Hellishly Cold in Hell
"What if nature is arranged
In a completely different sequence:
We don't depart from here,
But return there?"
Igor Guberman
April 3, 2017, 14:40
"What... What happened? Why is it all dark around me?" the first thought that came to my mind when I came to. I wheezed a breath, but hot air laced with carbon monoxide immediately hit my lungs. I started coughing and calling for help, but my voice was so faint and hoarse, and it was so noisy around, that no one could possibly hear it.
I tried to move, but realized I felt nothing below the neck, as if my body had vanished entirely. I tried to catch my breath, but with every second, I only sank deeper into heavy sleep. There was a constant hum in my head, but it didn't bother me, and my heavy eyelids slowly closed.
Am... am I dying?
"Call an ambulance! Ambulance!" a desperate male voice pierced through the noise, followed by heart-wrenching screams.
No, I won't die...
This can't be happening. I have my whole life ahead of me.
I still have so much I haven't done...
***
Earth. Cold. I struggled to pry open my leaden eyelids and tried to focus. The smell of damp earth and rot suddenly assaulted my nose, making me wrinkle it immediately. The stench was so vile that I started breathing through my mouth just to smell less of it — this "aroma" didn't come from rotten vegetables or fruits. It was the reek of decaying, rotting flesh. I couldn't mistake that for anything else.
My vision was still blurry, but I tried to stand, desperate to get away from the foul smell. But my frozen limbs refused to obey and kept shivering from the cold. Controlling my body was unbelievably hard, as if I'd been in a coma for five years and had only just woken up.
Suddenly, an important thought struck me: "I think, therefore I am still alive!"
But I didn't even have time to rejoice, because when I stood up and looked around, that thought took on a whole different color.
Swallowing a lump of fear, I peered into the empty, half-lit corridor that had no end or beginning — it stretched so long that everything in the distance merged into a dark, mysterious fog. I turned around, looking back, and saw the same thing. Staring into the distance felt like gazing into an unknown infinity that made my chest tighten with agitation.
"God," I exhaled nervously, took a few steps back, and tripped over my own feet, falling. "What am I doing here? Where the hell am I?" I exclaimed, but then fell silent in fright. My heart pounded wildly in my chest, and I licked my dry lips, trying to recall the events of the day.
It had started completely ordinarily, with nothing to foreshadow this: getting up at five a.m., sleepy as a fly, I first sat down to do my homework. It wasn't done because yesterday I worked the evening shift at MacDonalds and stayed late. I'm only sixteen, but I already wanted to earn my own money, so I was ready to sacrifice sleep for my first earnings. After finishing chemistry homework, I went to medical college and sat through two classes like a zombie. Then I went to PE, bought a gift — a mug with Naruto on it — and headed to my best friend's birthday. Knowing how many figurines and posters of that anime he had, I figured a mug would definitely please him, especially with his favorite character.
The last thing I remembered was the crowd in the Subway, the packed train at rush hour, and a suspicious man in a red puffer jacket and blue beanie standing three meters away, frantically looking around. He reeked so badly I wanted to move farther away, but I decided not to — it was just one stop. I guess that was my fatal mistake, because as the train approached the station, there was an explosion. I didn't immediately understand what happened — whether the trains collided or a bomb went off — but now, recalling it, I realized I should have moved away from that man.
"It's so cold," I thought, scanning the corridor. It wasn't narrow, but not wide either — about two meters across. The walls were made of cracked white bricks covered in some strange dark slime and black vines. The floor was packed earth, cold as if it were winter right now, and the ceiling was just painted white, raising only one question — where was the electricity coming from? Wires with ordinary incandescent bulbs stretched overhead, flickering and crackling periodically, going out and then lighting up again.
"Where's this foul rot smell coming from? There's nothing in my line of sight."
Exhaling vapor from my mouth, I started patting my pockets for my smartphone. But there was nothing: no keys, no documents, no phone.
"Damn it!" I clenched my teeth and headed forward. The cold made my whole body shake, right down to my jaw. I had no idea where to go, but standing still would be the worst choice.
The last thing I wanted was to believe I'd died and ended up in Hell. I hadn't sinned, hadn't done anything bad, studied well, helped my loved ones, never betrayed friends. And anyway, I'm an atheist — I've always believed there's no Heaven or Hell. Those are just fairy tales people made up for hope when there was none.
