How to Survive in Hell

== Part 1 ==
I woke up in a birthing sac. Panicked and choking on amniotic fluid, I
 clawed at the fleshy walls, fighting with all my terrified strength to 
free myself. With a wet, ripping sound, I was dumped onto the muddy 
cobbles of the street below, twisting my ankle as I landed.
Cold rain blasted my naked body clean of the sac’s liquid, I tried 
and failed to get to my feet. The street was alien to me, an insane 
medley of architecture ranging from the modern to the prehistoric. The 
sky above boiled with storm clouds, illuminating my surroundings with 
non-stop flashes of lightning.
A man walked over to me, his hair was matted with filth and the rain 
streaked down his mismatched leather clothes. He said nothing, just 
watched me squirm on the floor.
“Please,” I gasped. “Help me.”
He answered by slamming a foot down on my face, breaking my jaw and 
making my vision reel. He moved onto my limbs, stamping and tugging 
until he heard the bones snap. Crippled, naked and screaming, there was 
nothing I could do to defend myself when he started to eat me alive.
My introduction to Hell wasn’t unusual. Very few people survive their
 first hour, let alone their first night. When they die, they go through
 the same thing again, emerging from a new birthing sac in another part 
of the city. Eventually they learn to attack the first person they see 
and, if they’re lucky, they’ll be able to kill that person.
That’s the one rule of Hell, the strong take from the weak. Get used 
to the idea and you might just make it through the afterlife.
I’m going to give you a helping hand. Consider this your handbook to 
Hell, a primer on the Inferno. Make no mistake though, I’m not doing 
this out of the goodness of my heart. When you die, you’ll owe me one. 
Don’t worry about trying to find me, I guarantee we’ll run into each 
other eventually. Eternity is a long fucking time, so it’s a matter of 
“when” rather than “if.”
Do as I tell you and you’ll have a better chance than most of avoiding my own nasty introduction to the pit.
=== Welcome to Hell ===
Some people swear they saw a light at the end of the tunnel when they
 died. To my mind, those people either hallucinated or they’re lying. 
Most of us just wake up in a birthing sac a few minutes after death. The
 buildings of Hell are covered in the things, horrible, yellow-brown 
pimples growing out of the brick.
I’ve already mentioned that the first thing you need to do is claw 
your way out and get ready to fight. This is where the real bitch of the
 situation comes into play, since not everybody has the strength to 
break through their sac’s flesh. You get the body you had just before 
you died, see. So, let’s say you were born a cripple or maybe you died 
too young or too old … tough shit. You’re going to have a rough eternity
 drowning in birthing fluid over and over.
If you manage to break free of your sac, don’t waste time moping 
around, wondering what the fuck happened. Get on your feet and get ready
 to defend yourself. Chances are good that the first person who sees you
 will be hungry. There are no plants or animals in Hell, so cannibalism 
is your only option if you don’t fancy starving to death and having to 
start over. Aim to kill the first person you see.
It might take a few tries. Most of Hell’s residents have been 
fighting for survival a lot longer than you. They might have armour made
 from tanned skin, scavenged metal and bone. They’ll almost certainly 
have a shiv, club or axe. All of that will be useful to you if you can take it from them.
The next thing to do is find shelter. It never stops raining in Hell 
and pneumonia is a shitty way to die. Luckily, you’ll have a selection 
of buildings to choose from. Ever wanted to live in a rundown Victorian 
manor with half a roof and no furniture? How about an ancient Egyptian 
mud-brick hovel? If people have built it, you can find a crumbling 
version of it in Hell. Pick a building, kill any squatters you find and 
move in.
The best houses are the ones that come with a supply of scrap metal 
and timber. Not only are these good for making weapons with, they’re 
also vital for getting drinkable water. I learned the hard way that 
Hell’s rain is teeming with disease. It has to be boiled before it’s 
safe, so getting a fire going and something to make a bowl with is a 
necessity.
So, we’ve killed our first man and found a home. Things are going 
well. Get that far and you’re going to want to hang on to what you have 
forever. You won’t. Something will kill you eventually and you’ll have 
to start over. My record is a year, if you want to beat that, you’ll 
need to understand Hell and its denizens.
=== The Damned ===
The people of Hell can be grouped into two categories. The first, the
 fresh meat, are those who’ve just climbed out of a birthing sac. It’s 
kill or be killed when it comes to fresh meat, always has been. The 
newly birthed want clothing and tools and will kill to get hold of them.
 The second category, the residents, view fresh meat as a quick and easy
 supply of food, leather and bone.
Residents have an easier time of it for sure and all of them will 
fight to retain their resident status for as long as they can. Make no 
mistake though, residents victimise each other just as much as they prey
 on the fresh meat. If you’re a woman for instance, well, you better get
 over any hang-ups you have about rape. Women get raped in Hell far more
 than men, it’s just a fact. If you’re not one of those body-builders or
 warrior women, do the smart thing and prostitute yourself for 
protection. Self-respect doesn’t keep you breathing.
