The 6,666th Circle Rotation

They still scream. Even after centuries, they never stop. The flesh rots, grows back, rots again. Their throats tear anew. It’s almost musical now, like a choir stripped of harmony. All bound to one shrill note of agony.

I should be tired of it. But, honestly? The pain stains me awake.

Today I was assigned three new arrivals. All of them preachers in life, they swore their souls were flameproof. I enjoyed peeling that arrogance like parchment off of wet bone. Their tongues, once full of sermon, hung in silence from my molten iron. I keep them in the ash pits where the smoke claws the lungs until coughing turns to bleeding.

One tried to beg for mercy. I reminded him of every unanswered prayer, every molested child that never saw justice. I showed him those memories while I shoved his face into the coals and watched his face melt, again and again. Mercy tastes like ash here.

What unnerves me, what I do not record lightly, is the sound I hear when my duties are done. When the halls are quiet and only the cinders whisper, I hear…laughter. Not the shrieks of the damned, but something deeper, older. A sinister chuckle that vibrates through the stone.

We are supposed to be the tormentors, not the tormented. Yet when the laughter rises, even I feel the itch under my skin, like claws testing the limits of my sanity. Perhaps it is Hell itself, amused at us all, kings, demons and sinners alike. I end the entry here…the laughter grows closer.

∼ Kathleen McCluskey