ic Hell Isn't Good... It's Hell!

[Moira Morley]

Moira was happy that she had calmed the big man. Happiness was something this dread realm couldn't take from her! Though unbeknownst to her, it could corrupt.  Her warmth turned into a fire that needed to be fed, that demanded to give and receive. Her thoughts turned into how much happier they could be.

 

The scene of the carnival faded as they went farther and farther away. They ran into a plush area. There was a heady wine smell around them. Everything was covered in dim red light. No ceiling or walls, but there was a tantalizing warmth about the area. Pillows of all different sizes began to litter the area. "Maybe we just need to relax," she said looking  to Maxie, playfully pushing him down on a pillow, "just enjoy ourselves for a while." She sat on a pillow herself, leaning next to him. Looking up there was a void of blackness above the red lighting. "Lots of empty space. It's nice to have someone to share it with." She sighed happily, cuddling up to him, "I'd like to see your tattoos up close. Maybe show some that you haven't shown me. Maybe I show you places to put my tattoo."

 

Happiness mixed with corruption. For the next few hours, they both occupied each other's time. Scion and Spitfire. Maxie and Moira. If this weren't a hellscape, it would have been more genuine, but it wasn't. Just crude lusts fulfilled until both of them collapsed. The demon fed well on them.

 

Once they woke up, the scene was gone. No pillows. No wine smell. No red lights. Just a faded blackness.

Edited August 31, 2017 by Moira Morley

[EviscerusNox]

Maxie felt much like he was on a bender, his head fogged with heady aromas and headier passions.  He fought neither the temptations, nor the promptings of Moira and succumbed to the fire that was engulfing the both of them.  

 

When he finally came to, it was as if waking from the longest sleep of his life and it took him a minute to remember where he was and what had happened.  It all came back though when he finally opened his eyes and saw Moira lying next to him.  His heart started racing as the pieces of the last few hours fell together in his mind, and a sinking feeling entered his stomach.  Dear lord Maxie what have you done?  

 

As gently and gingerly as possible he extricated himself from Moira and slipped on his discarded clothes, then just sat with his face in his hands.  He dimly was aware that his hands were trembling and that he was terribly thirsty but all he could do was replay everything that had happened in his mind.  Sure, under other circumstances he would have liked to work up to this moment with her, but this had been pushed on them, their feelings twisted and goaded by an unseen hand, just like in the other rooms.  He was afraid she wouldn't be able to look at him again, that he'd never see that smile again.  He was terrified, in fact, that he'd just lost a friend to this hellscape, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.  He was angry at whatever nameless thing had done this, and at himself for not having the ability to stop it. 

 

Frustration ate at him, leaving his gut feeling hollow.  If he could just get his hands on whatever it was making this happen, there wouldn't even be ashes left to identify. He pushed those dark thoughts away though and sighed heavily.  Putting his feelings aside he knew he had to do whatever he could to get out of here, to get Moira out, before any more damage could be done to them and their psyche.

[Moira Morley]

The bacchanalia reminded her of home. Not that she didn't enjoy her time at home, but this was just going through the motions. Sure it felt good physically, but there was nothing fulfilling about it, nothing passionate about it. It was raw unadulterated... wait. Crap, was this her first time with him? She pulled herself up to a sitting position, and called for her costume from the bracer. Looking over to Maxie she saw his worry. They had met less than two months ago, but they'd kept in touch. She enjoyed his company.

 

Standing up she looked towards Spitfire. Nervously, she cleared her throat, "I want you to know that that was something I would have allowed you to do." She smirked, "nothing we did was something I hadn't done." She let that hang there for a moment. Her voice went more serious and sympathetic, "I'm wondering if you were OK with any of that." She stepped forward not getting in his personal space. but letting him know she was there for him.

 

What she was trying to do was lesson the blow, but what was done was done. The demon got what it wanted from them. 

[EviscerusNox]

Maxie took a moment to himself to simultaneously scourge himself mentally, and then feel relieved she hadn't decided to hate him for what had happened.  A weight lifted off of him then, and he sighed, turning to face Moira and standing.

 

"The only thing I'm not ok with is how this went down.  This not bein' all our choice.  I feel the same as you about this, it is something I've already thought about.  I'm also glad you don't hate me for this, and can still look me in the face.  Don't know how I'd deal with it otherwise.  Tell you what, when we get out of here, which is becoming a more oft repeated statement then I care to admit, we are getting that drink and maybe... doin' this whole thing proper like, on our terms.  Sound fair?"

