The Last Circle-Chapter 5: Steps in the Abyss

A heavy landing reverberated through the dark, unfathomable ravine—a knock on death's door. Nameless found himself standing on a black surface, surrounded by jagged rocks that formed narrow walls.

The walls constricted dangerously at the bottom, threatening to tear at him, making it difficult for even his lanky frame to squeeze through. But even so, he felt safer down here than he ever did up top.

He wiped away beads of sweat, casting his gaze ahead, studying the jagged and crooked path that blocked his vision from the path beyond.

'Okay, now we just have to carefully navigate this place,' so he thought, slowly tiptoeing through the narrow path.

Each corner he passed came with the added detriment of him having to stop, look, and listen, lest he meet his demise. Of course, death itself was not the main fear—it was the thought of having to experience pain and start over.

As it turned out, Satan did not lie to him. The tutorial did gloss over it, but from what Nameless was able to gather, death was merely a setback. However, the setback was still brutal, if not outright worse. Not only would one retrace their steps from the beginning of the Circle of Hell that they were on, but dying would also bring about the loss of all collected Fragments of Divinity and artifacts, which would be transferred to whoever delivered death.

Essentially, Nameless realized two important things out of this: The first was to not die, of course, and the second was that there was no such thing as an ally in the race to Heaven. There was one more thing however, though he wasn't sure if he could call it a realization or if it was something he already knew:

'A permanent death would be better than being stuck in Hell.'

True, that was. After all, he knew, first hand, just how bad things got in this accursed place, especially on the Ninth Circle of Hell. The place where only the worst of the worst went to experience torture that not a single soul on any other circle could fathom.

Still, with that fear in mind, he pressed onward. In fact, it was because of the fear that he found no choice but to do so, for what was there to lose? If he failed, he'd merely return back to his eternal punishment, but if he succeeded—if he were guided by divine providence, which he seriously doubted would be the case—then he could forget about it all and bask in the glory of God's paradise.

He snapped out of his thoughts, freezing upon hearing strange noises that reverberated through the labyrinthine darkness, more so worried about where it came from rather than what made the noise, for what made the noise was bad no matter what.

'Sounded like footsteps,' so he thought, pressing himself up against the wall, taking a look at the winding paths that circled a stone pillar up ahead. 'Big, heavy, and slow footsteps.'

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He strained his ears for about a minute, waiting for the sound to echo through the abyssal chasm again, but the air remained in an eerie silence, forming goosebumps across his arms.

He poked his head out and looked off to his right, seeing that the crooked roundabout forked into another path in that direction. Off to the left was much the same.

These passages, unlike before, were wide at the base, allowing at least twenty people to pass through at once. High above, the pillars narrowed again, creating an archway. The erosion—whether natural or artificial—grew deeper, letting shadows accentuate their depths and the jagged protrusions threatening to maim his shins.

Nameless studied the phenomenon as he passed through, the rhythmic pulse of his heart beating just a little harder, thumping in his jugular.

'Now the real question is if that's normal, or,' he gulped, 'if something dug its way through.'

With genuine sincerity, he prayed to God that it was merely the former, continuing onward with a suffocating paranoia festering in his mind and heart, evident by his trembling breaths and legs. In fact, it gnawed at his mind to the brink of swearing that he saw shifting figures just within the periphery of his vision, vanishing from sight the moment he tried to get a better look.

They were like shadowy omens of a major threat looming around the corner; a reminder that Hell never stopped with its torture.

Another couple minutes of his slow and arduous journey would pass, and again, Nameless would come across another roundabout.

But unlike the previous area, a foul stench made his nose feel as though it were withering, and the sounds of wet smacking of the lips, punctuated by moist squelches that rang around the corner made his skin crawl.

Nameless peered around the corner, keeping himself pressed against the wall as he looked to his left, where the disturbing, wet, and sloppy sounds came from. Curious to see what was hiding down here with him, he decided to investigate, thinking to himself:

'It might be helpful to know what I'm pitted against.'

With his focus drawn towards the source of the noise, he failed to take care of where he stepped, thus sending broken fragments of the rock walls rolling through the passage. Within a fraction of a second, he froze, and the sloppy sounds stopped instantly, replaced by heavy rumbles that only grew louder and clearer with each follow up.

'Shit, hide!' he yelled internally, quickly dreading at the ring of the bell that was raring to torture his sanity by adding to his Sin. Nevertheless, he quickly moved back, retracing his steps around the corner and pressing his back against the jagged wall as he held his breath.

One rumble, another, another, one more, and the heavy steps stopped, leaving Nameless struggling against his trembling body and deafening heartbeat. Whatever was around the corner was waiting for him, and it didn't seem like it was interested in leaving any time soon.

His heart sank the moment the footsteps continued. Each one brought a tremor greater than the last. The rock shards launched up with them, their sharp clacks on their every return to the ground like stabs in his chest. The air lost its ability to keep the coppery stench of blood at bay, burning his nostrils.

Witnessing the bouncing rocks, an idea popped in his head:

'Maybe it won't hear me if I move during the tremors,' he told himself, dedicating the delay between each heavy step to memory.

Soon, he found himself moving with every tremor, perfectly masking his shuffling with the heavy thuds. So far, his game of red light and green light seamlessly entwined with the rhythm of the tremors, and he found himself retracing his steps halfway to the previous roundabout.

Until it no longer worked. One mistake was all it took. One reverberating shuffle of his steps echoing in the silence of the chasm. He felt his heart skip a beat, his veins froze, and his eyes struggled to stay in their sockets. The shadowy figures flickered back into view, reflecting the suffocating darkness that held him in its hollowing embrace.

He didn't need to turn back to verify it. The creature he had his back turned to bore its gaze onto him, drilling right into his cranium, enveloping the once still air with the chaos of bloodlust. He swore that the creature could hear his thunderous heartbeat, a timpano in the silence.

The fact that it wasn't immediately rushing after him, however, was what scared him most. It was as though the creature wanted to enjoy the pungent scent of fear that Nameless exuded, playing with its prey.

Slowly, with tightly shut eyes and pursed lips, Nameless turned his head back, first seeing the creature out of the corner of his eye, before he finally gazed upon its grand size.

It was none other than the same hulking, space-black beast that tortured him before, letting its drool plop on the ground. It stood hunched under the archway with its red dots for eyes peering from beneath a veil of black fur, its guttural breaths shifting the air, both a testament to its unfettered bloodlust.