"I'm still alive. I'm probably in a coma, and this is all sick brain nonsense, yeah, definitely glitches..." I reassured myself after hours of wandering. "Maybe it's the astral plane, or I'm dreaming altogether?" I stopped, looked at my hands, and could see them perfectly, though I remembered you can't examine hands clearly in dreams.
Spotting a turn in the distance, I decided to go that way. Maybe there's an exit there?
Approaching and peeking around the corner, I froze. Paralyzed by overwhelming fear, I stared wide-eyed at an entire corridor littered with bones. Human bones. Covering my mouth with my hand, I stepped back and pressed against the wall. Some skeletons still had bits of flesh, some skulls had hair and teeth. Some bones were gnawed as if eaten.
After a few seconds, barely mastering my panic, I bolted into a run, racing ahead wherever my eyes took me. I wanted to scream in terror, yell, call for help, but I held back.
"Who were those people? Who ate them? Why? Where am I?" thoughts buzzed in my head like a swarm of bees.
I ran full tilt ahead. Forks and intersections flashed by on the periphery, but I was too scared to take them. What if there were bones there too?
After a while, I realized: even though I was moving forward, I was going in circles. After hours of running, I stopped at the same bone-strewn corridor. The corpses lay in the same poses, in the same spots as before. And the rotting stench from them was just as nauseating.
My hands started shaking, and I felt a lump in my throat. More than ever, I wanted to go home: buy sweets, wrap up in a warm blanket, and watch anime. It felt like I'd fallen into a nightmare, an endless night terror.
My heart raced wildly, and I ran on, hoping to see light at the end of the tunnel. The longer I ran through this endless corridor, the more I wanted to cry. No matter how much I ran or turned, I always... always returned to this skeleton corridor. As if everything around was telling me: "Soon you'll become these bones too." I searched for an exit, but there was none. It was like an infinite tangled labyrinth where I'd been locked away forever.
Bitterness filled my soul. I bit my lip and felt tears roll down my cheeks. The incomprehension of why this was happening to me, where I'd gone wrong, only made it worse. I couldn't hold back and, stopping, sobbed bitterly.
Leaning against the wall, I breathed heavily and sniffled. My brain refused to accept that this was the end. That there was no way out.
"Enough!" I punched the wall hard and wiped my wet cheeks with my sleeve. I tried telling myself all those phrases Naruto echoed in the anime — he taught never to give up and to believe in the best no matter what. But what was I supposed to believe in with not even a drop of hope? "No, I can do it, I'll find it, I'll manage! If I give up now, I definitely won't get out."
Rallying my fighting spirit, I stood to head further, but suddenly heard a malicious chuckle.
Something clenched sharply in my soul, and I flinched, crouching slightly.
I stood motionless for about a minute, just glancing around, already thinking it was my imagination, but then I heard it again.
It was someone's quiet, barely audible, raspy laugh. Inhuman.
I held my breath, but my heart pounded so wildly it seemed determined to give me away.
Looking into the distance, I noticed it getting darker.
Only after a few seconds did I realize the lamps were going out one by one, and the darkness was heading straight for me. Despite my shaking knees, I raced forward — toward the light. I turned into the first intersection, hoping the light there wouldn't go out, but as I ran parallel through these endless corridors, I saw the lights extinguishing in all of them. Seeing no hint of an exit, I turned again and ran from the darkness. I ran as if I'd always believed light meant safety.
But I didn't make it.
The darkness was faster and caught up within seconds, extinguishing the lights a hundred meters ahead. Falling to my knees, I breathed deeply, not from breathlessness but panic. I stared hopelessly ahead, watching the light dwindle, then suddenly heard a heart-wrenching scream. It came from behind and to the side, in a parallel corridor. Then again, but from the other side.
Someone was screaming in agony, as if being torn apart.
With every second, it grew colder, and the rot smell filled the space. Terrifying sounds started from behind, and I clutched some earth in my hands, bolting forward into the pitch black. I wanted to live. More than anything, I wanted to escape, get out, and finally see the sun. I wasn't going to give up. My path couldn't end here, like this.
Biting my lip in pain, I ran as fast as I could, repeating like a mantra in my mind every second: "I'll escape, I'll get out of here."
But all my dreams shattered when something suddenly scooped me up, lifted me off the ground, and threw me somewhere. I crashed into something hard and fell, scratching my face. My head spun, and my chest throbbed with fierce pain.
