Monday, October 7, 2019

Cycle of Suffering: Chapter 3 – Sadistic Games

Chapter 3 – Sadistic Games
Ugh. Ack. That was a terrible nap. I had the weirdest dream that, oh, it wasn’t a dream. Where am I now? Uck. What is this stuff on me? It’s some kind of sticky and black substance that looks like tar. The stuff isn’t hard to break through, but I feel stick touching it and being here. The smell it emits once broken is enough to make me vomit. What is this new hell that I find myself in? It looks like an insect nest with little bugs crawling around everywhere. Seeing them crawl everywhere makes my skin crawl.
My skin feels itchy as I make my way through the nest with no clear direction. It’s like I’m climbing through an actual nest rather than being in a building or area of some kind with how many times I have to climb down or up to progress in a direction. My skin starts to really itch so I scratch it only to see something crawling in it! I thought that was just my imagination, but no, somehow these bugs got into my skin. Did it happen while I was sleeping? Am I not allowed to rest at all while being in this dimension-! AHH!
While descending, I saw a man trapped in the black substance with holes in his body with insects crawling in and out of them. I’ve accidentally let go of the thing I was climbing down and have landed in an area with bodies like the man’s with an uncountable number of insects crawling out of the corpses. I then see what looks to be a larger insect crawl out of the black substance. No, that’s a man or rather a monster with elongated legs, arms, and a mouth with his jaw protruding out. He also has a sharp tail that looks like a spinal cord.
“You’re finally awake,” the man says, “I am obligated to tell you to conditions to escape is to endure the insects crawling within your skin. You will be in pain for a while, so if you want to give up, then I can grant you a swift death. Of course, I can kill you without your permission anyway so you better start digging down.”
Ah, hell. I dig down just as the man lungs at me. I then dig down past the rotting corpses and through the dozens up dozens of insects. The smell and dirtiness of it all is disgusting. This shouldn’t be a surprise to me that this place exists in the dimension, but I can barely stand doing this since the insects crawling in my skin start biting me and becoming erratic.
“Yes, yes! Keep crawling like the maggots in your skin!” the man says from behind me as he crawls after me, “I’m obligated to tell you that I am actually a man. A man who was used and abused for the pleasure of those who were meant to protect and raise me. When I grew up, I became worse than they were by impregnating women and forcing them to give birth to my children. The Satanists loved me with all the children I supplied for their sacrifices. It was such a delight to watch my victims’ agony and to break them until they became my slaves. I get the same delight with my new life here with my insect children.”
Why the hell is he telling me all of this? He said he’s obligated to so that means that it could do with the answer to how I could go out of here. For now, I have to focus on digging my way out. The black substance is easy to tear through, but the mess of corpses and insects makes it difficult along with the increasingly agitated insects in my skin. It feels like they’re scraping against my bones and innards while biting and cutting whatever they can. The pain is excruciating and now I know why there are so many people that just gave up instead of bearing the pain. I, on the other hand, am not going to give up.
It may be stupid because I’ll get a quick death and I could get an easier killer to deal with, but that’s probably what they want me to think. I’m not going to let this pain get to me, so I keep digging and digging until I reach the bottom-! AHHHH! Okay, I reached it, but there’s no floor. The entire hive is suspended in the air by an invisible force.  The man has caught my foot and is preventing me from falling into the nothing below.
“Let me go!” I say as I try to free my foot.
“I am obligated to hold you up here until your pain reaches its limit. It’s been a while since someone dug all the way to the bottom, so I must applaud you if I could use both my hands. Though I am unable to kill you of my own accord, you can always allow me to kill you to swiftly end your pain.”
My body continues to writhe in agony as the insects get more and more aggressive. I try to itch my skin to numb the pain, but it just makes it worse. Insects start coming out of my ears, nose, mouth, and every other part of my body as they fight their way.
“Now’s the time most people give up. There’s no shame in doing so.”
No, I’m…not…going…to…give…Up! I’m back in my room now. I honestly didn’t think I’d get through that. The eye on the moon opens up and writes my next clue on the ceiling. “It is one of your Savior’s greatest lessons”. Always with the vague hints. At least it’s getting narrower.
“Okay, send me back in. I’m ready.”
My room doesn’t change for a couple minutes.
“I said I’m ready.”
Waiting a couple more minutes yields no results, so I check my door to see if it’ll open and it does. I’m in a dirty apartment that looks like it’s been abandoned for a while. Most of these doors are barred except one at the end that has a hole I can look through. Peering through it, I see…is that a revolver? Hearing a clicking sounds makes me assume the gun is going to shoot so I go to the side before I’m shot. What a dirty trick. The door opens to reveal an outside circus of spinning blades.
There are carnival games and rides that look more torturous than fun. They are controlled by demented-looking clowns that might as well be demons especially with their heads that are on fire. Fire even comes out of their eyes, mouth, ears, and nose. Wooden stakes with people burning on it are used to light up the dark areas of the carnival. Why are people even participating in this hellish carnival? A fire explosion comes out of nowhere in front of me as if on cue to answer my question. A fiery clown that looks like a ringmaster comes out of the explosion with a grinning face and a staff with a little grinning clown head on it.
“Welcome my lady to our little carnival of blood and fire!”
“How do I get out of here?”
