text: Fleeing the ruckus, we wandered further, and the clammy tunnels broadened and reordered. Human tissue now formed masterful halls that humbled the Notre Dame and Kölner Dom, challenging and easily surpassing man's tribute to God in their own debased imitation.
  
  Pairs of shining tibias and femurs were stacked on top of each other, interlocked and supported by dedicated fibulas to grow a grand framework out of which ribs poked out and formed themselves into dangling spires. A single, perpetual intestine slithered between the bones, always crossing over this side and ducking under that side, writhing across to envelop itself from all sides in a changing pattern that captivated the eye.
  
  Up high as if they formed the sky, I saw grand chandeliers, hanging by knitted lungs that still puffed and collapsed, eyes blazing to beg us for mercy, only creating long and moving shadows that burned the macabre cathedral into my memory. The gruesome sight upset our small group, and we proceeded to transverse the place safely retreated within havens of our own quiet contemplation.
  
  I once again brought my attention to the love that made my heart pump a few absurd beats. Her features had become clearer now as the flow of time brushed off the mist that had plagued me in my first moments. What I first viewed as distant I now recognized as cold. Her tone that was once so soft now resounded pained and afraid. I felt sickened to my very core at the sight of her cut apart and made part of this cathedral, sapping my very heart with fear.
  
  "Good shade, I beg of you to tell me more about the evil place we are in."
  
  My words burst out and dissipated in the grand space as if the walls themselves devoured any sound, like feral beasts encroaching upon any sign of life. My companion simply walked on, and for a moment, I worried she hadn't heard my words.
  
  "We are in hell, my friend, the damning place that warps and adapts to our every hope as if it is sentient itself," she laughed, showing a lifeless smile that concealed more than it showed, waving towards the bones. "Look around you, and speak quietly, for these walls have ears."
  
  "Then where are we heading?" I whispered conspiringly.
  
  "Further in."
  
  Her dismissive demeanor contrasted so much with the sweet words I heard only yesterday. It enraged me and wanted me to rip her apart like the skull whose splinters still poked through her tunic. I heard the sloppy sounds around me grow in intensity as if in anticipation of the murder to be done, urging me on in a dance of increasing fervency.
  
  "Halt your sour temper at once, woman, and speak openly! I came here in search of a lost soul, cold and miserable, I've survived until by my grit and courtesy of fortune, and I've been met with only death and despair. I shall not stand for this mockery."
  
  "How dare you speak so to the one who saved you, the one who led you through this maze," she hissed back. Her body coiled as if ready to either pounce or scurry away, both options surely leading to failure. But my heart cried still, and I couldn't allow myself to admit defeat.
  
  "I spoke true, and my words came from heart to heart, like equals. My destiny forces me towards the one love I seek and search for her I shall, until eventually I either succeed or the day comes that my bones grind into dust and my will abandons me."
  
  "Then you and I are alike," she spoke after a long pause, wherein she rapidly changed passions like a chameleon does colors. "Are you certain she is here?"
  
  "Absolutely," I affirmed.
  
  "Then listen carefully. We now stand in the grand halls of the seventh plane of hell that bears the weight of the six planes of ice above and the six planes of fire below. I came awake on the shores, swam across that vile river, and was delivered to a group of hellspawn. They beat me and dragged me until they saw in me the stone that had first condemned me to the fourth plane.
  
  'Amanirenas!' they cried, for they were obliged to hand over their prize. I spent an age there, infernal forces battering me to dull my ambition. Eventually, the agony smoothed the outer layer, and the stone no longer bound me. I slipped away, hid until I saw the chance to escape up, towards the plane of greed, wept for those that now possessed nothing, and finally came back to this place to exact my revenge.
  
  It gets worse the further from this place you go, whether the way is up, or down. You spoke of love and I wish you strength, for love and lust form the first plane's principle, as high up as to almost touch the heavens themselves; she'll be there and, with your blessing, I'll accompany you on the first stretch of the journey." She held her story a moment, waiting for me to respond, but I could not and she pressed on with the following words, taking silence for tacit approval.
  
  "We must first venture through the pits of sloth. I know of three entrances: one by pillar, unguarded and forgotten, one by stairs, thick with both souls and spawn, and one by water, pumped up and shot up towards our target. All will take us to peril, and some could even lead to our own doom.
  
  I fear, shade, that my time here has corrupted my judgment. Allow me to follow your lead in this."
  
  > say "The water will be the safest option,"
  We pressed on, crossing grand cathedrals and boring deeper into the catacombs. My guide led me through tight corridors, following the intestine to its origin. Finally, we arrived in what looked like the center of this plane's industry, a single chamber through which guts ran out into all directions, tended to by eight-legged demons that skittled all over and pulled and pushed and cut them into parts to change their socket as required by some larger machination.
  