Remember how you get the body you had just before you died? Well that
 fact forms the core of Hell’s society. The truth of the matter is that 
throughout history, it’s usually been men who die in battle. That means 
that in Hell, there are a lot of men with young, strong bodies fit for 
war. Don’t like it? Tough. Those are the guys who call the shots. If you
 can’t fight them, you better do as they tell you.
If you live long enough and fight well enough, you might get invited 
into one of the resident tribes. These are groups of people who band 
together for the sake of safety in numbers. Believe me, being part of a 
group makes things a lot easier in Hell. However, keep in mind that 
you’re only part of the tribe for as long as you’re a resident. Get 
yourself killed and it’s back to being fresh meat.
Tribes offer the closest thing to civilised society you’ll find in 
Hell. If you’re part of a tribe, you have people on your side who 
probably won’t kill you unless shit gets rough. Doesn’t sound like much 
but that’s about as good as it gets.
My own survival record was thanks to getting into a tribe. Life was 
good for a while there. We had about fifty soldiers and plenty of girls 
to fuck. Nobody could touch us and the men abided by an honour code, so 
the usual fear of being stabbed in the back by your friends wasn’t too much of an issue. I could have spent my eternity in reasonable comfort but Hell has ways of fucking over a good thing.
Human flesh and boiled rainwater doesn’t exactly make for a balanced 
diet and sooner or later even the strongest resident dies of 
malnutrition. I did well to last a year on it, though the last few 
months were agony. If I believed in God, I’d swear he designed Hell in 
such a way that nobody stays on top of the food chain for long.
=== The City and the Wasteland ===
Most of the damned live in Dis, the city of Hell. That’s where all 
the fresh meat is born and considering the size of the place coupled 
with the short life expectancy, a lot of people will spend eternity 
without ever setting foot outside of Dis.
Take my advice, do not leave the city. Things are rough on 
the streets, that’s true, but trust me when I say it gets a whole lot 
worse if you try to leave.
Dis is surrounded by a wasteland called Gehenna. At first glance, it 
doesn’t look like much, just an empty expanse of grey stretching out 
into infinity. Sometimes the damned lose that fire in the belly, the 
will to survive, and set off wandering into Gehenna. Most of them never 
come back.
I made the walk myself once, a long time ago. I don’t care how hard 
you think you are, spend enough time in Hell and it starts to break you 
down. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m a good person who 
never deserved this. Nobody can say that and not be a liar. I’m not evil though … or rather, I wasn’t. Not until I got to Hell.
You murder, rape and torture because you know they’d do the same to 
you. You’re murdered, raped and tortured because they know you’ll do the
 same to them. Give it long enough and you just don’t want to face it 
anymore. That’s when you take the walk into Gehenna.
The first couple of miles I walked were nothing special. The rain 
stopped after a while, the sludge beneath my feet giving way to grey ash
 and I caught my first glimpse of Hell’s sky beyond the clouds. It was a
 flat grey with a white sun, completely devoid of beauty or warmth. I 
trudged on.
While walking through Gehenna, I lost any urge to eat, drink or 
sleep. My body started to waste away but I didn’t care. Even when my 
skin started to peel away and my bones were exposed, I didn’t care. The 
further I walked, the hollower I became in mind, body and soul.
I don’t know what would have happened if I’d kept going. Frankly, I 
don’t want to know. Some part of me still wanted to live, so I turned 
back. I’d walked for days, maybe weeks, yet when I turned around, Dis 
was only a few steps away.
I stepped back into the city and my body finally fell apart. When I 
emerged from my birthing sac, I swore never to step foot into Gehenna 
again.
=== Escaping from Hell ===
There are ways to leave Hell. That should be obvious, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you would I?
Sometimes the living get it into their heads that they want to talk 
with the dead. They get their crystals, incense and spirit boards in the
 hopes of reaching their loved ones. Most do nothing more than trick 
themselves into thinking they’ve made contact. They smile or cry, 
convinced their beloved Granny is playing the harp on a cloud somewhere 
before getting on with their lives.
A few have the skill to actually reach us though. They can open a 
gate between Hell and the world of the living that we perceive as a 
pillar of fire stretching down from the clouds. As soon as one of those 
pillars shows up, the damned scramble to be the first to get to it.
You haven’t seen the true nature of man until you’ve watched 
thousands of the damned swarming over each other, kicking, biting and 
clawing to be the one who escapes. Contacting the dead always results in
 a bloodbath. Even the most civilised tribes fall apart the instant it 
becomes clear that only one of them can leave.
I’ve left Hell twice now, left my body behind and ridden that pillar of fire up into the clouds.
