silas saw something miraculous, something that made him drop to his knees and weep full tears: Random souls were being pulled up, away from their torment, away from the ravages of their bodies to the dismay of their tormentors, and they slipped up and out of the darkness. It was not every soul in hell, not even the majority of them, but it was enough to make Silas stop, enough to fill the dark sky, and as the last one left, Silas felt himself pulled back to his body, and he saw even more souls released. He awoke next to Adam who was surprised that he awoke earlier than the expected time. 

“I think it’s over,” Silas said with a big smile. 

He went back home shortly after, and it was true. Silas was able to sleep and dream his dreams. Silas was able to sleep in his bed next to his wife and she was so happy to see him. 

He met with Adam sparingly, only twice since he returned home. Their project meant nothing if Silas no longer visited hell, but the two had become something like friends, and Adam was still plagued by visions of an alternate self in his sleep. 

When he wakes up this morning, Silas is extremely happy. He kisses his wife. 

“I knew you would come back to me,” she smiles. 

She is a beautiful woman and Silas feels like the luckiest man in the world. But then he gets a horrible vision of her face, like the skin is melting from her bones and she wails in agony, undead and slowly tortured. He blinks and jumps back, and then she is beautiful again, but concerned. 

“Are you OK?” she asks, and she slowly strokes his forearm. 

“I’m good,” Silas says and kisses her. Hugs her close. “I’m good.”

It is probably post trauma from his experience, he thinks, but he would not let it ruin his happy ending. 

Silas does not go to the office for work, and instead, he uses his entire home to regain his reputation among his colleagues as he grows his clientele and the fund he manages. He wanders the hallways of his mansion talking with clients through an earpiece, he does research at his laptop in the dining room, he sometimes meets clients out by the pool. His family is used to his presence and his daughters are very happy to have him back and his pervasive presence around the house is not annoying. 

As Silas takes calls this morning, his daughters prepare for school. They are in and out of the bathroom at the end of the second floor hallway and as Silas wanders around them, he helps them to zip when necessary, or to hold things while they do other things. 

He wanders past their rooms and inside, they pack their book bag and put on shoes. Silas passes the room of his youngest daughter and she is putting her laptop into a bag, and when he doubles back down the hall, she is sitting on her bed with both of her wrists cut and gushing blood. Silas doesn’t notice, he is consumed with his call on this pass, but he stops in front of her door because the conversation calls for still for the moment, and then he notices the macabre scene of his young daughter dead on her bed from the corner of his eye, and it hits him, stops him mid sentence in a panic, but when he stands in her doorway, she is just annoyed that he is blocking the way.

“I need to go dad, talk on the phone somewhere else,” she says as she pushes past him. 

Silas wanders to the banister of the staircase as he ends his call and watches his daughters descend. His vision flashes, and when they are not walking, they both tumble down over one another in a bloody mess. 

Silas does not say a word, and as they leave the front door, a woman appears, floating before him. It is the woman from hell, the woman who could burn him. Silas cowers, but she does not approach.

“I cannot drag you to hell,” the woman says. Her voice is interrupted, as though Silas hears her on a frequency of a radio that is getting a poor signal. “But I can bring it to you.”