I tried to get up as fast as possible to hide, but after just a few meters, something slimy and repulsive grabbed me again and slammed me into the wall with a crack of bones.
I couldn't see who or what it was. I only heard devilish chuckles and felt icy breath, as if death itself breathed down my neck.
After several escape attempts, I realized it was just toying with me. Some creature was throwing me into the wall, watching me try to flee, and doing it again.
For fun. Like cats playing with mice.
"Stop it!" I cried out in desperation, sliding down the wall again. But the response was only disgusting laughter and devilish whispers in an unknown language, echoing through the space. Clenching my jaw in pain, I tried to stand again. But this time, I failed — suddenly, I took a blow to the back that shot sharp pain through my heart. My knees buckled, I clutched my chest involuntarily, and felt a clawed, inhuman hand protruding from it.
What happened next, I don't remember. Time stretched into centuries and compressed into an instant. I plunged into darkness and void, and that pitch black lasted as long as the world itself. Something happened, but what — beyond my understanding. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn't give up until the last second. Every fiber of my being focused on one thing — seeing the sun again someday.
Inhale. Heavy exhale. So warm...
"Am I breathing?"
I move slightly and clench my palm a little, feeling weakness as if I'd just woken up. Slowly, without opening my eyes, I start becoming aware of my body. I'm lying on my back in something warm and wet. It feels like water. It's heated so perfectly that it's imperceptible. Silence around — no voices, no screams. So calm, so enchantingly serene, like a lost paradise.
Memories of recent events flooded back so sharply it was like being doused with ice water. But oddly, there was no response in my soul: no fear, no anxiety, no pain. All feelings had faded, as if switched off. I sat up and opened my eyelids. Bright light hit my eyes, and I squeezed them shut.
"I wanted to see the sun so badly, why doesn't this make me happy?" flashed through my mind.
Opening my eyes again, I felt no pain. I had no desire to look around or even get up, but logic insisted, so I followed it. Looking around, I realized I was in an extraordinarily bright and beautiful space. It resembled a starry sky, but not dark — on the contrary, light: an infinite blue world with bright stars and drifting blue clouds. Unlike that dungeon, it was warm, as if under the hot July sun.
Looking at the floor, I saw water about ten centimeters deep everywhere, and the floor itself was like glass, beneath which lay the same infinite starry expanse. This sight would probably be mesmerizing, but staring into it, I felt nothing.
"I love stars so much. This would definitely thrill me," ran through my thoughts.
I cupped some warm water in my palms, then poured it out, noticing my hands didn't get wet. It even seemed to glow. Or maybe it wasn't water at all?
I should walk around, look — what if this is their space too, just prettier?
Standing and turning back to check for safety, I realized aimless wandering in search of an exit was off for the next half hour. I had a more important — and somewhat more interesting — task: figure out what was wrong with my brain, since Rikudo Sennin was floating before me in a puff of smoke, meditating.
"Definitely lost my mind."
A pale-skinned man with deep elderly wrinkles, a long beard to his waist, gray hair, truth-seeking orbs on his back, and purple Rinnegan in his eyes. He wore a white kimono with black tomoe on the chest, holding a long black staff.
Sure, I hit my head, but not that hard. This was Otsutsuki Hagoromo — practically the God of the Shinobi World, founder of Ninshu, and just a great fictional character from Naruto. I closed my eyes, blinked a few times, squeezed them shut again, but he didn't vanish.
"Hit my head pretty hard," I drawled, seeing he was still there.
"Hm," he chuckled slightly. "I see you can correlate my appearance with the founder ghost of a specific mythological construct."
"Sage of Six Paths..."
"We are branded as fruits of fantasy in your world. However... the body of the Universe is not nourished solely by the familiar abodes you know. There is another world — one where life walks hand in hand with chakra. It is there I lay the foundation for prosperity and order."
"Is he saying the Naruto world exists? I don't get it..."
"Where are we?" I asked calmly, barely understanding his speech. I started thinking I was hallucinating — no other way to explain our conversation.
"In the haven of souls. Also called the Pure Land. For you personally, it holds special meaning in a practical sense..."
"I've died," I finished for him, grasping the meaning, and he nodded. "But what am I doing here? I was there..." I faltered, recalling the dark corridors, mountain of skeletons, and terrifying whispers of the unclean.
"You were saved from them," he began, and I realized he knew about that dungeon. "They call themselves Devourers."
"Devourers?"