Some people believe that you can be possessed by demons. Let me tell 
you something … demons aren’t real. What the living see as demonic 
possession is just one of the damned testing out their new body. Let’s 
face it, if you’ve fought your way through Hell to get back to the world
 of the living, you’re not going to be on your best behaviour for long. 
Sooner or later, we take things too far. Our host dies or their 
family cave and recruit an exorcist, then we’re fresh out of the 
birthing sac and on the streets again.
I’m going to go now. When you get to Hell, remember my advice and that you owe me one. Maybe we can form a tribe someday?
For the time being though, I want to see what my new body can do.
== Part 2 ==
By now you should have a good idea of what you can expect from Hell. 
You know to kill the first person you see when you fight your way out of
 a birthing sac. You know to find clothing, tools and shelter. You know 
that no matter what you do, how well you do, someday it’s back to being 
fresh meat.
Dis is the biggest city you can imagine. Tribes fight and die for 
territory and taking a wrong turn is a fucking death sentence. You’ll 
get a feel for where you should and shouldn’t go eventually, develop the
 kind of street smarts you need to stay a resident for more than a day.
Even so, there are places in Dis that you should know about. Let’s do
 a little sightseeing tour of Hell, maybe the advance warning will do 
you some good.
=== Skin Street ===
Allow me to tell you about the first time I saw Skin Street. I 
dropped out of my birthing sac onto the road, stood straight back up and
 got myself ready to fight. Nobody was there. Not one single person was 
out on a street that stretched for miles in either direction. I relaxed a
 little and took a look around.
Most of the streets in Dis are a labyrinthine network of buildings. 
You spend most of your stay in Hell paranoid that, just around the next 
corner, there’s someone ready to beat you down. Skin Street isn’t like 
that. It’s a single straight line with only the rain and the darkness to
 hamper visibility.
I felt more vulnerable there than I’ve felt in any other part of Dis.
 You ever walked into a wide, empty space and suddenly felt exposed? 
Yeah, imagine also being naked, unarmed and in Hell. Still, I knew what I
 was supposed to do. The first step was to find some clothing.
That’s where I learned how Skin Street got its name. Every building, 
every busted street light and gas lamp was decorated with flayed skin. 
I’d been in Hell long enough by that point to not be too freaked out but
 I’d be lying if I said it didn’t affect me. In a fucked up kind of way,
 it reminded me of Christmas. Y’know? People hanging wreaths and lights 
from their houses, that sort of thing. I remembered the time I’d spent 
with my family … with my kids on Christmas morning.
Feelings like that get you killed. I pushed them back down and pulled
 some scraps from the nearest building. If somebody was going to leave 
clothing material lying about, I may as well take it, right?
I didn’t know it at the time but every step I took on Skin Street was
 being watched. When the attack came, I didn’t even get a glimpse of the
 guy. Bang! My skull fractured from an expert swing of a club. Whoever 
hit me went for my eyes the second I hit the floor, stuck his fingers 
right into my sockets. I was blind and crying like a baby when he 
started to peel away my skin.
Here’s the thing, some people are fucked up even by Hell’s standards.
 The loners, serial killers, stalkers and psychos all make their way to 
Skin Street in the end. Most of the damned use the whole body of a kill 
but the Skin Street people like to take trophies. They leave their 
ornaments out as bait for the ignorant, skulking in the shadows and 
waiting for the best moment to ambush.
If you find yourself on Skin Street, you’re going to have to think 
fast. Forget clothing, just grab a rock, piece of wood or anything else 
you can use as a weapon. Stay out of the shadows, keep checking behind 
you and get out of there as quickly as you can.
=== Perdition Farms ===
You’re going to be chased in Hell, that’s unavoidable. At some point,
 you’ll stumble into somebody bigger than you or you’ll find yourself 
outnumbered. Forget about a fair fight, if somebody can take you down 
without you fighting back, you bet that’s what they’ll do.
It’s easy to lose focus when you’re running for your life. You can 
forget to pay attention to your surroundings. That, my friend, is a big 
mistake.
The outskirts of Perdition Farms are littered with billboards. They 
promise free food and safety to anybody fucking stupid enough to believe
 them. The tribes that fight over that particular territory like to herd
 people off the streets and into the industrial complex they call home.
The good news is that those tribes won’t kill you. The bad news is 
that they’re big fans of taking people alive. They’ve got a project you 
see, been working on it for as long as I can remember. I couldn’t tell 
you who originally decided that Hell should have organised food 
production, only that the idea stuck and that over the years, countless 
tribes have taken it upon themselves to try and make that dream a 
reality.
Get yourself captured by them and you can look forward to a bit of slave labour.
For the most part, the Perdition Farms tribes try to make use of the 
birthing pods as a source of food. They force their slaves to harvest 
them from the walls, grind them up in industrial vats, mix them with 
blood, body parts, rainwater and anything else that could conceivably 
make a broth.
