Chapter 46 - EPISODE 46 ─ Death and Hell

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗟'𝗦 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥

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"𝗗𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗲..."

I almost declared. Yet, I hesitated, knowing such words would bring no joy to him. He does not belong among humans, yet he remains vulnerable to their cruelty, just like his mother. They strive to fit into a world where they were never meant to belong.

Years have slipped through my fingers like grains of sand. It has been an eternity since I last beheld my son—reborn to human parents who treated him like refuse. My hatred for humanity burns brighter than the fires of the Duat. To think they would abuse my son, to think of him as a mere pawn in their wretched game.

How can I atone for my past mistakes when the day inevitably arrives that he confronts me? I have whispered apologies until my voice was hoarse, sought to turn back time, but even a devil's power has its limits.

The day I lost everything remains etched in my soul. The first time I tasted the bitter fruit of grief, the day I drowned in my own despair, losing not just my face, but my very identity. Regret has become my constant companion in this suffocating realm, a title I wear like a shroud. The world finds humor in the absurdity of it all: the righteous deemed wicked, while the wicked bask in false virtue.

He watched them from his throne — these humans who arrived not with trembling and regret, but with comfort. As though hell were a destination they had always planned to visit. As though his domain were nothing more than a consequence they had already made peace with long before drawing their last breath.

Have I been too quiet?

The thought was almost amusing. Almost.

He pressed two fingers to the armrest of his throne — black obsidian, carved from the bones of a mountain that no longer existed — and considered this world that had grown too comfortable with darkness.

A world where the cruel were crowned with gold, where the faithful were condemned, where goodness wore the face of suspicion and wickedness wore the face of virtue.

How ridiculous.

They were dragged before him in chains of black smoke — a family of three.

A man. His wife. Their daughter, small enough that four winters had barely touched her. Their bodies already bore the marks of this place — skin kissed raw by heat, lungs learning to breathe fire instead of air. They wept openly, as humans do, their tears evaporating before they could fall.

"Mama, Papa. He's soo scawwyy.. I don lwike him. Take me attof hwere pwease. I hate scawy people."

The little girl cried rubbing her face.

He looked down at them from his throne — a throne that had no beginning and no end.

These were Shiharu's so-called parents and his little sister.

Good.

He was glad the boy had taken nothing of their faces. Looking at them now, he felt the ancient fire in his blood move the way the Nile moved in flood season — quietly at first, and then consuming everything.

He spoke — in the greek tongue, the tongue that existed before language had names.

Ξανθόφις.

The name fell from him like a stone into still water.

The man who stepped forward wore a smile that had never learned to be anything other than sharp. His hair fell in golden, gleaming coils threaded through with strands of actual gold — not decorative gold, but living gold, the kind that moved like the scales of a serpent when the light touched it. Ξανθόφις — a name given in cruel irony to something that had never been particularly interested in preserving it. ─ Refer to Episode 37.

He bowed, low and smooth, already delighted.

"𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹."

The words came without heat.

That was always the most frightening thing about him — how cold his cruelty ran when it ran deepest.

"𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘆, 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲, 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿. 𝗣𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 — 𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲, 𝗜 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. 𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗽𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗱 — 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗮 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝘄𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘁𝗲. 𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱. 𝗠𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲."

Ξανθόφις smiled wider, bowed lower.

"As you will, my Lord."

The father broke first.

"Please — please, we didn't know — we didn't realize the boy was your—"

The words stopped. Not cut off by a command or a raised hand. Simply... stopped. As though language itself had decided it no longer owed this man any service. Blood traced a slow, quiet path from the corner of his lips. He could breathe. He could not speak. He would never speak again.

The wife watched with wide, white eyes as their crying daughter was lifted away — carried out through doors that opened into a cold the fire itself refused to touch.

"𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀," he said, rising from his throne in one slow, deliberate movement. His robe unfolded around him like dusk falling over the desert — deep as the space between two stars, edged with something that caught the light and refused to give it back.

"𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹'𝘀 𝘀𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗱. 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗼𝘁."

His voice was not loud. It never needed to be. For an immortal who has no lips nor a face. It simply was — the way the dark between torchlight simply is, occupying every space that warmth refuses to fill.

He crossed the distance to the man the way time crosses distance — without rush, without mercy — and took him by the cloth at his collar the way one takes something that was never worth holding carefully.

Deeper. Past the outer chambers. Past the rivers of black water. Past the burning hell where cries and humans weeping voices were facing their miserable fate. Past the place where sound gives up and turns back. Into the heart of it — where the fire is not the fire of the surface, but the fire that existed before the sun learned how to burn.

The pit of hell.

He let go.

The man fell the way all things fall when the ground beneath them is finally, honestly gone — screaming for something that was not coming, reaching for something that was not there.

He turned back.

The woman had not moved. Her hands cupped over her mouth in horror, pressing down whatever sound wanted to escape from behind her teeth. When his gaze found her she began to shake — that deep, involuntary trembling that lives beneath the bones.

"My Lord—" Her voice scraped its way out. "My husband — it was all his doing — I warned him — I told him to leave the boy alone — I want nothing to do with any of this, I swear it — please, I will never—"

He said nothing.

Silence, in this place, was worse than any response.

"Νυκτέρων"

The second name — and the second figure materialized from the shadows between two torches the way smoke materializes from heat. He was broader than Ξανθόφις — darker in the way that thunderclouds are dark. Great black wings folded against his back like closed parentheses around a thought too large to speak aloud. Where Ξανθόφις was the beauty of the serpent, Νυκτέρων was the patience of a bat— the spirit that waits and waits and does not tire of waiting. ─ Refer to episode 37

He smiled too. They both always smiled.

An unsettling creepy smile that's filled with nothing but their lust for blood and death.

A single flick of his finger — almost bored, almost gentle — and the woman folded into black sharp strings that came from nowhere and went everywhere, threatening to cut through her body without an ounce of mercy. She screamed.

He tilted his head slightly, the way one tilts their head at an interesting sound, and sent her after her husband with one unhurried motion of his foot.

The fires accepted her.

The fires always accepted what was given to them.

"The taste of dying humans," said Νυκτέρων, watching the flames settle, "never loses its satisfaction."

The devil said nothing. He was already walking — already retreating toward his throne, his robe pulling behind him across the obsidian floor like a shadow that had decided to stay. If anything, Νυκτέρων had saved him the effort of doing that himself.

Νυκτέρων followed him back through the deep corridors — past the walls carved with the names of every soul who had ever arrived here, past the great scales that sat in the antechamber, still and patient, waiting for the next weighing.

Past the river that ran backwards. Past the door that had no other side.

He settled back onto his throne.

Somewhere above — impossibly far above.

".....𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴."

He read his thoughts out loud.