The Chamber of Sins
Chapter 5.2 "Fight or Run?"

“Help me, please. Help!” voices resounded. Robert found himself in a dark room without a ceiling, the cold of the air puncturing his skin. It was night, and the small chariot constellation dominated the little patch of sky seen from where he stood.

Where am I? The boy asked, trying to adjust his eyes to the gloomy surroundings. It looked like the shattered cottage’s dormitory, the only room standing in the middle of a stack of bricks. Robert looked for the wailing source. He noticed a fragile person standing in front of what had once been an entrance door. I have been transported here; the boy realised and brushed his pendant. That is not nice. What’s next? Me on the bottom of the ocean? Or somewhere in the desert?

“Hi, there. Are you lost?” Robert asked, deciding to replace out why the pendant brought him there. He flinched as eyeing the little ghost burned from head to toe, his hair missing and one leg crushed from the knee down. It took a second before realising that the spirit, a little boy, had died in a fire.

“My name is Robert. What’s yours?”

“I, I don’t remember,” the boy stuttered.

“It’s all right. You look like an Antony. Do you like that name? Hmm? Antony?”

The boy nodded as he delved through the debris.

“Are you looking for something?” Robert asked and approached him. The boy didn’t answer; he just kept digging in the dirt with the help of a stick.

“He is looking for his sister,” Margo said, her voice surprising Robert.

“Stop sneaking like that; you and that crazy angel,” the boy stammered.

“I didn’t. I had been here from the beginning,” the girl said. “He just came,” she continued, pointing at Derek.

Seeing Derek’s haughty face, Robert remembered last night and swiftly threw a punch at Derek’s face.

The boy vividly recalled the hotness and the smell of that place suffocating him. The hole seemed endless, and as Robert was falling, he noticed putrid human flash wallpapering the sides. Pinned fleshless bones adorned the bottom, and skin and hairy remains rested in piles. A silent moment followed his fall, during which the boy sprang on his feet, his hatched prepared. His wings sprang, and he rose into the air, glaring in all directions. The creatures watched him hungrily, growling from their rotted throat, thin black slime trickling on their necks.

“That is disgusting,” Robert cried while staring up helplessly. Then, he remembered Derek and grimaced.

The swirls of lust, resentment, greediness, and rottenness made the pain in his heart endless and unbearable. After all this ends, he will beg for oblivion. It is that what happens in the movies, doesn’t it? If I am lucky and I don’t get killed, the boy thought.

Shadows lurked by the walls, snicking behind his back. The moon reflected on their scary faces, underling their ugliness. The boy looked around, trying to think of a strategy. He could take them all down, but the room was too small, and he didn’t know if they had backup.

I don’t want to die today. That damn angel left me all alone. I won’t give him the satisfaction, Robert thought.

This pit was something else. His team had been scouting the place for days because of the intense activity spotted in the area. But, instead, here before his eyes, there were ten, maybe twenty demons. Something was off. The glare in their eyes and the calmness, the waiting...

The boy swore again and encouraged himself to fight against anything down there. Finally, when this ends, he will go up and laugh in Derek’s face.

The room seemed to have several tunnels curved away into infinite darkness, the dim light fading and ultimately dissipating at twenty inches from their entrance. Robert’s pendant was glowing weakly, permitting him to peek at the endless tunnels. They were empty, and for a second, he thought maybe Stephionee had been mistaken. There was nothing here, just a few scouts defending their cluster.

That is way too easy. There is always a trick, the boy thought and switched off his pendant. The dark enveloped him and the monsters, allowing him to flee. He took his chance with one tunnel, its floor littered with fleshless bones and yellowish skulls. The ceiling started converging with the floor, forcing Robert to go back. The guards from the antechamber were going in circles, roaming like zombies.

He took another entrance. This time the corridor was wide and ventilated. Robert inhaled the fresh air coming through. He lurked by the icy walls, drops of dirty water coming down his hair and face. He rubbed his face repeatedly, trying to clean himself, his eyes goggling in front of him. The atmosphere changed, the freshness replaced by a torrid, rancid air.

A wicked laugh reverberated along the tunnel, ricocheting off the crumbling walls, causing shivers across Robert’s spine. He dragged his palm over the stone blocks, picking up rotten, sticky human remains. He shook his hand in disgust.

The air became unbreathable, and Robert felt the need to come back to the surface. It stank of sewage, with a hint of stagnant water, boiled in enormous pots for days. The rock bottom changed its angle and became slippery. The sediment on the floor behaved as quicksand, pushing Robert to the end of the tunnel at high speed.

He glanced up, hoping to replace something to hang on to, as the distance between the floor and ceiling didn’t allow him to fly. But, before his hand touched the stones, he retreated it disturbed. Thousands of skulls glared back at him with empty cranes, warning him to withdraw.

An entrance loomed before him, and diffused light was projected from below. He stumbled until the edge, undecided whether to take his flight over the pit.

The pit seemed bottomless and hollow, dense steam preventing the curious eyes from peeking inside. Crimson rays escaped from below, aiming at different zones like lasers on a battlefield. The walls were scorched, indicating that the red rays burned everything in their way.

“Well, what the hell. I am going down,” Robert muttered, letting himself fly over the below hole. Lasers sensed his presence and fired aggressively. The boy avoided them with difficulty and kept hitting the crumbling walls. Finally, he entered the fog and kept flying down, his body boiling in hot steam.