The life of a slave is short, brutal and disgusting, particularly 
when those slaves are then used as guinea pigs for the latest 
concoction. You see, amniotic fluid can be drunk if you’re desperate, 
though drinking too much is guaranteed to make you empty your stomach 
from every available orifice. The flesh of the sacs is a different 
matter though.
I couldn’t tell you exactly what the birthing sacs are. Some people 
say they’re actual flesh while others swear they’re more like a fungus. 
What I do know is that they repair themselves over time. Eat some of 
their flesh and over the next few days you’ll grow a new birthing sac 
inside you. It’s a small mercy that you won’t live long enough to see it
 break through your skin. You’ll be dead shortly after your stomach 
bursts.
If you’re lucky, your days as a slave will end when the tribe decides
 they want some real meat. They’re not stupid enough to test their broth
 themselves, not when there’s no shortage of slaves in Hell.
Look, I can’t force you to stay out of Perdition Farms. I can only 
offer advice. In my opinion, if you think you’re being herded there, 
it’s better to take whatever’s to hand and cut your own throat. I’d take
 fresh meat status a hundred times before spending another day on the 
farms.
=== The Boneyard ===
So maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey. I’m the kind of nutjob who’d join a cult. Is there anything in Hell for me?”
If that sounds like you, the Boneyard has you covered. You see, 
there’s a certain kind of religious fanatic who really does belong in 
Hell. I’m not talking about the old dears who bake cakes to raise money 
for the new church roof here. I’m talking about the guys who went to war
 because God commanded it, who burned women for supposedly consorting 
with demons and who saw nothing wrong with fucking the odd kid.
When those people get to Hell, they’re too thick-headed to make sense
 of what happened. Why face reality when you can pretend it’s all just a
 test of faith? They find likeminded folk in the Boneyard.
I’m told that at one time, the Boneyard was a cathedral surrounded by
 a cemetery that stretched from horizon to horizon. Maybe that’s true, I
 don’t know. These days, it’s a shanty town of temples and churches 
built from materials scavenged from the streets. Everywhere you look, 
you’ll find wild-eyed zealots preaching their own twisted version of 
redemption and gangs of masked men on the prowl for fresh converts.
Mortification of the flesh is the main pastime in the Boneyard. If 
you listen to the cacophony of sermons, you’ll be informed of how the 
flesh is wicked and must be purged of sin. How lucky we are to be given 
such a holy duty, how fortunate to be given the opportunity to redeem 
ourselves before God.
The people of the Boneyard have had a long time and plenty of fucking
 practice when it comes to mastering torture and degradation. I’m not a 
good person. I’ve killed, raped and cannibalised but I can honestly tell
 you I’d never have been able to dream up some of the shit that goes on 
in the Boneyard.
I wandered in there by accident once and I’ve never been able to get 
what I saw out of my brain. I watched a woman, naked and bound, forced 
onto her knees and violated with iron rods. A preacher sewed his own 
eyes and lips shut in front of a crowd before sawing off his manhood 
with a piece of slate. A boy of maybe fourteen was publicly crucified, a
 girl was drowned in shit, an older man had sharpened flint pushed under
 his fingernails … I could list off a hundred other atrocities done in 
the name of redemption.
Stay away from the Boneyard. The people there decided that Hell just isn’t hellish enough for their liking.
Forget about redemption. Forget about God. The only way out of Hell 
is by riding a pillar of fire and taking over a living body. Focus on 
that if you want to escape. The damned can’t offer you salvation. The 
damned only offer pain.
== Part 3 ==
I have to leave you soon. If I’m to make the most of life on Earth, 
I’m afraid I’m going to have to skip town. While I’ve had plenty to keep
 myself entertained, this body just isn’t suitable for a run in with the
 police. It’s only a matter of time until some nosy neighbour thinks to 
pick up the phone. With the humidity over the last few days, mummy and 
daddy are already pretty ripe.
Here’s something you have to understand: Hell is a big place. I’ve 
given you fair warning about a few of the locations I myself have run 
into and that will have to do. Even if I wrote a library’s worth of 
novels solely dedicated to mapping out the distinct locations within 
Dis, I still couldn’t tell you everything about the city.
What I can do is give you a bit of information about some of the damned.
=== The Slaughter Man ===
Take a moment to think about all the celebrities you know. How many 
of them do you reckon would do well in Dis? Not many, I’ll wager. 
Perhaps none. Fame and fortune on Earth doesn’t count for shit when 
you’re dead. Very few people are strong enough, mean enough and 
downright psychotic enough to earn a reputation in Hell. Those few who 
have what it takes are people you never want to meet.
The Slaughter Man is one of Hell’s legends. A huge, bearded man with 
filed teeth, bloodshot eyes and foam on his lips. Rumour has it that the
 day he first emerged from a birthing sac, he was unlucky enough to land
 at the feet of a slaver tribe. Well those tribesmen chuckled to 
themselves and readied their clubs and whips, only too happy to take 
some fresh meat captive.
