PmWiki | Tripocalypse / LakeOfFire

Looks like I lost the argument - God didn't bother making a counterpoint, He just zapped me into the Lake of Fire instead. He said it and, abracadabra, it happened.

The first few days? years? hurt too much to let me think, but eventually, I do. I am in a lake of fire and brimstone. Well, fire and brimstone means a number of things - a recognizable chemistry, for one. And lake means that it has a shore. All I have to do is find it.

I stop struggling, and instead, let myself sink to the bottom. I open my eyes. Red-out, or nearly so. It hurts me, but it can't harm me. Walking in a straight line with no reference points is extremely difficult, so I kick a bit of mud and rocks at the bottom just enough to make a bump. I move a few steps, and do it again.

I have to tell myself I don't need to breathe, and surface a number of times before I can make myself believe that. When I come back down, I lost the bumps, and have to start over. Eventually, after many tries, I manage to make myself stay on the bottom. Now, all I have to do is look back, see the few bumps that I can see in the red haze, and use that to make sure I am moving in a straight line.

Eventually, there's a distinct upward component to my slog in the mud. I can follow it, so I do.

Without warning, on the next step, my head pops out of the burning brimstone. I scamper out to shore; it's red, smoky, hostile, pebbles and rock and little sand, and it turns into a vertical wall that goes up past my ability to see through the haze. I take one triumphal breath, finally free of the pain.

Now what? Now we dig.