Devil Insider #2-1: The Bottomless Pit
The sides of the tunnel were rushing past Nell as she plunged into the depths; it has rocky spikes that look sharp like a razor blade and formed by unnatural means. It doesn’t look artificial either though, and a thick, dark purple substance is covering the spikes. The tunnel got narrower and narrower the further she goes in without any signs of a bottom, it’s as if the tunnel itself intends to kill Nell.
Nell is showing no signs of hesitation despite how threatening the tunnel looked - in fact, she has a cocky grin on her face, as she’s confident in her abilities and is determined to achieve her goal as fast as possible, after all there’s someone important waiting for her to come back.
The tunnel gets wider very suddenly. It continues deeper into an endless black void, falling to a point where suddenly it gives way. A brilliant, deep red breaks through the void and brings with it an unseemly chill.
Nell says to herself out loud “It’s time Nell! There’s no way to turn back until you get to the center! Don’t look back!“. Her confident grin turns into the big smile of a psychopath ready to strike their victim from behind.
On her forehead, two flames light up, they look like horns and are a deep red with a hint of purple at the top. Her smile grows larger and the flames follow suddenly, they engulf her entire body.
She finally exits the tunnel which promptly closes and disappears into nothingness. Nell is falling through the surprisingly cold atmosphere of hell, herself set on red fire so intense she just looks like a ball of fire.
The flame goes out and leaves smoke behind, which promptly clears out revealing Nell is fine! She looks a lot different however, her skin is a bright red and she has a pair of small horns on her forehead, a couple of big wings like a bat’s on her back, and silver white hair. And so she spreads her limbs and wings to slow down the fall.
Finally, Nell lands on her feet and her hand without so much as an scratch, contrasting the colorless and hard soil she lands on, which breaks from the force of her fall.
Calming herself down from the adrenaline hit, Nell takes in a bleak view of the colorless sky, contrasted slightly only by a very dim and distant red sun. She shivers from the cold winds that seem to endlessly come from all directions, they’re not too strong, but enough to be uncomfortable.
Her skin starts to turn black quickly, and it sheds very fast along with her wings and horns, leaving her looking normal again. The sheddings disappear leaving no trace. She looks around for a bit being clueless as to where to go, as there isn’t anything around her other than huge trees that are dead anyway. That’s when she feels something from a very far distance.
Nell mutters to herself “Hmmm, what’s over there? It’s really faint, but I can feel something there, I feel like it’s important, but why? What could it possibly be? Well, either way it’s the only hint I have as to where to go, so might as well…” and so she takes out of her backpack an energy bar to munch on, while starting to walk towards the mysterious presence…
Two hours later…
Walking bored out of her mind, Nell regrets having come here. The landscape doesn’t even look different at all. She exclaims “What is this?! This is supposed to be hell but it’s so boring! There’s absolutely nothing! I’ve been walking for so long and theres- huh” she pauses and stares at the horizon with a puzzled look.
She can barely see it, it’s far away, she can barely see black lines, like structures behind a hill. She couldn’t be sure, it was too far to make it out, but it was the only notable thing she could see, she had no other choice as going any other direction would be a dead end for sure. It also just so happened, the thing was in that direction as well, she had forgotten about it though.
“What’s that over there?” she asks herself and starts running, telling herself “I’d better go check it out, it’s the only thing I’ve seen so far since arriving! It might be useful..”
Nell approaches the structures; “Is this some kind of village or altar maybe?” she asks herself just as the fog begins to thicken and darken, it swallows the “village” from her view completely.
“What happened? Is this some demons shenanigans or something? Normal thing of the weather here?” she mutters, gripping the hilt of her sword. She looks around frowning, prepared for whatever might happen next.
The wind stops blowing. The fog clears in an small area but gets thicker around it as if trying to form an small arena of sorts. Nell’s ears ring a little but it quickly drowns out when she starts to faintly hear her heart beating, yet it’s not beating any harder or faster, it just got that quiet.
She eeps looking around in silence, when suddenly, a black bolt of lightning strikes! It misses her by just a few centimeters, but she doesn’t do so much as flinching at it, she merely opens up her eyes more than usual.
As the smoke from the lightning clears, Nell waves it away from her face, muttering “What the hell is this? When I said the place is boring this isn’t quite what I wanted to see..” and she sees the figure of a knight in the smoke..with horns and a halo, holding a long and wide sword, vaguely shaped like a kitchen knife.
The figure starts walking towards her as the smoke clears more and more revealing the black knight, who’s face is covered, not by a helmet, but by what looks like an skull mask made of bone as if taken from an actual skull. His bright yellow eyes barely visible, occluded by the slanted and thin sockets of the mask, which looks like it’s frowning with hate.
He holds his sword up, and Nell mockingly says to him with the same psychopath smile from before “Finally things are getting interesting! Shall we dance? I’ll let you have the first strike for free!” before unsheathing her sword and then opening up her arms, inviting the knight to attack first. He doesn’t say anything, but merely grunts as he approaches faster…
You’re not gonna reply? Do you even understand what I’m saying? That’s fine as long as you’re strong! Hah!” she yells out with excitement waiting for the inevitable blow to come…
