What Looks Back

  Part 3:

  Even with the Devil's power, it took the keeper just under ten years' time to dig to the center of the earth and find the spiral staircase to hell. In that time, the keeper ate not one loaf of bread, Dr.ank not one flask of water, nor slept even one hour, and his appearance morphed from that of a man to an unholy creature that even the forest’s fiercest beasts avoided.

  With only his beloved on his mind, the keeper descended the staircase to hell, seeking out the Devil with what little time left he possessed with a soul.

  In a tale less dark than this, perhaps hell would contain simply flames, lava, ice—perhaps skeletons and other unnatural, unholy horrors. But this tale lacks the forgiveness of lighter tales, and as the keeper descended the timeless staircase to hell, he witnessed the most unforgiving evil imaginable of which even a glimpse would Dr.ive the most stable of minds insane. Slow tearing of flesh by harsh iron followed screaming, crying, and begging echoed as he descended. But with the strength of the Devil imbued in his veins, alongside the one-minded passion of his Dr.ive, the keeper kept on, onward and downward into the darkness of hell.

  At the pit, in the numb, colder than ice and colder still center of the bottom, the Devil sat, waiting. Wrought by fire and iron, a creature more foul the keeper had never seen, and the keeper Dr.ew his blade and approached.

  “Face me at last, vile creature,” he said.

  The Devil stood and faced the keeper with a look not reproachful or malicious, but compassionate. “Vile creature? How do you suppose we differ, you and I?”

  The keeper spoke his reply with hatred. “The holy man has not the grotesque, inhuman horns that erupt from your head.”

  To which the Devil replied, “But have you.”

  And the keeper felt his head, and to his horror grasped two long, braiding horns.

  Unfazed, the keeper spoke again. “The holy man has not blood-red scabs that you wear as vermin do scales.”

  To which the Devil replied, “But have you.”

  And the keeper felt along his arms, and gasped as his fingers scratched against jagged edges of innumerable, rusted metal scales.

  Unfazed, the keeper spoke again. “The holy man has not the split tails on your back that sway and pitch as snakes.”

  To which the Devil, smirking, replied, “But have you.”

  And the keeper felt his rear, and a scream escaped from what had once been lips as he grasped his own snake-like tails.

  The Devil's smirk faded, and his look of compassion returned. “I ask again, man. How do you suppose we differ?”

  “I know one difference,” the keeper said with his fury's volcanic ash erupting, and he rushed forth with unholy speed and struck the Devil with his sword through its chest. “I live.”

  The Devil wore a look of peace as it choked. “The souls are yours,” it said.

  Then like a willow struck by lightning it fell—never to rise again from the cold hard pit of hell.

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