Chadpocalypse - 3:1 Land of Confusion

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Volume 3

Chad Goes to Hell

3:1 Land of Confusion

The funny thing about Death is that it happens in the blink of an eye. Chad’s vision went dark for less than a half second and then he had the sensation of immeasurable heat, baking him like a cookie. He opened his eyes and immediately had to shield them. Bright red light washed over him in fiery waves and brought the stench of rot and decay with it. He wrinkled his nose, wondering what could produce such a stench. Then, he heard the screams, not constant, but like clockwork, every few seconds. A man hollered in the purest display of agony Chad had heard in his short, miserable life.

     Slowly, he opened his eyes. A part of Chad knew where he was from the outset, but another couldn’t believe it existed in the first place. As his eyes adjusted to the red light, the hellscape before him came into focus. Chad was standing on the edge of a rocky cliff, overlooking a lake of boiling lava. On the other side was a wooden fort, covered in gruesome spikes. Well, that’s a bit of a fire hazard.

     Even as he thought it, one of the poles caught fire, spreading quickly to the rest. Overhead, a massive winged creature flew past with a naked, screaming man in its talons. It dropped the man unceremoniously on the spiked structure, impaling him. The creature let out a horrible laugh as it watched the man struggle and burn below. Despite his distance, Chad swore he could hear the sizzling of the man’s flesh.

     The wooden fort collapsed in on itself, going up in a final gout of white-hot flame. Still hovering above it, the creature snapped its fingers and the structure rebuilt itself in an instant. The man who had burned alive popped into existence on the shore of the lake. He slapped at his skin, still trying to put the fire out, and a look of horror crossed his face. The winged creature swooped down and pushed him into the lake of lava where the man screamed, gurgled, and died again.

     Chad backed away from the ledge. “Oh, fuck.”

     “Yeahhhh, it’s not great,” came a familiar, plucky voice from beside him.

     Chad wheeled around, nearly toppling over the edge as he did so. Hovering tenuously a few feet away was the tiny cherub. “How are you here?” Chad’s brain was still trying to process the fact that there was a Hell, much less that he and his hallucinations were in it together.

     The cherub looked down at his pudgy body and tried to hide an oversized pitchfork behind it.

     “You were an agent of Hell the whole time?!”

     “Oh, come on, don’t do me like that.” The cherub looked down at the brimstone beneath his wiggling feet. He fluttered toward Chad.  

     Chad backed away. “Fuck off little man. You’re the reason I’m here.”

     “Look, I’m not entirely sure what happened. One minute I was here, the next I was in your head, and the next I’m back again. But, if you’ll recall, I did give you the confidence you needed to fight Pestilence.”

     “You also got me to break my leg jumping off a second story balcony.”

     “That was a legitimate miscalculation!”

     “Well it got me killed!”

     “Well, technically your little speech about wanting to live did that. I mean, really? You can’t kill the Big D Death, everyone knows that.”

     “Then why didn’t you say something?!”

     The cherub wrung his hands. “Because I’m an agent of Hell?”

     “I knew it!”

     “But that doesn’t make me a bad person,” whined the cherub.

     “I’m pretty sure by definition, it does.”

     A stopwatch popped into existence around the cherub’s neck and started sounding an alarm. “Ah jeez. If you think I’m a bad person now, you’re really going to hate me after this next part.”

     “What the fuck is that supposed to—”

     The cherub charged forward and slammed into Chad’s chest with unimaginable force, knocking him backward. His heart leapt into his chest as he toppled back over the edge of the cliff. Somehow the heat grew in intensity. He watched in slow motion as flames burst to life on his skin, sizzling it like a pizza crust. There was a morose splash as he hit the surface of lava. Intense pain radiated through the back of his head and his spine, but quickly dissipated as the nerve endings burnt to a crisp.

     The world narrowed to a tunnel again, and everything was black. Chad opened his eyes and found he was back at the top of the cliff, looking at a very apologetic little demonic cherub.

     “Ok, before you say anything—”

     Chad lunged forward and slapped the cherub, sending it spinning through the air.

     “Alright, I deserved that one.” The cherub reached a tiny hand up to his face, rubbing the red palm print the strike had left.

     “What the Hell, man?” Chad ran a hand over his skin, making sure it wasn’t still charred. Gooseflesh prickled over his body.

     The cherub pointed to the stopwatch hanging around his neck. “I’ve got a schedule to keep. If you don’t die every so often, they’re going to start asking questions.”

     Chad let out a frustrated scream.

     “Yeah, I get it, I don’t like it either, but at least you got a demon you know rather than a demon you don’t, huh?”

     Chad looked at the cherub with murder in his eyes.

     The cherub gulped. “Just think, if you had gotten Phinneus over there,” the cherub pointed to the massive winged creature floating above the lava lake, “you’d be dying every few seconds. Sometimes, he just eats people. Doesn’t even digest them. He once told me: ‘There’s no better feeling than sticking a red hot poker straight up someone’s—"

      “Look, I can’t keep all of this straight and you’re not really helping.” Chad’s head was spinning.

     “I’m sorry.”

     “Are you?”

     “Legitimately, yes,” admitted the cherub. “I was really rooting for you up there. The apocalypse is a lot of work, and we’re all going to be called up to fight when it happens. I’m not much of a warrior with my stature, so the only thing I stand to gain is bodily harm.”

     Through the haze of confusion and anger, Chad saw it, his way out. “You don’t want the apocalypse to happen?”

     “Most of us don’t, I’d wager. We’re all pretty happy here.”

     Chad found his eyes wandering toward the stopwatch hanging around the cherub’s neck, wondering when it would go off again. Sweat dripped down his back. “So, if you don’t want the apocalypse, why wouldn’t you try and help me stop it?”

     The cherub scratched his chin. “Well, I was, just turns out I’m not the best at giving advice.”

     Chad wiped the sweat from his brow. It was all a bit much. With the water rapidly leaving his body through his pores, a deep thirst took hold in his throat. “Don’t suppose you have any water?” Even a drop would have been enough to help him think through everything that was being presented to him. As it stood, he could barely keep track of where he was.

     “Sorry, no can do. You know the old saying: People in Hell want ice water?”

     Chad’s tongue felt like sand paper. “Don’t think I’ve heard it.”
     “Well, suffice it to say, people in Hell want ice water.” The cherub smiled as if that settled the point.

     “Is there any way to stop the apocalypse from happening down here?” Wavy lines took over Chad’s vision, shaking the world in unsteady parallels like a kaleidoscope.

     The cherub thought about it, the action clearly costing great effort. “The only thing I can think of would be to talk to the big guy himself.”

     “And who would that be, The Devil?”

     “That’s right!”

     “Great, out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

     The cherub’s timer went off. “Well that’s unfortunate timing, but yes, it sounds like you’re starting to get the idea.”

     Chad crossed his arms and closed his eyes as the cherub charged him again. Rather than being catapulted backward, Chad felt a stabbing pain in his chest. His eyes flew open to see the cherub standing over him with a pitchfork buried in his insides. “What the h-“ he coughed up a gob of blood.

     “Oh shoot, did I not hit the heart?” The cherub yanked the pitchfork out, sending a wave of blood cascading onto the baking brimstone where it boiled and popped. “I’ll get better at this, I swear.” The cherub raised the pitchfork high above his head and brought it to bear with surprising force, planting the middle tine in Chad’s forehead.

     He felt blinding pain, followed by a numb sense that something was very wrong. I can’t see, he thought. I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t see. Eventually, thoughts gave way to the ether, and the not-so-eternal darkness.