The Face of Hell

I remember waking in the middle of the night because something was standing over me. I opened my eyes and couldn’t quite make the shape of the thing in front of me. There was definitely something there; something large and ominous. Before I could react, I felt something flying towards me and everything faded to black.

When I came to, I remember the sound of a door being unlocked filling my ears. My head was throbbing with an awful pain and my eyes registered nothing but darkness. Then came the steps; it was the sound of heavy boots pounding on a wooden floor. I was too disoriented to question the odd circumstances all around me. I was supposed to be at home. There should have been no one who would walk around in boots. I thought I was having some kind of weird dream. My body being seemingly stuck in place reinforced that notion.

The heavy steps kept getting closer and louder with each passing moment until all of the sudden a dim light filled everything all around me, further dizzying me. When my eyes finally adjusted to the influx of photons, I realized something was covering my face, again; I didn’t have any time to digest the turn of events because a deep-voiced shouted bombarded my ears. “What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?"

The sheer aggression in the tone unnerved me, and I started considering the possibility that I was not dreaming. All sorts of morbid thoughts crossed my mind; I was starting to feel the sweat build up in the back of my neck and trace its way down my spine. The hair all over my skin stood up with fear. Once the cover was ripped from my face my body spasms with terror.

In front of me stood a middle-aged man with a scarred face. He grabbed me by the shirt and starting interrogating me, “Who the fuck are you? How did you get in here, huh?" The way he was screaming at me made my whole-body tense up to the point of my muscles started aching. That’s when I noticed I was tied to a chair.

I tried explaining to the man that I am mute by moving my mouth and emanating random sounds but he didn’t seem to register the point as he just kept threatening me and even punched in the jaw making my eyes involuntarily well up after I heard something pop and the familiar saline taste of blood began filling my mouth. He broke my jaw. I wish I could scream; I wish I could do anything, but I wasn’t that fortunate.

I had lost my ability to speak after my larynx was crushed years ago. Out of spite, I spat the blood onto the man‘s carpet and in retaliation, he punched me a few more times.

My fear had turned into an adrenaline-fueled rage; I managed to kick at the man‘s leg hard enough to cause him to fall. He stumbled back up threatening to kill as he threw another punch into my already cracked jaw forcing my head to turn in such a way that I was facing his window. I had no idea how I ended up in this man‘s house either but I couldn’t really tell him this much and he wasn’t bright enough to figure out the fact that I‘m just as confused and upset as he had been.

I started laughing, probably as a means to deal with the god-awful pain shooting through my face. I saw someone standing in front of the house, a sense of relief came over me when I noticed the figure making their way towards the house but when it got close enough to make its features out, my heart sunk to my heels. The middle-aged man who was holding onto my shirt must’ve felt really powerful at that moment, because he remarked, “finally understand what you’ve gotten yourself into?“

I just looked at him with a hollow stare, what I had seen outside of his house made no sense whatsoever, it was the shape of evil, an abomination, hell itself etched into a face. It was something that shouldn’t exist. A monstrosity mimicking the form of a human being, mocking it. I just shook my head and began thrashing in my bounds, making primitive sounds. I was supposed to be at home. There should not have been anyone who would walk around in boots. I guess I caught the middle-aged man by surprise because he let go of me and I think he noticed that wraith-like thing outside of his window because he tore his gaze off of me and yelled out “Hey!“

He was too late, however, as something large and dark came flying in shattering the window and sending shards of glass all over the room. The flying object flew directly into my tormentor and sent him onto the floor. I froze in time, everything suddenly became brighter and more vivid in my eyes but the sounds became dull and distant, drowned out by the sound of my heartbeat which was filling pounding inside of my head relentlessly.

The middle-aged man came to almost immediately and cursed in angrily in a tongue I couldn’t understand. His rage turned into sadness the moment he realized what had hit him. A black dog, I presume his dog, with its head cleaved in half, was sent flying at him. He clutched at the corpse of the poor thing while I just sat there, attempting to not throw up at the sight of dog brains scattered all over the floor. My discomfort was so intense I could barely feel the pain in my jaw.

The lights went out, and my heartbeat became even more erratic. The man‘s rage returned and started sounding like a demon about to rampage and destroy everything in his path. I had heard him storming out of the room before I heard something being forcefully dragged open and then closed shut again, followed by the sound of the loading of a gun. The whole situation had gotten so stressful that I started feeling cramps all over my body and my face started pounding once more forcing me to groan loudly. The man stormed out of the house cursing as he made his way out. There was silence, eerie silence and I swear I saw something dash in front of me in the darkness, I almost turned the chair I was tied to over.