Outnumbered a dozen to one, naked, unarmed and brand new to Hell, 
most people wouldn’t stand a chance. If you believe the stories, the 
Slaughter Man shrugged off the clubs battering against him and the whips
 cutting into his flesh as though they were insect bites. He picked up 
the first slaver, put his hand into the man’s mouth and pulled his jaw 
right off his skull. He moved onto another, then another, tearing them 
apart with his bare hands until the survivors turned and fled.
Nobody knows for sure who he was in life. I’ve heard theories though,
 the most popular one being that he was the berserker of Stamford 
Bridge. Supposedly, a single Viking held up the English army 
single-handed. It didn’t matter that he could never win, that he was 
outnumbered, that his enemies had better weapons and armour. He stood on
 that bridge and he fought. By the time he was brought down, he’d killed
 no less than forty men.
I don’t know how true any of this is. I’ve never seen the Slaughter 
Man for myself and I don’t fucking want to. What I can tell you for sure
 is that people don’t become legendary in Hell without good reason.
I’d guess that the only one who knows the truth is the Slaughter Man 
himself and he isn’t saying anything. Since the day he arrived in Hell, 
he’s only spoken once. The fleeing slavers heard it as the Slaughter Man
 tore their tribe apart. Naked, bloody and surrounded by corpses, the 
Slaughter Man looked up to the storm-wracked sky and bellowed a single 
word…
“Valhalla!”
=== Hellhounds ===
How about a little story?
I wasn’t new to Hell. I’d made myself some clothes and a wooden club,
 found shelter and had a big slab of meat roasting over a campfire. The 
only thing I didn’t have was a tribe. The area I’d been birthed in 
seemed slummy even for Dis; all half-collapsed hovels and mud huts. Iron
 was scarce, barely enough to make myself a water bowl. All in all, not a
 good spot for a tribe.
My plan was simple enough. I’d have a decent meal, carve myself a 
shiv or two in case I lost my club, then find somewhere more or less dry
 to sleep. After that, I’d set off to look for a tribe. Even the mildest
 tribal initiations result in a few scars and a broken nose, so I wanted
 to be as well rested as I could be.
Sleep in Hell is both vital and dangerous. There’s a knack to finding
 somewhere that’s simultaneously sheltered, hidden and with access to an
 escape route. Even then, you never get more than a few hours at a time.
 In Hell, the slightest suspicious noise should scare the shit out of 
you.
A low, throaty growl definitely counts as a suspicious noise.
I leapt out of my impromptu nest of skins and wood, raised my club 
and returned the growl with one of my own. A woman had crept into my 
building and was staring at me with dilated pupils. She looked to be in a
 bad way, skinny, naked and covered in weeping sores. Her lips peeled 
back to reveal broken and jagged teeth.
It took me all of a second to size her up. She’d been living rough 
for days or weeks. Judging from her protruding ribs and bloated stomach,
 she was well on her way to dying of starvation. So, she was weak, 
hungry and didn’t even have a weapon.
“I’ve already eaten,” I said, relaxing a little and giving my club a 
few practice swings. “No sense in letting you go to waste though.”
I took a step towards her and she bolted. Just turned right around 
and scampered away in a strange, animal gait. I took off after her, 
certain that I could outpace her. Even if there wasn’t much meat on her,
 bones can still be useful.
I chased her through a few streets, struggling to keep my footing on 
the muddy ground. When I finally got close enough to swing my club, she 
stopped dead. The suddenness of it caught me off guard and I tripped 
over her, losing my club as I fell.
She howled in triumph, a sound that was echoed by a dozen other throats.
That day, I learned two things about the Hellhounds, the people who 
lose their minds and become little more than beasts after enduring 
centuries in Hell. Firstly, they have the necessary animal cunning to 
hunt as a pack. Secondly, human teeth and fingernails are perfectly 
capable of ripping flesh from the bone.
=== The Surgeons ===
Modern doctors rarely thrive in Hell. Academia and reliance on 
technology don’t leave you in the best state to endure the endless 
violence and brutality.
There are exceptions though. The people who learned to sew their 
friends back together amid the machinegun fire of the Somme. Shamans, 
witch doctors and holy men who endured famine and warfare. Survivalists 
who knew how to cauterise their own wounds in the middle of a forest. 
Those are some of the people who might just be strong enough to ply 
their trade to the damned. After all, working knowledge of basic 
medicine is just one of those things that’s beyond a lot of the 
meatheads roaming Dis.
Most of Hell’s surgeons find a tribe as soon as they’re able. Their 
tools might be crude but they soon learn to make do. Flint, slate and 
shards of glass serve as their scalpels. They make thread from human 
hair and needles from slivers of iron. Whenever a member of the tribe 
has an infected sore, a surgeon will be the one to drain the pus. A 
tribal surgeon could well save your life … but they’ll do it without 
anaesthetic.
