We sprint up the stairs. For a bit too long. We have been sprinting for various minutes. It has gotten so bad that now we are not even sprinting anymore. We are walking slowly up the seemingly never-ending stairs. At some point, Hubris and I just rest and sit down. I guess even demons like him can fatigue. Or maybe it is just the place that we are in. Maybe it is affecting him. I decide to take out my little book and write:
Sweet Life, So cruel, yet so fair. You will give us the joys of life, yet the pain of existence too. You give us hopes and dreams. Yet place obstacles in our way to erase it all. You give us friends. Yet among them, there will be those who betray for own gain. Sweet Life, I would love to say I love you. But it just does not feel like you love me back. Sweet Life, I just wish you weren't so cruel.
I close my book. As we start walking again, further up the stairs, I begin to notice something strange. Hubris already caught up on what is going on, as his hand slides smoothly across the walls. A bit too smoothly. "It's blood.", he says, almost whispering. It's as if he's afraid there is danger ahead. I waste no time and silently draw out my sword. The walls get bloodier, the stench eventually filling our noses. The steps get slippery and wet, even the ceiling starts dripping. It is all just blood. Suddenly, as we keep walking, we hit a dead end. A wall, reaching up until far above us, just blocking our path. "Fuck!" I exclaim. Did we walk all this way just to crash into a wall? I sit down on the last step of the stairs, place my backpack beneath me, and lean back onto the cold stone wall. We stay at that exact spot for quite some time, mostly because Hubris and I are both too stubborn to admit that this is a wall blocking our path. After some time of just sitting there, I somewhat try to kill the silence by initiating a conversation. Though I know Hubris is quiet, so I'm not expecting a lot. "So, what do you think is gonna happen now?" I ask, my voice almost shaky. I realize how very few actual conversations I had with him, for all the time he spent with me. "Honestly, I'm not sure. But I think we are gonna be just fine." I nod in silence, acknowledging that even Hubris isn't all-knowing. But thinking that we are gonna be stuck here together for much longer, I decide to ask him something. "So, do you wanna tell me something about you?" Hubris seems taken aback by this sudden request, his head tilting slightly. But he decides to give this conversation a try. "I...I'm not good at talking to people. Even worse at talking about myself." Now there's dead silence. "Did I fuck up?" I'm thinking to myself. "There was a time...A time in which I wasn't...Stuck. Stuck in this dark, hollow body of mine." I lean in intensely since, obviously, he is about to drop some heavy lore. "I have...faint memories of being a human being. I remember a face...HER face." I let out a slightly audible gasp. "Who...do you mean, with 'her'?" I shyly ask, hoping I'm not asking for too much. "I...don't remember much. I feel this emotion when I remember her. Perhaps what you humans call 'love'. I remember...humans. Yes, humans...they TOOK HER from me!" I could feel the emotion, mostly anger, in his voice. He obviously isn't way too comfortable talking about this. Curiosity has me gripped, but I decide to let it go for now. But that's when I notice something strange. My backpack had fallen over. Not only that. It's just halfway stuck in the wall. "What..." I silently whisper to myself, thinking I've finally lost my mind now. I turn to Hubris, a slight hint of worry in my eyes. "You're seeing this too, right?" Hubris stands there, now in his usual silence again, but he nods with approval. "Should we...?" I start talking, unable to finish what I wanted to say. Hubris and I look at each other for a moment until we both nod. I carefully start walking. Right into the wall. We step through it as if nothing was there in the first place at all. What reveals itself to us sends a shiver down my spine. We seem to have landed somewhere just at the other side of that wall. Surprisingly, it's a well-lit room with lots of space to move in, too. Hubris and I, of course, go on full alert, and I immediately draw my weapon, expecting some type of ambush. But as I take my time to look around, I notice that we seem to have landed in the middle of some dirty, blood-filled cave. The stench numbs my nose almost immediately, and I start feeling the urge just to retch and vomit. But I keep moving forward. We walk deeper and deeper into this disgusting cave, but to no avail. Not an inch of anyone is to be seen anywhere. I was very sure someone was supposed to be there, so I turn to Hubris and speak. "Hey, you know this place right? Wasn't there...Supposed to be someone?". Hubris seems to think for a moment, but confidently responds."Yes. That's where we were supposed to meet Gluttony by now. Say, do you hate Gluttony?" I think for a while, before honestly answering. "I'm not sure. I guess I do hate it, at least a bit...But It's never been much of an Issue in my own life." As I say that, we arrive in a wide arena. A blood-tainted and disgusting-smelling one, blood and corpses everywhere. The corpses don't seem human either, I'm thinking perhaps they are demons, but not only that, it seems almost as if they were eaten just halfway and then left to rot. I am slightly caught off guard by that, but before I can complain about anything, Hubris continues to speak once more. "So that theory is true...If the human has forgiven himself for indulging in the Sin, maybe even forgave the Sin itself, or never suffered of it when they were alive, they cannot manifest it into existence once in hell." It takes me a second to realize what that means, but once I do, I get angry. I turn to Hubris, looking into his cold, white eyes intensely. "What?! So Gluttony is just not gonna show up! Fuck no!" I wanna grab Hubris and leave it out on him, but i recognize that that wont help, so i put my hands around my head tightly and mumble. "No...I need him dead! I WANT him dead!...die...he has to die!" I scream, from the top of my lungs. Like a damn Maniac. After about a minute of me standing there, mumbling death threats to Gluttony, I fold, dropping on my knees and starting to hyperventilate, out of pure anger and hatred. It doesn't take long for the feeling of dizziness to get to me, and all vision around me starts to fade, while more and more insane ideas pop into my head. At some point, I can't hold this insane anger I feel in that moment back anymore. I lunge towards the nearest corpse, feasting on its insides like a starved child. Chewing and other unexplainable noises hall through the entire arena. Hubris doesn't do anything. He just stands there. Meanwhile, I eat, and eat, and eat. Until Hubris can't take it anymore. "Pull yourself together, damn it!" he says, in a slightly more raised voice than usual. He towers up behind me and starts dragging me back. He drags me forward, to that other end of the cave, so we can continue along our way. "Let me go! I said let go!" I exclaim. All screaming and resistance was futile. But right as Hubris drags me along our way, it happens. I'm still screaming and resisting, so I can't really comprehend or properly react to it, but...Suddenly, Hubris's head falls to the floor with one loud thud. No, this wasn't some cool ability. His head was loose, disconnected from his body. He was beheaded right in front of me in the blink of an eye. It takes a couple more seconds, but then Hubris eventually falls over. I stammer in fear, as I free myself from Hubris's now lifeless grip. Mouth wide open, I try to grasp what's going on and stare at Hubris. Who is now lifeless on the ground. His Radon drops right near me, and I shakily put it in my backpack. But that isn't what is important right now. I turn around, draw my sword, and frantically look for whatever just killed my companion. "W-Where are y-you?! Show yourself!!", I frantically scream, shaking and stuttering madly. But before there's anything that can respond, the floor just seems to collapse below me. No, nothing breaks or anything...I just fall through it. Just like earlier with the wall. Without a second to react properly, I let out a surprised scream, and as I fall probably many meters, I end up falling into a sort of web that catches me. It takes me a whole second to order my thoughts, but I realize that this is some sort of spider web that I'm caught up in. "What the fuck...", I mumble. But before I can figure out how all these webs got there, I sense a probable threat nearby. And it's getting closer. I look around, and it doesn't take long until I spot someone deep in the shadows...Or something. It has...the legs of a spider...but it's more than that. I'm sure of it.