I just sat there hoping to make it alive out of this whole mess when the lights came back on. I really wish they hadn’t – I threw up all over myself. I emptied the contents of my stomach because once the lights came back on, I saw a naked woman standing at the edge of the stairs in front of me, covered in blood and clutching at her insides; cupping her internal organs in her hands. The middle-aged man came back inside, holding a shotgun, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the naked woman. She glanced at him weakly and attempted to utter something before collapsing, and falling down the stairs with sickening thumping noises. The middle-aged man, blinded by rage roared and fired a shell into the hall at the top end of the stairwell. The thundering of his firearm forced me to shut my eyes tightly. The pain in my jaw kept steadily increasing and so I kept my eyes shut for a few moments, while the middle-aged man sobbed and cried incoherent words while reloading his firearm.

His sobbing was cut short, he had stopped making noises abruptly, prompting me to open my eyes again. The foul-mouthed middle-aged bastard that broke my jaw was suddenly frozen in place, shaking, barely able to stand straight. Then again who wouldn’t find themselves in such a state after seeing the beast that descended down the blood-stained flight of stairs.

It was a mostly human in form, but it walked on all fours with each step producing an audible popping sound coming from its joints. It had a long pitch-black unkempt mane all the way to its lower back. It made no sounds whatsoever besides the popping of its joints. It crawled with its head down, as if it was completely unconcerned with anything around it, but at the same time, it was calculated and precise with its movements and pace.

The creature took its time climbing down the stairs it knew its presence alone was enough to paralyze most men with fear.

The thing made its way towards the middle-aged man who was at this point so shaken it seemed it was put under a paralyzing spell by the abomination. The creature kept on crawling on all fours until it was mere inches away from its prey. It then grabbed the loaded firearm and used it as a lever to hoist itself to its feet while the middle-aged man seemed to be crumbling under the weight of his own fear. The creature wouldn’t dare raise its head until it stood fully erect. Only then it cocked its head upwards and shot a glance towards me.

A mere glance of that thing sent me into a panic; my heart started pounding so hard I felt my chest and throat tightening and aching, my right arm felt like it had caught on fire. The mere gaze of this thing almost gave me a heart attack. It wore the face of hell on its head; that ghastly pale skin, the rotten yellow jagged teeth, the exposed cheek muscles frozen in a perpetual smile, the black rings around those unblinking piercing massive blue eyeballs.

If the devil had a face that was surely it.

As I sat there, hopelessly awaiting my own demise due to shock-induced cardiac arrest, the demon turned its face away from me and towards the man who had seemingly turned into a living statue. Effortlessly the creature took the firearm out of the man‘s hands and proceeded to point at his left kneecap.

I couldn‘t turn my gaze away, even though I knew what was to come, I still couldn‘t tear my eyes from the awful spectacle to come.

Thunder cracked right in front of me, and a rain of blood and flesh flew all over. An inhuman agonized shrill flooded my eardrums. All I could register in full detail was the image of a human leg taking flight.

Everything started turning gray and dull again, and I found myself closing my eyes trying to ignore the horrors in front of me; no matter how hard I tried to, I could still hear the sounds of a carcass being dragged around and the desperate and pained begging of a man. I could feel the tears once again flowing from my eyes and I felt as if I was being stabbed in the face over and over. I felt something shaking the chair from behind, but I tried my best to ignore it; fear for the worst. I was hoping for a quick death, I was begging God to be set free from this life quickly internally.

As I prayed, I could hear the dull thumps of a heavy instrument smashing into a human body, and I felt something wet hitting the back of my shirt. There was very little screaming and soon enough that died down too.

Once that was over, I felt its presence hover over me. That thing was done with its first victim and now it was my turn. I mustered all of my courage to open my eyes to confront the thing that was going to end my life. I saw its disfigured joker mug staring at me with those unblinking massive blue eyes. It just stood there and stared at me, with a blood-stained meat cleaver in hand. Hell, it wasn’t even staring at me; it was staring through me, the realization made me feel elated for some reason, and in one last act of defiance, I spat some blood at the creature’s already bloodied white shirt. I saw it raising its weapon above my head and closed my eyes shut.

A thumping sound permeated my ears around my legs. My stomach turned on me, spamming violently; I thought it had stabbed me in my abdomen. I couldn’t feel anything leaking under my shirt. No further pain came, in fact, nothing happened.

My heart was still racing like crazy, and my heart was beginning to feel heavy, I felt myself drifting out again but for the longest time I refused to open my eyes, thinking this satan to be playing some demonic game with me. Eventually, the stress wore off, and I was forced to give in to the urge to open my eyes.

To my shock, I was left alone with a blood-stained cleaver jammed into the chair between my legs and a mind shatteringly painful broken jaw.

The hellspawn was nowhere to be found.