Then there are the freelance surgeons, the people who try to go it 
alone. They make themselves a uniform, the theory being that the damned 
will recognise them if they all look alike. It doesn’t really work but 
then you can’t expect much logic from people who’ve lost count of how 
many times they’ve died.
For one thing, fashions change over time. I’m told that freelancers 
wore headdresses and bone necklaces at one point. The current trend is 
to mimic Venetian plague doctors by donning a beaked mask and wearing a 
long coat of fire-blackened skin.
Freelancers are rare. Very rare in fact. You’ll see thousands of the 
damned for every freelance surgeon you come across. When you do come across one, be fucking careful.
Firstly, surgeons don’t get a free pass in Hell. The damned are more 
likely to attack a freelancer than they are to barter their tools, 
clothes or slaves in exchange for his services. You can’t be certain if 
the man in the bird mask and black coat is really a surgeon or somebody 
who murdered a surgeon and took his clothes. Perhaps they made the 
outfit themselves in order to draw the weak and the wounded close. 
Advertising doesn’t always work as intended in Dis.
If the freelancer turns out to be genuine, that doesn’t give you an 
excuse to drop your guard. Freelance surgeons aren’t usually the most 
stable people. Put another way, freelancers are usually sadistic fucking
 psychopaths.
Sure, they might stitch you back together and send you on 
your way. They might also decide it would be more interesting if they 
stitched you to somebody else. They might think paying an arm and a leg 
for their service should be taken literally. They might turn out to be 
some wannabe serial killer who’s yet to find their way to Skin Street.
For each freelancer trying to do a tough job in a tougher place, 
there are a dozen or so Mengeles who want to try out their toys on 
somebody too injured to fight back.
Stick with your tribe’s surgeon if you’re lucky enough to have one. 
Failing that, learn to patch up your own wounds. Trust me, if you’re 
able to read, you’ve already got the intellectual advantage over a lot 
of Hell’s residents. Universal education is pretty recent.
Freelancers aren’t worth the risk.
=== Cambions ===
I’ll be honest with you here, I don’t know if cambions actually 
exist. What I’m going to tell you is something that somebody else told 
me. It’s up to you to decide if it’s true or not. Personally, I really 
fucking hope it isn’t.
People rape one another in Hell. It happens a lot. If you’re not 
strong enough, it’ll happen a lot to you. The good news for the ladies 
out there is that damned men fire blanks. You’ll almost never be 
impregnated. I say “almost never” because, if you believe the stories, 
there’s an incredibly slim chance that a couple of those little swimmers
 will be awake and looking for an egg.
Just to put this in perspective, we’re talking conjoined twins levels
 of unlikeliness here and that’s just conception. The chances of a 
pregnant woman surviving the full nine months in Hell are probably 
conjoined triplets levels of unlikely. You’re talking about a perfect 
storm of beating the odds here … but this is eternity. A monkey randomly
 mashing keys on a typewriter will eventually produce the complete works
 of Shakespeare if it goes at it for eternity.
The result of that perfect storm, of those monkeys with their typewriters, is a cambion. A child conceived and born in Hell.
I’m not saying they exist, okay? I’m saying I’ve met somebody who swears its true and that he’s seen a cambion for himself.
You see babies in their birthing sacs from time to time. Usually it’s
 just a body, occasionally you see one drowning. Most of the damned 
ignore them. They wouldn’t survive a day on the streets even if you 
could afford to devote your full attention to them. Better to leave them
 be. 
It’s only the really fucked up people who cut through the sacs and... Yeah, I’m not going to finish that thought.
I'm getting sidetracked.
So, this cambion who may or may not have existed, apparently looked 
like a normal child. It cried, it shit and it sucked its mother’s tits 
just like a regular baby would. The mother was part of a tribe and 
they’d been able to protect her throughout her pregnancy. Couldn’t tell 
you why. Curiosity perhaps?
When it was born, the whole tribe gathered around to have a look. 
Among them was the man who told me this story, somebody I’d meet years 
later and eventually kill. This man cut the baby’s cord and lifted it up
 to his face. Every man in the tribe had raped the mother at one point 
or another and he wanted to see if the child looked anything like him.
The cambion looked like a normal child in every way but one. Its eyes
 were dead. Lifeless, like a doll’s. Sure, the kid was alive. It 
wriggled and cried like a normal baby. Those eyes were wide open though,
 not scrunched closed like a new-born’s eyes should be. Wide open, 
empty, doll’s eyes.
If that story is true, I don’t blame the tribe for killing the child. Something like that shouldn’t exist.
Right, I’m done. I have to go.
This is the point where people like to have things nicely tied up. A 
few dragons slain, a few maidens saved. At the very least, you could 
expect some kind of moral lesson to think over.
I think that, in this case, that sort of thing is missing the point. 