  A thousand shades wailed in between them, crouched and humbled by vicious beatings of a thousand whips that sliced through flesh and licked their bones in great glee. They were sorted into two groups based on size and the smaller corpses were pulled closer towards us. My white eyes reflected theirs as they were extracted brutally, with crude, blunt, and rusty blades. Their scream soon stopped, as the blades went further, methodically cutting apart limbs and flaying the flesh to obtain the bone.
  
  The bigger bodies were all forced to watch and waited, cowed by that gruesome display, on their death. We waited in that wicked place as well, safely hidden in a recess where three bowels crossed. I carefully observed every move and listened to every sound. I noticed every commotion, where shades who had tried to run away were ruthlessly slain, hacked in four, and then slain again, until their bloody pools finally reknitted into one form and they were dragged back to their compatriots.
  
  They all stood in a single line, each soul only left to anticipate their own turn into some tank, a cauldron made of flesh, where bodies were boiled in their own juices and the blood of those that preceded them. Demons then stirred and whipped the slush to separate stomachs from livers, hearts from lungs, kidneys from spleens. The red streams were divided, each flowing to its own defining sector, from where the spawn carried it into the tunnels and slipped away.
  
  My guide pointed towards what I had first ignored as a wasteful byproduct, a separate stream of a fatty substance that had been turned fluid like the molten wax of a candle, and she called it our entry to above. She prodded me into action, and I dashed through all guards, jumping into the cauldron that now emptied its contents in a large pulsating pipe.
  
  But I arrived alone and panicked. I struggled against the sticky and thick matter, craning my neck with force to spot a glimpse of Amanirenas. I still remember her, lying there, bloodied, on the ground, two big spiders above her, their knives drawn in murderous intent, her face looking down at me with hopeful eyes, offering a last form of encouragement, a single tear to bid me farewell. Then the pipe contracted again and all I saw was darkness.
  
  > Was forced up, barely able to breathe.
  The load carried me on through a pulsing sewer to a network where grand circles curtained each section, and arteries painted the walls red. I was intimidated by the thick mucus that coated the surface, and I could only look in horror as it slowly devoured the solution I was in, inching ever closer as if it had sampled my flesh and hungered for more. Each section behind me closed as the segment ahead of me opened, propelling me on for a small eternity that felt ever so longer due to a deep sense of solitude.
  
  I bobbed there in the darkness, almost limp, when I arrived in what can only be described as the conclusion of an enormous bowel. It contracted in a monumental effort to push me out in a cacophony of movement. I spewed out of the blowhole like mere air out of a whale and was forced through thick layers of decay that ...... For a moment, I floated in the sky, encompassed within a thick mist that obscured any light entering or leaving this place.
  
  Then I fell and saw the dark reflections of the ground reaching over me. I crashed into a rotting heap of human compost that simultaneously softened the blow and infected my very being with despair. I swam to a shore, kicking off anything solid that could help my escape, feeling the brush of vile worms that had made this their home. They burrowed deep in my skin, jumping on the opportunity to plant more eggs.
  
  There a thousand shades, sluggish and slow as if they had exerted themselves for eons, crawled on top of each other, tugging, pulling, and pushing each other in a desperate bid to escape. Some had kicked themselves free from those underneath them, only to soon thereafter fall back down the smooth slope. Unsupported by the miserable souls beneath them, none could find a grip steady enough to climb alone.
  
  "Another damned!" they all cried in unison. "Another damned to push us under! Another damned to add to the heap!"
  
  I felt small serrated tongues scraping off my skin under the waterline of shit and piss. The sharp jolts of pain made me redouble my efforts, and I threw myself onto a shoulder; then, pulling myself up by a leg, I completely freed myself from the black mire that lay below.
  
  "Another damned to pull himself up! Another damned to sentence us to suffocation! Another damned to join us to our suffering!"
  
  I took a moment to scrape my skin, clawing myself from the incessant itch that tortured me so, plucking and throwing squirming maggots back to their hole where they belonged. A shade below me saw this opportunity and pounced on it. It threw me into the black pit and used that moment to quickly overtake my position.
  
  The mire embalmed me again with the same putrid sensations I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. It cut off my scream by pulling me further under the more I struggled, tasting both bitter and acidic. I drew up all my reserves and thrust back into my climb, kicking against those that had pulled me off before.
  
  It took a long time before I regained a spot in the middle. I was eager for a moment of rest and let myself be carried off, escaping this prison into my memories. A sigh escaped me as all happy moments culminated into that one decision, a personal tragedy playing over and over again.
  
  Then a torrent of feces rained upon me and smacked me back to reality. A shade somewhere above had relaxed its bowels, unconcerned for any who held up his weight, adding his defecation to the black pit below. The vile action boiled my blood, forced me to vow revenge. In my ensuing climb to position myself above that bastard, I lost my footing and fell again.
  
  After many falls, I stopped cleaning myself and joined the other shades who, covered in excrement, couldn't be told apart.