"Demons that inhabit the infinity of the lifeless darkness organism's tangled paths between worlds..."
"Oh," I sighed tiredly. "I know you lived centuries ago. But could you... uh... shorter and simpler? I can barely understand you."
The Sage coughed.
"I am an echo of the past; in my era, manners and rules of conversation were ingrained — it's part of my essence. But I'll convey the information accounting for the times your consciousness developed..." he sighed distractedly and refocused. "Demons live between worlds and intercept deceased souls. But fear not. You're not fated to fall to them again."
"Um..."
"You lack emotions, yet you still don't believe."
"I don't believe because it's beyond comprehension. Devourers, different universes, Pure Land, chakra... I thought I'd die and that'd be it — I wasn't counting on more," I explained without strain. "By the way, why do you think I have no emotions?"
He slightly raised his hand and pointed at my chest. I looked down, absently touching the wound, and realized it hadn't been my imagination — they... the Devourers... pierced my heart.
"They didn't just pierce your soul; they took what governs emotions and feelings."
"My heart?" I finished and snorted. "That's why I don't feel moods anymore. If I'd seen you with emotions, my eyes would pop out. So what do I do now?" I stared at the wound.
"Time heals all, and this too shall pass," the Sage said slowly.
"By the way, why do we understand each other? Shouldn't you speak Japanese?"
"Words are secondary. Ideas are primary, and thus in the Pure Land, there is no concept of language. We communicate purely through thoughts, undistorted by primitive dialects crudely crafted by humans to somewhat understand one another."
"Got it... Since you saved me, tell me how to get out?" I asked concisely.
"Your salvation is not owed to me; you arrived here for a higher purpose, and all conditions are met," he smiled slightly, hinting I wouldn't leave easily. "And there is something I must entrust to you."
"Entrust? What?"
"The world I nurture is on the brink of destruction. The Shinobi World War looms, and all I've zealously guarded will be ruined."
"What about Naruto and Sasuke? Them?" I clarified, assuming it was their time.
"They fail to cope and always die in the end."
"How 'always'?"
"Just as there is no concept of language here... there is no time," he gestured around the space. "To save my world, I've sent various souls there to save the incarnations of my sons, who in turn would save the world. But the souls failed. I cannot intervene directly in the living world; my powers are limited to implanting the right soul. If Naruto and Sasuke die, the entire world faces doom."
"You want to send me there as another soul? Give me life in exchange for saving your sons?" I summarized, and the Sage nodded steadily. "And if I fail, you'll rewind time and send another?"
"Exactly."
"If Naruto and Sasuke die again and again, this world must differ from the one I know?"
"Yes," he nodded approvingly again, and I realized if the world was different, the people in it might be too.
"Hope the changes aren't too big, or it'll just hinder me."
"Can I refuse?" I asked emotionlessly.
"You can."
"He's offering life in exchange for dedicating it all to one goal — saving Naruto and Sasuke. Not just life; Rikudo Sennin offers a deal beneficial to him, giving me choice," I scanned the space, weighing options. "If I refuse, will I regret it later? What if emotions return and I realize I lost a unique chance at a full life? Even with the main mission, I'll still live, and the war lasted only days, not centuries."
"Can I go back to my world, to my loved ones?" I clarified, and he shook his head seriously, cutting off retreat.
Weighing all pros and cons, I replied:
"I agree. But... I have conditions," I said seriously, making Rikudo Sennin raise an eyebrow in surprise. "No one else made requests?"
"Unlike you, others had emotions."
"I'm not afraid of refusals. The mission will be hard if my chakra is a pittance. So one key request — put me in any Uzumaki body. Boy or girl doesn't matter, but girl preferred."
Since he can't intervene, I'll likely enter a dead body or be born normally. Either way, chakra won't hurt.
"I'll try to arrange it. Anything else?"
"Yes," I stated without qualms. "I need language knowledge, at least conversational. You're a god; it'll be rough without their language."
"Consider your remark heard," he said.
If he doesn't, no big deal, but if he does, it'll ease things greatly.
"Can you tell me how they die?" I asked just in case.
"I cannot clarify that here. They always die differently."
"Fine," I nodded impassively, and he raised his staff, touching my forehead.
"Wait," I asked, realizing I missed something vital: "How many souls have you sent? What's my number?"
Rikudo Sennin didn't answer. The last thing I saw was his faint smile.
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: patreon.com/Granulan