There are no dragons to slay, no morals to learn. We do not live happily
 ever after. There’s no grand revelation, no clever twist, no purpose, 
no redemption, no hope.
There’s only eternity among our own kind.
== Part 4 ==
The last body I had in the living world didn’t cope too well with my mind driving it. It’s sometimes hard to remember that the lessons you learn in Hell aren’t a good fit for the civilized world. When murder is just a normal part of existence, you tend to keep doing it out of habit. The inevitable result is either death or exorcism and a trip back to the city of Dis. Safe to say, I got a bit carried away the last time I was here.
After my last taste of freedom, I knew that I had to get back out of Dis. My existence ever since I squandered my last host has been utterly dedicated to fighting my way back into a pillar of fire.
I had to escape Dis. After what I’ve seen, I had to escape.
This new body seems a little more durable than the last one. Now that I’m back, shall we take another trip into Hell?
=== Phlegethon Swamp ===
It rains in Hell. It rains all the fucking time and that water has to go somewhere. Most of it drains out into Gehenna where it sinks into the otherworldly ash and apparently disappears. The rest flows either into the sewers beneath the city or it collects in Phlegethon Swamp.
Remember how it’s a bad idea to drink the rainwater in Hell without boiling it? Well Phlegethon’s water will kill you no matter what you do with it. Even letting the stuff touch your skin can be deadly. You see, the swamp isn’t just filled with disease and rot, it’s also brimming with chemical waste. One pool might simply be undrinkable but another might dissolve your flesh.
If you’re mad enough to travel to Phlegethon, or unlucky enough to be born there, your odds of survival are slim. Phlegethon’s waters are inky black and it’s impossible to tell just how deep a pool is by looking. It could be an inch or it could be a mile. You never know whether or not your next footfall will plunge you into the cloying abyss. Worse still, there are places where the sewers gradually drain the water and create unseen vortices capable of dragging down even the strongest of the damned.
To navigate the swamp, you’re better off using the crumbled buildings as stepping stones. The corrosive water causes wooden supports to wither and collapse, so there’s plenty of debris lying around to stand on. Even so, if you don’t take it slow and keep your balance, it’s easy to slip and subject yourself to a fucking agonising death.
Last but not least are the wildfires. These are the reason that even the most insane tribes don’t try to establish a permanent stronghold in Phlegethon Swamp. All that chemical waste and decaying matter makes the swamp extremely volatile. A lightning strike or build-up of gasses can result in immense explosions that ignite Phlegethon’s surface for miles around.
Wildfires move fast. I guarantee you that you won’t outrun one.
=== Cocytus ===
The first time you see Cocytus, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d reached the very edge of Dis. The pit is dozens of miles wide and several times as deep. At some point in the dim and distant past, a fragile alliance of tribes put their slaves to work digging a quarry. Why they did this is lost to time but many believe it was an attempt to escape Dis. Perhaps those tribes hoped that if they dug far enough, they’d eventually tunnel their way out of Hell.
In my view, the more likely answer is that the tribes were looking for resources. If that’s true, then the excavation was a success. Miles below the surface, beneath the rock and dirt, there are caverns filled with veins of iron and copper. So far underground and sheltered from the relentless fucking rain, it’s far easier to create a fire hot enough to smelt ore.
The value of such a position wasn’t lost on the tribes and that alliance soon showed just how brittle it was. After a short but savage burst of treachery, the initial settlers of Cocytus all but wiped themselves out. Since then, the pit has been settled and mined countless times. Coordinated efforts from various tribes have transformed the quarry into an abyss. So far, these alliances have always been broken sooner or later.
Cocytus has many paths into its depths and the lower you go, the more labyrinthine the pit becomes. The sprawling caverns shelter entire shanty towns and crude smelting facilities. Some are abandoned, others have been lost to cave-ins, yet there are still plenty of tribes who fight, join forces and betray one another over the precious ore veins.
By this point, you have to go pretty fucking deep to find an untapped vein and this is where Cocytus becomes truly deadly. Anybody who thought they might be able to tunnel out of Hell would be sorely disappointed once they learn what lies in the depths.
In all these years, after digging for so many miles, not one person has run into some magical portal leading out of Dis. They also haven’t run into magma for that matter. Instead, the deeper you go, the colder Cocytus becomes.
I’ve never been to the very bottom myself. I’m told that down there, the air is cold enough to freeze your blood and shatter your skin. Maybe that’s true. I could certainly believe it. On the rare occasions I’ve been to Cocytus, I’ve always had to turn back once the walls became more ice than rock and the narrow walkways became a death trap.
If you have the numbers to do it, Cocytus is still a valuable place to settle. Just remember that when hunger, cold and greed are your constant companions, none of the damned can be trusted.
=== The Pale Witch ===
I’ve told you about The Slaughterman previously but Hell has other legendary figures, each with their own sobriquets: The Ripper, The Grim Doctor, The Tyrant and many more. So far, I’ve only encountered one of these figures. During my last stay in Hell, I came across The Pale Witch.
