INFERNO
Night had fallen over Tartarus with a sudden and foreboding speed. Darius and Peyton sat in the small boat, looking around, only able to see one another. Once the sky had fallen dark, as dark as Tartarus itself, it seemed as though they were simply floating in space, nothing anywhere around. The darkness was as complete as darkness could be. And so was the feeling of being lost.
“Are we even still moving?” Peyton asked. “I can’t tell anymore.”
“Neither can I,” Darius replied, looking around. “I can’t see anything. We just have to hope that Eve’s boat does what it’s supposed to.”
Peyton began to shiver, a chill that had nothing to do with being cold. A few minutes ago, they had heard what sounded like thunder coming from somewhere behind them, but saw no lightning to accompany the booming sounds. It had only lasted a minute or two, and gave them both a very bad feeling, but neither spoke about it. They didn’t want to consider what that noise really was.
“I hope Eve’s okay,” Peyton suddenly said, hugging her arms.
“Me, too,” Darius agreed. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s strong.”
They fell silent again, unsure of what else to say. Darius tried to look through the darkness, hoping to see a shore in the distance. The sooner they were out of Tartarus, the better. He felt exposed. Not just because of Azrael undoubtedly following them at that exact moment, but also because of being surrounded by one of the few substances in existence that could destroy him. All it needed to do was touch him. With a single touch, Tartarus would know his sins, then drag him into its depths and hold him there for eternity.
“We’ve been going for a long time,” Peyton said, unconsciously whispering. “How big is this Tartarus thing?”
“No one really knows,” Darius replied, also keeping his voice down. “Some say he goes on forever, as far as the universe itself. That he has no ends.”
“What exactly is Tartarus?” Peyton asked. “I mean, sometimes you call it ‘he,’ other times ‘it.’ Is it alive? Does it think? Does it know we’re here?”
Darius turned away from the dark horizon and looked at Peyton. “Oh, Tartarus undoubtedly knows we’re here. He may have been watching us this whole time, without us knowing at all. The truth is, no one knows what Tartarus is, or even where he, or it, came from. Sometimes he seems to have conscious thought, as he decides who comes to Purgatory or Hell, and he knows who he should leave alone to ascend to Heaven. The rest of the time, he looks like this. On the surface, a thoughtless mass of water with no sentient self. But underneath… well, who knows?”
Peyton looked confused. “But… I don’t get it. Where did it come from if no one created it?”
Darius didn’t have an answer. Tartarus had simply always been. Perhaps before the universe was created, he was the universe. No one knew for sure. Not anyone Darius had spoken to, anyway.
Peyton looked over the edge of the boat into the blackness that was Tartarus. She couldn’t tell if it was moving, or flowing, or if it was alive, but she had the heavy feeling that something was watching her. As she stared into the abyss, she thought she saw something, just beneath the surface. They were passing over it, and that momentarily gave Peyton comfort in the fact that they were, indeed, still moving, but then she looked closer, curious as to what the object under the dark surface was. Peyton leaned out over the edge of the boat as far as she dared. Whatever it was, it was far lighter than Tartarus, looking grayish in the ceaseless black. She stared down into the darkness, trying to make out its shape. Its color. Its…
Peyton suddenly gasped and fell backwards, away from the object in the water. Away from the grayish, submerged face that was frozen within Tartarus, his eyes closed and his mouth open in an eternally long scream that made no sound. Darius turned to her, to see what was wrong, then glanced into the water. When he saw the face, he looked deeply distressed. He actually moved as though he wanted to reach in and pull them out, but then realized that was foolish.
“What is that?” Peyton whispered. Darius moved closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“That is a damned soul,” he said quietly. “Not allowed to be reborn. Not ready to ascend to Heaven. It will remain trapped inside Tartarus for as long as it takes for the soul to learn from the mistakes it made in life. It will be tormented by the memories of its sins. It will feel the pain of its victims. The sadness of those they hurt. All the pain, emotional and physical, that they inflicted in life, they now feel in death, until they truly understand how their actions have affected others.”
“So… Tartarus is Hell?” Peyton asked.
“In a way, yes. What Tartarus does is punish those who are unable, or unwilling, to repent. Some will be trapped for only a short time before Tartarus releases them to Eve. Others may never be free. It’s different for everyone.”
The face in the water passed them by, the frozen scream still locked in place. Suddenly, Peyton could have sworn she heard whispering. Countless voices, carried on the wind, speaking incoherent words, all at once. Peyton strained her ears, trying to listen and discern the words that were being spoken, but nothing was coming clear to her. The words were all strange, rushed and garbled, like a million voices all whispering as one. The boat suddenly lurched, as though someone heavy had jumped on board, but when Peyton and Darius looked around, there was no one there.
“What was that?” Peyton whispered. Darius shook his head, unsure.
Peyton suddenly felt a very localized cold sensation creeping around her waist. She looked down and nearly passed out with fear. Black water, creeping like a snake, had managed to reach out of the mass beneath the boat, a long tendril of water that almost seemed solid climbing over the side of the boat, and was now slowly wrapping itself around her body. Tartarus was wrapping around her. She raised her hands, as though to beat it away, but froze, afraid of making it angry. Darius stared in horror, watching Tartarus move slowly over Peyton’s body, but unable to do anything.
Peyton remained perfectly still, her heart pounding hard and her face having lost all color. Tartarus didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, as it moved like a sluggish caterpillar on a tree branch. It didn’t have a care in the world. It began to raise its head, if you could call it that, and met Peyton at eye level. Peyton stared at the tendril tip that looked very much like a faceless black snake, as it remained motionless before her. She had the feeling of being watched again. Like Tartarus was looking at her. Looking inside her. Peyton stared at it for a time, feeling like it was looking back at her, Darius sitting still nearby. He was slowly reaching behind his back, moving cautiously, slowly wrapping his fingers around the handle of his blade. As Darius closed his fingers around the hilt of his blade, he slowly pulled, trying to not make a sound as he began to pull the blade free. As the steel slowly began to slide out of its sheathe, there was an almost imperceptible sound of grating steel, as quiet as the tick of a clock.
Tartarus suddenly moved. It moved away from Peyton and turned its ‘head’ toward Darius. Darius froze in his act to unsheathe his blade, not wanting to anger Tartarus by appearing threatening, but fully prepared to fight if he had to. While Tartarus was definitely looking at him, it came no closer. It stared, despite having no eyes to see with, the black water of its body still running through the tendril wrapped around Peyton’s waist. Then, silently, Tartarus began to unwind from Peyton’s body. It slid without a sound back along the floor of the boat and back over the edge. It disappeared back into the main body of water without making the slightest noise, not even the tiniest splash. There was no trace that it had ever been there in the boat.
Shaken, Peyton turned to Darius, but kept glancing back at the edge where she had last seen Tartarus. “What… what was that about?”
Darius sounded grim as he replied. “I think we’re close.”