It never really healed, *he* probably never will, and… it’s too much to think about – Ruby – a dead man walking… walking towards an old friend… a familiar park bench. Those surrounding him – the dark and the cold, the nervous winds, the crooked, eerie woods, the ancient faces of sleeping stones, and that single flickering lamp post standing tall beside the rusty old bench, they have watched over this lonely man for quite some time. Growing more hateful, more desperate, worse and worse off with each visit, there is no doubt left that this one will be his last.

  If he had not had so many chances for change, maybe at least the night sky would weep for the young twenty something, but as he pulls that well-worn cord tight around his arm, the air remains dry and cold. A flick, a deep breath and a jab; Ruby is… methodical about the process.

  I almost forgot, he thinks, allowing his body to relax back into the bench. And what better to let slip one’s mind than the last cigarette in the pack… the lucky one that always faces the wrong way. It sits proud between his lips as it always has, but with the lighter just inches away from its tip, as the addict is only one step away from peace, a sharp, cruel pain strikes his chest.

  Hurling forward, Ruby spits his cigarette to the ground with a cough as the pain from his chest surges through his limbs. Such pain alone is not enough to bring him to his knees, but his fallen cigarette is. Though, between the lamp’s constant flickers and the harsh convulsions brought on by the substance, the cigarette – the final thing Ruby gives his desperate attention… will certainly not be found before he breathes his last.

  “It’s gone… please don’t go… not now,” he croaks in between heaves, his voice feint and fading still. Next to leave is his strength, and no longer able to support his own weight, Ruby falls on his side, hearing the ground beneath him crack like a shell… like it was hollow all along, only a thin layer between him and the abyss.

  From between the fragments of shattered earth, a dark substance rises, sporadically collecting in masses around the fading man, and from those dark masses emerge dozens of arms dripping with a malicious fluid. At first, they extend straight towards the sky like trees of undead flesh, but they turn on a dime, repeatedly snapping bones to create new joints, and redirected towards their victim, they grab hold and push him into the ground.

  With tiny, shallow breaths, widened eyes and a pounding heart, Ruby’s left leg falls through, dangling like bait for the grasp of something sinister. At the same time, he manages to free his right arm and reaches out for help… for someone to pull him out from under the weight. But, the bench is the only one to try, trading rust for blood as Ruby’s hand tears down the coarse surface of its curled leg, clinging to this final tether while the arms of the abyss drag the rest of his body below.

  For a man at death’s door, his grip is determined… unbreaking… or perhaps his old friend is the one who refuses to let go. Regardless, the ground anchoring the bench gives way before the undead hands can separate the two, and so alongside the addict, the bench and lamp are swallowed by the earth. Only then does Ruby surrender to the pain in his chest, releasing his grip and gazing upwards while the jaws of hell close behind him.

  Roots stretch out, weaving together to mend the earth’s wound as it bleeds what little light the night sky has to offer, and before long, the only light remaining in the void is the orange glow of the flickering lamp post. It breaks through the darkness, trying to catch up to Ruby, but as the once fatal pain in his chest goes numb, the hands of the abyss release their hold on his body, sending him into a freefall where he almost seems… content. For a moment, there is no fear, there is no struggle – only silence as his consciousness drifts away.

  But the man at peace is not Ruby – just his corpse. His true self, his soul, has not escaped the hands dragging him to hell… dragging him far below the flickering silhouette of himself. A forced goodbye with the living world… with his living body, it is the fate at the end of all roads, only, some roads are more direct than others – a fact the addict always knew about his own. Now, he waits desperately for the luxury of nothingness, but as the silence of the abyss is broken, terror fills his soul instead.

  Scratching, moaning, screaming and wicked laughter that is not quite human; the sounds echo through the void that seemed incapable of sound only moments ago. A vacuum outside the bounds of space and time? No, this is a physical space… one carved beneath the earth to take Ruby from one world to the next.

  Those who carved it… their unsettling noises and hungry gaze pierce straight through his soul, drooling over the sight of his falling corpse. It’ll be devoured… but it’s mine… it’s me. Will they really devour… me? The addict thinks, his soul – nothing more than a shapeless bag housing his consciousness – shaking and pulsating in terror as the hands of the dead pull him further from his body and closer to the den of carvers.

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  In these depths, their sinister pressure flows freely and violently, leaving no room for hope. It acts on Ruby’s soul like a force, stretching it, twisting it, and molding it into something inhuman. However, in but a split second, his soul contracts in resistance… and explodes like a firework shell.

  Embers of Ruby shower the void in light, and the hands that pulled him under catch flame, filling the air with thick black smoke as they shriek and wither away. Can a soul die, or is the death of a soul nothing more than a loss of freedom? Either way, fragmented in the smoke, Ruby’s soul still breathes.