 

Maxie smiled at her and brought her in for a hug, wrapping his arms around her for a brief moment before setting back off into the unknown.

[Moira Morley]

She agreed with his statement about the consent thing. Even though she was OK with it, it was not OK. No feelings were in that. She wanted to put a face on this whole thing and punch that face forever. But they were lost in a hellscape. There were no faces to punch. She swore the next face she saw, barring her companion, she was going to punch. "Sounds fair," she nodded. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek when he hugged her. She felt his emotion, he felt hers. It was finally good.

 

The faded blackness gave way to a hallway, a dark one. there was only enough to go one wide. doors were scattered in different areas. Each had a different name of a different person. None of them they knew. "Remind me not to get a room here," she scoffed mockingly. Though she was following Max. Max sounded so much better. Then again, it was his name.

[EviscerusNox]

Max ventured a hesitant smile at Moira's quip, but his heart wasn't in it.  They had shaken off the effects of the last "room" but this hallway made him feel isolated, even though Moira was right behind him.  It's dark passages seemed to narrow for a few feet before suddenly coming to a door that ended the hallway altogether.  Max couldn't read the writing on the door, it was in a language he didn't recognize.  Frustrated he blew out a breath and with it a small gout of fire before shaking his head.

 

"End of the line it looks like," Spitfire said hesitantly before opening the door, "please god don't let it be spiders."

 

The room inside was perplexing.  It seemed to be an amalgam of 3  different places.  There was one corner which had the obvious signs of a carnival tent, another that looked like his old shop Fire Eater Ink, and the last looked like the entry hall to some extravagant meeting hall.  

 

"Damned place can't make up it's mind on what it wants to be,"  Max scoffed, before he heard a voice from the tent.

 

"Neither can you, it seems boy,"  a woman, on the small and rotund side but with laugh lines that creased what looked like her entire face, stepped out of the shadows and clucked disapprovingly at Max. 

 

"Why'd you leave us Max?  Bertram was like a father to you, and I did the best by you I could as a mom.  Was it the long hours?  Was it the training, or the road?  No, I know you boy, you always been lazy.  That's what it was, you just quit because you couldn't hack it anymore, you got soft and tired of the good life.  You just gave up on us is what you did."

 

"That ain't true Deardra and you know it!  I had a gift, and I couldn't just pretend I didn't.  People need help, and with my abilities I could help them.  That's why I left."

 

"If that were so,"  Came a man's voice from the grand hall corner, "then why did you leave the city after so short a time?  You weren't doing much making a name for yourself as a hero, sure you did a little bit but you never were big league, never even tried to be."  The man coalesced into what was more or less a superhero in costume, cape and all.  But it was hard to place him, he looked like one of the famous Freedom Leaguers, but it was hard to tell which for some unknown reason.  "No, you didn't last long at that either, you ran away, joined the circus again, or just partied your way across country.  So much for your high and mighty ideals.  Seems Deardra is right about you."

 

"I had my reasons fer leavin'.  I was alone ya know.  I just wasn't like the rest o' them heroes.  Their pristine teeth and smiles, their sparkling outfits and shining ideals.  I'm a carnie  and no matter how much crime I stopped or how many people I saved that what I was to them.  The circus freak who did fire tricks.  I wasn't a hero to them, so I figured hell with it.  They see me as a carnie that's what I'll be."

 

"Exactly,"  came yet another voice from the tattoo shop, this voice was a breathy female voice that coalesced into a lithe woman, sitting on a tattoo chair while some faceless man gave her a tattoo what looked like a caricature of Max's face on her right arm.  "You quit, you didn't stick it out.  Just like you gave up on this shop you spent so much money and time on.  Got too hard for you, and now look at you.  Crying about how you were treated or how you were seen.  You're lazy, and pathetic." 

 

The woman's words cut him deep, as all their words did, but what hurt worse was when they all started laughing at him.  It rang in his ears like church bells and shook him to his core.  A chant slowly started to echo from an unseen chorus that seemed to be in tune with the laughter.

 

"LAZY! QUITTER! CARNIE! FREAK!  LAZY!  QUITTER!  CARNIE!  FREAK!..."

 

Max clasped his hands to his ears and started screaming, "Shut up!  Shut up!  SHUT UP!"  His voice rose to a deafening yell and then he turned to the sky and let loose a gout of continuous flame so hot it was nearly white.  The flames continued to spill from his mouth from lungs that would have burst in another person, they just kept coming without end.  Max's face started to turn red, then purple and tears on his cheeks sizzled and boiled away in an instant.