“Stay awhile and enjoy yourself if you wish to leave. I’m sure you’re going to have the time of your life.”
The clown then disappears in a blaze of fire. I have to participate in this carnival to escape? Okay, what's the least painful thing to do. How…about…this one?
“Looking for a challenge that’s simple and easy? Step up and see if you and grab the clown heads in these boxes of spinning blades,” a clown says that stands near the “game”.
The boxes look big enough to put my hands in even with the blades inside of them. All it looks like I have to do is keep my arms straight and I should be able to do this without cutting my arms on the blades.
“I’ll do it,” I say to the clown.
“Go ahead. There’s no price for the fun we have here.”
First, I aim my arms perfectly into the box so that I can get the clown heads. After that, I make sure to keep them steady as my arms go further and further in.
“Ow!”
Must’ve moved my arm a little too much-! Ow! Now my arms are touching the blades! I thought I aimed my arms right. I’m too far in now to back out so I grab the clown heads.
“Be careful on your way out! You don’t want to tear off all the skin from your arms!”
I do as the clown says-ow! The blades are really slicing my arms into pieces now. Come on, just hold on a bit longer-there we go!
“And we have a winner! Congratulations, you’ve just won your first challenge! We hope you’ve enjoyed your first taste of what’s to come!”
My arms look like they were cut up by the doctor and I’m just now noticing that the scars were gone. Wait a second. Looking back into the box, I see that the blades are closer to the center than they were before. The clown has a bigger smile on his face so he must know what I know. Whatever, I expected them to pull dirty tricks on me. I have to keep going. Can’t let this bother me. Here’s another thing that doesn’t look too bad.
“See if you can stroll through these trash-filled waters curtesy of the countries you trust! Just don’t become an ecoterrorist because then you’ll just be creating more garbage to clean up.”
Seems easy enough. I just have to be careful, so I don’t cut myself on anything in the shallow pool.
“Here we have another brave soul! Let’s cheer her on!”
I slowly lower myself into the waters that barely goes up to my waist. Walking through it isn’t too difficult and isn’t as disgusting as the insect nest. Just have to take it nice and slow-did something just brush up against my leg?
“You better hurry up! This trash was dumped in these waters because there’s something in it that can clean it up.”
Ow! Something bit me! A lot of things are biting me now! Quickly, I hurry up to the end of the pool to find bite marks all over my legs with my pants torn to shreds and my shoes gone.
“We have a winner!”
I don’t even know what was biting me, but at least I’m out of there.
“Hey, no waiting around, there’s so much more fun to have! I think our brave lady needs help getting to her next game!”
“What the? Let go! I can go there myself!”
Two clowns carry me into a caged game area with other injured people and clowns in it. Is this some kind of cooking challenge? What’s with all the spices?
“Welcome, to the cannibal tasting contest! Our contestants will have to make their hands as tasty as possible for our customers. The losers will get thrown in the trash as is the place for all disgusting food, so get ready!”
What the hell?!
“And…go!”
Can’t think now. Just have to put as many spices on my hands as possible-ah! Some of them burn because of the wounds on my hands. Uhhh, what else do I pick? What kind of spices do cannibals like on people? I’ll just keep throwing on what I think might be appealing and-
“And stop! Let’s see who is the tastiest!”
The clowns start tasting our hands by putting them in their mouths and licking and nibbling on them. Okay, this might be worse than the insect nest.
“Now that they’ve had a taste, who do they think is the tastiest?”
All the clowns point to me.
“Of course the prettiest lady here would win! Congratulations!”
The other people are carried out and thrown in a nearby trash bin-!
“AAAHHHH!!!”
“It looks like our hungry customers couldn’t go without taking something to remember our victor by!”
The-they bit off my ring fingers. This entire thing has left me completely exhausted that I find it hard to move. I better move faster to the next game or else you’ll put me through something worse-ah! The ringmaster clown picked me up.
“Don’t you worry, my lady. I’ll bring you to your last game.”
“N-no, I’ll…”
“Shhh. You’ll be fine in my hands. You can trust us, businessmen and women, to do what needs to be done for you. We won’t cripple you without a good reason.”
So, that’s their tragedy that made them this way. I always thought businesses were clown shows.
“You’re a strong lady, but tired, so I’m going to give you an easy game.”
The ringmaster takes me to a cage with a woman tied to a stake. He sits me down by desk with a mask on a stand on it. There are spikes and a clown face on the other side of the mask.
“She is going to be burned alive unless you put your face into that mask and kiss the clown on the other side. It’s your life or hers.”
Alright. This is probably a trick and we can both make it out of this. Easy enough and at least the clown isn’t a real person, so I put my face into the mask and kiss the clown on the other side. It feels like a pressed a button of some kind-! The mask closed in on me and I’m in my room again. Did I win or lose? The moon didn’t take stab me or anything after. Huh? There’s a knock at my door. What’s this letter that slid under it?
It says, “Sorry you didn’t win. You feeling the button press on the clown face was supposed to queue you on its closing, but I guess it isn’t much of a hint. We’ll be fixing it shortly. Since you did sacrifice your life for another, the powerful entity of this dimension won’t be taking anything from you, so you got off easy especially since you don’t carry over any injuries from your time here. Good luck you good soul! Signed Ringmaster Mortifier.”
What a load of crap! I did what they told me to, but I still lost?! No! I can’t let them get to me. I’m alive, I don’t have any injuries, and that moon didn’t do anything to me, so I can keep going! Yeah. I can keep going.

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