  Blazing embers rush back to each other like fireflies, weaving through the smoke until his soul is reconstructed. No longer as a shapeless bag, but instead, as a ball of fire, the addict’s soul shoots upward in search of its body, and through the fumes and darkness, the faint orange glow of the lamp guides it home.

  Diving through the chest of his own corpse, Ruby comes to… engulfed in flames. At least… it’ll be a proper, hot meal for them, he thinks with a smile, mistaking these events for nothing more than a bad trip. But in time, the agonizing pain and the stench make it abundantly clear that this is real, and all he can do is wail as he falls into the den of carvers.

  With human faces, long, worm-like bodies and three jointed arms made of rotten, gray meat, they peer out of caverns in anticipation of their newest victim. One, holding a pair of sheers, wears a necklace of human fingers, their nails well-groomed and painted shades of dark red. This one grinds its teeth in excitement, hoping to steal Ruby’s thumbs as he passes by. Another is in the market for a new face, as its own is home to hundreds of tiny white larvae. Holding a crescent shaped sickle, it intends to compete with the other carvers for the prize of Ruby’s head.

  Dozens of these beasts hope to harvest the man’s body until it is nothing but useless entrails, however, though their movements are demonically quick, each one screams and cowers at the touch of Ruby’s flames. To them, he is an unobtainable treasure – a brief moment of light and warmth.

  So, subject only to the torture of his own raging soul, Ruby passes the carvers by, and his freefall finally comes to an end as he plunges into a pool of liquid. At first, it seems like a mercy – breaking his fall, cooling his skin and almost instantly relieving most of his pain, though, with every blessing comes a curse, and for Ruby, the curse of the pool is the worst one of all.

  It’s cold. The burning is gone… doesn’t hurt so much anymore. But don’t you think it should? Don’t you think you had it coming? To wait so long for someone to save you… and then to bite the hand of your savior. For that… for everything… you deserve to burn. Was it all on me? Was all of it *my* fault? But of course… why else would you push it away? Constantly! And if you just had that one last cigarette… you’d be doing the same thing right now. You weren’t out of chances. No! You cut it short! You knew it was too much! You knew you were going too far-you wanted to die! You… you just didn’t think there’d be something after…

  “Shut the hell up,” Ruby roars to quiet his thoughts, but in the commotion, he had forgotten all about the situation at hand. Suspended in the pool that broke his fall, he takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with a thick, metallic fluid.

  I know it’s blood. Not *this* again… not with blood. Over and over, his lungs fill with blood, he coughs it up, and they fill once more. Every time he is right on the verge of blacking out, every time he is all but numb, another wave of torment brings him back to full consciousness.

  Eventually Ruby puts his hands in front of his mouth, feeling bubbles rolling from his palms to his wrists. There’s no end to it… my body… it won’t die. I need to find my way to the surface, or this drowning will never end.

  Following the direction of the bubbles, he claws through the pool of blood until his fingers scrape against something hard. Bones that the carvers had no further use for, bones that they considered trash and tossed into the abyss block Ruby’s way to the surface. Each one is jagged, gnawed and shreds his skin as he digs through them, but beyond their mass lies no freedom… only blood-soaked mud and solid stone.

  It almost makes sense… after all, bones sink… but then again, the bubbles sank as well when they should have floated to the top. This was common knowledge in the world Ruby knew, but by trusting it here, he has prolonged his suffering. The surface must be in the opposite direction, and kicking off the muck and bones, he fights desperately to escape the drowning.

  Emerging from the blood, the atmosphere is bright compared to the earth’s night sky or the void’s perfect darkness, but a heavy fog settled on the pool’s surface still limits visibility. There is no shore in sight, but one thing Ruby can see through the haze is a faint orange light. Without a second wasted, he paddles towards it trying to catch his breath, although, there is not much room for air in his lungs.

  So, taking small, unsatisfactory breaths, Ruby reaches the edge of the pool where the low hanging fog dissipates, and the orange light peeks at him over a steep but short shoreline of tightly packed dirt. As he climbs on to dry land, though his stomach is so bloated it looks like it might burst, he stands tall with a slight grin and shallow dimples as if the nightmare had finally come to an end.

  There, waiting for him in this land beneath the earth, are the two who followed him into the void. The bench, its leg stained red with the addict’s own blood, invites him to rest and forget about the pain of moments passed. Beside it is the lamp – the light that guided Ruby through darkness, smoke and fog. Though it stands crooked, its glass panels are riddled with cracks, and its bulb was almost completely shattered upon impact with this bloody shore… somehow… it still shines.