11. Hell
It was hot as hell. This was not a figure of speech. It was hot as Hell. My head perspired with beads of sweat; and soon I’m gonna soak like a shower. They form like an ethnic seed necklace, before droplets, dense as an equatorial rainstorm, roll down my chest and into my shoes. I am hydrated constantly by recycling fluids, which condenses H2O into my being, as salt and minerals seep back through painted symbiotic skin.
Hunting Rogol the Beast, I stood at the edge of the canyon in Hell’s abyss. From the corner of eye I could see four figures in similar pursuit. In Hell the MMORPG, I am a bounty hunter. I presume so too are the others. A handsome price has been hammered on the head of Rogol by a rich motherfucker whose wife was brutally raped and murdered by the Beast.
Rogol was reclining under a shade of rocks after feasting on raw meat, the remains of a fifth hunter, unlucky and unskilled to match its wrath. A tingling sensation crawled up my head, as images of the other four, abseiling the cliffs, came to view. I checked their profile, but without surprise, my AI guide returned no information on them. It was all on hidden mode…just like mine.
Only judgment I could make of the scene was their physical appearances as they dodged fiery furnaces flaming out of fissures. Two guys and two girls. The ladies were a pair. Their faces ensconced in mechanical mask, covered in black from head to toe, and only their hair shone against the scorching sun of the simulated sky. One was brunette and the other bleached blue.
Of the two men, one was a skinhead with East-European features. He wore a reflective wraparound, concealing his eyes, which instead, reproduced the dancing inferno as twin images on the lenses.
The final guy was dark-haired, dark-skinned. His description was untold, as if mixed and matched in a montage of blood heritages, foreign and divine; fallen, and on high.
My instincts told me to delay. I guess the four possessed not the patience, as the prize only went to the individual, or team, that brought back Rogol’s head. I had no intentions of challenging the wretched creature; I figured it was simply easier to steal the head from the ‘victor.’
So from my vantage point, it was first-class seating of the entertainment sport which was to begin in the hellish coliseum below. In my mind, I was playing out the tactics that could be applied to kill the Beast; would they work together to weaken the monster before betraying each other for the promise of glory and mammon, or would their adversity be on display from the start? Or, would Rogol get the better of them and slaughter all four wannabes? That being a potential outcome, I calculated strategies to lop off its head, instead.
But before I indulge in fantasies of grandeur, it is best I provide a detailed description of Rogol the Beast. Standing more than twenty-feet, this blackened brute of pure muscle can tear a truck to two as simply as a Christian breaking bread. Its eyes glow a sickening scarlet, while its dirty dreadlocks, thick like vines, swing maniacally with enough force to smash boulders to sand. A choker hangs round its neck where torn limbs and decapitated heads dangle, some still bloodied, drooling faces of sudden terror, a testicle yet attached to a piece of leg; trophies taken from the vanquished, both to boast, and to scare off future opponents.
Such grim scenery plastered the wasteland. Skeletons and rotting corpses littered the earth to the tune of buzzing flies. More remains of heroes and heroines, impaled on spears in odd postures, as if frozen while grooving to a spastic remix of a bubblegum pop song.
Rogol is a deformed son of Anak, a hunchback giant condemned to roam the land. Its evil blood is one third Nephlim, one third virgin bride, and one third unadulterated rabid beast.
The dames were about to attack. Transformed to full battle alert, arsenals appeared below their waist which could nuke an entire city.
“Centaurs,” I said, “or maybe Minotaurs.” I wasn’t sure of which tribe. Enhanced of course, not of Greek legend. It was a nick given anyway, street lingo, for bio-mechanical warriors with nuclear limbs. At a hundred-percent activation, their legs changed to tanks with an assortment of guns and rocket launchers, extending all angles to cover three-sixty degrees. A big boy’s ultimate toy, his wet dream.
Bleached Blue’s right hand was altered to a sniper rifle capable of firing armour piercing bullets at more than five kilometres away, while her left was ready to throw proton grenades. Her partner, in contrast, was unmodified in the upper limbs. She put on a boxer’s pose, protecting her skull; perhaps to unleash a tirade of psychic waves to disorient the target.
But before they could act, a silvery object appeared in the sky, hovering just above Rogol’s head. It had been there all along, cloaked in invisibility; now it was suddenly apparent. Three teenage boys jumped out of the starship with acrobatic precision; their manoeuvre, lithe and agile. Two flitted in front of the goliath’s face as if to distract it, while a third, holding what looked like a magical dagger that gleamed whitish green, dived full forced at the creature’s top, hoping to stab, I think, into Rogol’s brain.
Foiled. Rogol was not fooled. Flexible as they were, the kids weren’t contenders for the Beast’s brutal strength. With an acceleration double the speed of the boys’, the monster flicked the one holding the knife with its overflowing hair, throwing him easily towards a rock face. He slammed into the cliff with such force that his body splattered on contact with the hard surface, similar to swatting a mosquito or a fly. The innards slimed, resembling a Salvatore Dali masterpiece, gelled with dark blood, comical, like Tom & Jerry cartoon; the eyeballs’ mocking expression, akin to laughing marbles scorning the warped experience of his own doom.
The other two, too stunned to move, shared equal fates. Rogol grabbed their heads with its gigantic palms, and squeezed like orange juice. They did a funny dance, frantic, jolting as if in electric shock, then to a sudden stillness. The Beast tossed their limp carcasses, and leapt stylishly to grab the silver spaceship. It caught the fuselage, and the modern plane looked like a model toy in its hand. It ripped it; a screaming Asian girl in chequered miniskirt was the pilot. Her helmet fell off; she couldn’t be more than eighteen.
Rogol held her upside down by the legs. All I could hear was her scream. She wore white panties. Rogol licked her terrified pussy over the cotton material with its forked tongue. Then it grunted, and with a show of strength, the iron arms pulled the thighs apart like the way I would separate the drumstick from a tender-roasted chicken.
She was dead in two pieces.