Who am I?
Whom did I hurt?
Who is punishing me?
Did I ever have a dream in my life? Did I achieve that dream?
Did that dream come at the cost of an innocent's life?
Is death... really the biggest blessing for me right now?
The man slowly opened his right eye as he finally woke up.
"Huh, I'm not burning anymore. When was the last time I felt relieved from such pain?" he thought.
He slowly sat up and looked down—
—to his horror, he found himself sitting atop a tower of corpses.
His hands were shaking as he noticed they were covered in purple blood-stained gloves. He almost fell from the stack.
"What the fuck happened here...? All that I went through... it wasn't a dream," he mumbled, gazing down at the ocean of lava below.
He was just beside the inner wall of the massive cauldron, the one held by the giant chain.
He looked up. The chain ascended into darkness, far beyond his vision.
"Is this... the path to freedom?" he wondered, tears welling up in his eyes.
He glanced at his trembling hands and mumbled,
"B-But can I even climb something so long?"
"Hey... won't you answer?" he asked aloud, expecting the voice of the white-haired girl.
"Where are you now!? You can't leave me at this stage!"
No reply came.
He gritted his teeth.
"Fuck it. I'm going up, no matter what lies ahead. I'll go anywhere as long as I don't fall back into this hellhole!"
The man stood up—
SNAP!
Immediately, his exposed leg bone broke under him, and he screamed in pain.
"FUCK!!" he roared, punching the corpse beneath him so hard it caved in the chest.
"I'm gonna fucking annihilate whoever threw me into this place," he thought, tears rolling down his face.
He dragged himself toward the edge of the cauldron and gripped the red-hot chain with both hands. The monster-skin gloves shielded him from the heat.
"I-It doesn't burn! I can climb it!" he exclaimed, laughing as he began ascending quickly.
The scorching chain burned everything else, but his arms endured.
As he climbed, he looked down at the cauldron and gave it the middle finger.
"Fuck you," he muttered before continuing upward.
Twenty minutes passed. His arms were trembling.
He looked up. Still no end in sight.
"H-How much more...? Don't tell me there's no top..." he muttered weakly.
Suddenly, the chain shook violently.
He nearly lost his grip.
"What now?!" he grumbled, looking down.
Hundreds of skinless, flaming, spider-like creatures—Hellacnids—crawled rapidly up the chain.
"The fuck are those?" he gasped.
"Figured they'd show up eventually. Hellacnids. They dwell beneath the lava ocean floor. They get alerted whenever someone tries to escape the Sin Furnace," came the girl's voice again.
"Oh NOW you decide to talk!?" he screamed as he began climbing faster.
The chain shook harder as the Hellacnids gained on him.
"Climb faster!! Unless you want to get shredded apart!" the voice urged.
"I-I'm tired—I can't go on!!" he yelled, struggling to breathe as he clumsily climbed.
Suddenly, a soft light shone from above.
His expression changed. Hope lit up his face.
Then—
RIP!
A Hellacnid latched onto his leg and tore it clean off!
He screamed in agony but kept climbing.
"Carry on! You're almost there!" the voice encouraged.
The light grew brighter as he climbed for ten more agonizing minutes.
His blood dripped onto the Hellacnids below, only exciting them further.
Two of them pounced onto his back, setting it aflame.
His flesh burned. His spine was nearly visible.
"Looks like you need help... again," the girl's voice said with a sigh.
Suddenly—
CRACK!!
The massive chain snapped.
The Hellacnids below plunged into the abyss, their flames vanishing into darkness.
The two on his back clutched their chests and fell too.
"Guess humans aren't the only ones vulnerable to heart attacks," she muttered.
The man coughed blood and climbed toward the white light.
As he neared the top, he stretched his hand out.
"Am I... home?" he whispered, smiling weakly—just before passing out.
At the last second, a hand reached down from the light and grabbed him.
He was pulled out from the abyss.
The white-haired girl had retrieved him from a gaping hole in the middle of a snowy wasteland.
Snow was falling heavily. The sky above was pure white. Nothing but snow in every direction.
She gently placed his head on her lap.
The man opened his right eye and saw her smiling, face still partially hidden by her hair.
"Move... your head. I wanna see... the sky," he mumbled, blood spilling from his mouth.
She giggled.
"Don't be mean. I did help you escape, didn't I?"
"So what...? Not like I can live with this busted body," he whispered.
"You won't have to. Once you leave the Sin Furnace, you can finally die—blood loss, organ failure, the usual," she explained with a smile.
The man gave a tired smile.
"Heh... dying right after gaining freedom? At least... no more suffering, right?"
She looked up at the snowing sky.
"It's not the best view, but it's better than lava. You must be freezing, but hey—you can finally feel something other than pain."
She looked down at him gently.
"I hope you lived in this moment before dying."
His right eye was open. A smile lingered on his face.
He was gone.
She laid his head on the snow and stood.
Brushing off blood and flakes, she said,
"My work here is done... for now."
She looked at his corpse and smiled.
"Time for you to do some heavy lifting, dear. See you soon."
And then, she vanished into the storm.