A large frozen lake shivered with
immortal souls underneath the thin layer of
ice. Large spikey icicles hung over Lillianth’s
head as she sat up. The freezing wind pushed
little icicles into her skin as she tried to warm
herself with her own blood. It stank her palms.
Weighed down by her broken, useless wings,
she struggled to walk.
Lillianth slowly climbed up onto a cliff
and sat down at the edge, looking around at
the wasteland of lost souls forever embedded
in the ice, considering herself lucky enough to
be above the frozen lake. She saw how young
some of them looked, how wrinkled some
of them were, how their last emotions were
forever frozen in the ice. Each emotion forever
stained by the torment.
Souls were trapped, half of their body
in the freezing cold, the other half in molten
lava. There was
warmth, yet their
bodies were forever frozen.
Her shaky breath fogged in front of her
face as she stared longingly at the hellscape.
She’d always been told that Hell was going to
grab onto her skin, rip her flesh apart and eat
her feathers in front of her face. And yet, she
couldn’t feel much happier at the solace of the
cold.
Constantly trying to please an erratic
deity wasn’t a pleasing experience, especially
when there was a constant knife wrapped
around her neck.
Redemption was a false hope for many.
The stairway back up was old. Each step was
either not there, crumbled beyond repair, or
on the verge of breaking. Comfort to the dead
was frowned upon in Heaven. The human
angels would preach about love and forgiveness
yet never forgave the sins. Nobody really
believed that the damned could be redeemed,
that they could be given a chance for purity
and love.
Hell was gossiped amongst the angels
as constantly on fire, the insides of a furnace
with loads of coal. Lillianth longed to prove
the angels at Heaven wrong, to watch the hor-
rified looks on their faces and smirk.
A rare, genuine smile emerged on her
face as Lillianth came to the realization that
she was much happier in Hell.