As is always the case with legends, the truth about The Pale Witch tends to get lost amid the superstition. I’ve heard plenty of theories as to what she is. The Pale Witch is a shtriga who has the power of the evil eye. The Pale Witch is a gorgon whose gaze turns her victims to stone. The Pale Witch is a succubus who entraps the minds of those she wishes to consume.
All of that is bullshit. I’ve seen The Pale Witch and I know the truth about her.
When I first saw her, I didn’t realise who I was looking at. She was naked and locked in combat with an armed resident so I just took her for fresh meat. Here’s a tip for you: if you see a resident fighting fresh meat, kill both of them while they’re distracted.
I planned to do exactly that but something about the fight seemed off. Residents usually have the upper hand in a fight against fresh meat and this particular bout definitely seemed about as one-sided as it gets. She was naked whereas he was clad in leather and bone. She was unarmed whereas he had a club. She was waifish whereas he was huge.
Despite him having the advantage… the resident was clearly terrified of her.
The rules of Hell dictated that he should have cracked her skull, taken her skin and eaten her flesh but that just wasn’t happening. He was uncoordinated and apparently desperate to escape. Every swing he took was clumsy and the blows he did manage to land on her didn’t seem to have any effect.
I could only stare as this naked, vulnerable woman took the resident’s club from his unresisting hand and swung it at his knee. I’m accustomed to the sound of bones breaking by now but this time the noise caught me off guard. How the fuck was this happening?
She brought the club down on his other knee, then his elbows, then his ankles, then his shoulders. She left him broken and screaming on the floor. She could have finished him off with a blow to the head, stolen his clothing and taken her rightful place as a resident. That’s how Hell works! Those are the rules I’ve learned through bloody trial and error.
That isn’t what happened. Rather than kill him, she sat down beside him in the mud and took his hand in hers. I actually thought she was going to console him… until she started breaking his fingers. One by one, she snapped the fingers on both his hands with a calmness that made no sense to me.
Torture is common in Hell but there’s always a purpose behind it. The people in Skin Street do it out of sadism and the people in The Boneyard do it for their insane purification rituals. This woman did it without emotion and without reason. I honestly don’t know if she even understood that she was hurting him. I don’t think her mind works the same way as ours.
Eventually, the resident lost consciousness. A man can only take so much pain before the shock gets him. Surely now she’d be satisfied? Surely she’d take his clothes and restore Hell’s order?
No. She stood up, tilted her head slightly and uttered a noise for the first time. It wasn’t a victory cry, nor was it even a sigh of relief. Instead, the sound she made was nothing more than a faintly bemused, “Hmmm?”
It was as if she couldn’t comprehend why her plaything had stopped moving. She stood up and stepped away from him, apparently content to leave him alive, unconscious and crippled on the ground. She kept his club but didn’t take his clothing. The cold and rain didn’t seem to bother her.
Then she looked at me.
In that instant, I knew I was looking at The Pale Witch. I looked into her eyes and I couldn’t fucking move. I understood what she was straight away and the sheer terror of it froze me. The Pale Witch isn’t a shtriga, she isn’t a gorgon and she isn’t a succubus.
The Pale Witch is a cambion.
It’s hard to put into words exactly how paralysing the sight of a cambion is. That perfectly serene face and those dead, staring eyes just don’t belong on a body that’s otherwise human. It was like looking into the face of a mannequin and knowing that it’s looking back at you.
“Hmmm?”
That noise again. That kind of detached curiosity shouldn’t exist in the world of predator and prey, might makes right, survival of the fittest. Nobody in the city of Dis has any right to make that noise.
She took an awkward step towards me and I saw that her right leg was broken. It seemed that her fight with the resident had injured her after all, she just didn’t notice it. She tried to walk normally, completely unaware that one of her legs had an extra joint. I don’t care how tough you are, nobody should be able to put their full weight onto a broken leg without even wincing.
“Hmmm?”
She stepped closer. Her zombie shuffle steadily closing the gap between us as I stared at her. She raised her club and my survival instincts finally kicked into gear. Her transfixing spell broke just enough for me to stumble backwards and avoid her swing.
I ran.
I ran from a woman with a broken leg and I’m not even ashamed of it.
Looking back on my experience, there are some things I just can’t comprehend. The Pale Witch is a cambion, I’m certain of it. She was born in Hell and Hell is all she’s ever known. She also looked to be about thirty years old. That just shouldn’t be possible.
No baby survives long in Dis. Even if they had a tribe to protect them, there just isn’t enough nourishment for an infant to grow into a toddler, let alone an adult. The Pale Witch is a walking impossibility. Her existence is a defiance of all reason.
I would endure every torture the people of Skin Street and the Boneyard could conceive of if it meant I would never have to look into her eyes again.
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