***Trigger Warning***

***This chapter contains graphic violence, some of it of a sexual nature, and torture***

The tunnel didn't go on for eternity. That panicked thought crossed Jack's mind numerous times as their broken bodies were crushed on all sides in complete darkness. An eternal claustrophobic terror, with only the slow grinding of the stones to remind them that they were physically still there. But eternity is a tricky concept, isn't it? There can be no perception of anything without another experience to compare it to. Jack found it easy to believe that some souls sent to Hell had found themselves ensnared in tortures like this with no means of escape for so long (an eternity to a conscious mind) that they had simply gone insane, forgotten all about who they were, what they were, or anything else that tied them to humanity. This, he reasoned, was how men became demons, evil creatures that knew only pain and suffering. Perhaps it was only this understanding of what he could become that allowed him to stay sane, to fight when everything else urged him to let go. He only feared what the state of Rachel's psyche might be if they ever made it to the other side.

A faint red glow in the distance was eventually their salvation, after an immeasurable amount of time in that pit. That glow, and screams.

The tunnel slowly widened, and they were no longer being pushed through by some unseen force, like meat through a grinder. Jack found he could move his arms again. The ache was intense but a stark relief after the tunnel. He crawled, his arms doing most of the work as his legs slowly freed up behind him. His body was piecing itself back together. He had been ripped apart as they tumbled into this pit, but now he found himself whole once more. After a few more feet of crawling, the obsidian stone still doing its best to cut into his newly healed flesh, the tunnel had widened enough that he could glance back. Squished in the thin tunnel he had just crawled out of, he saw Rachel's face, bloody, following behind him. One blue eye blinked at him, as she made a deep grunting noise. The message was clear enough, "Keep fucking moving!"

Jack pushed further along to the point where he could fully turn around. Rachel had one hand free now, sticking out towards Jack. He stretched back and grabbed her; pulling best he could, not wanting to rip her arm off. Soon her whole face scrapped free, patches of her scalp missing. She cried out, part pain, but mostly relief. Her body pieced itself back as she moved further out of the tunnel towards Jack. Once she was whole and both were free, they wrapped their arms around one another. There was such relief simply to have a body to hold with. Jack held her face in his hands, wiped some of the blood off her forehead before it could drip into her eyes and kissed her.

They held each other, hands pressed around the others head, foreheads locked, and they laughed hysterically. Jack saw in her the same fear he'd had while in that pit, that this was now existence for them. But it hadn't been, they were still there, still going. The laughs did turn into tears though.

"I can't take this anymore, Jack," Rachel sobbed. "I want to go home."

"I do too," he gasped back. "That's why we have to keep going. Cara said this is the way out."

"But how does she know?"

"I don't know. But I trust her. We have to keep going. We'll go insane if we stop here." And that he did feel to be true. Jack felt a hand on his leg; he assumed Rachel's hand as they held each other. This was not the case.

Hands gripped his leg tight and ripped him from Rachel's arms, dragging him down the length of the tunnel.

"Jack!" Rachel called out, reaching after him desperately. New cuts opened along his chest as he was pulled across the stone. He felt his testicles rip apart and potentially free from his body entirely. These injuries, though painful, did not frighten Jack, as he understood such wounds would heal here. The body healed so it could be hurt again. That was the mantra of Hell it seemed. But this unknown thing dragging him was frightening.

He fell out of the tunnel into the glowing red room, and landed on a floor of blood. He face planted, submerging for a moment and smacking his head on the rocks below the surface, splitting his forehead open. He was dizzy and blood pooled in his eyes (both from the floor and from the new gash through his hairline) as his assailant turned him over. It was a man, mostly. He was naked, same as Jack, though much of his skin was stripped away as well, leaving muscles exposed all over. Some of the man's guts trailed down as well, and worst was the left side of his face, which had been skinned down so badly that even most of the bone was shaved away.

Jack got a sense of what the red glow was now. It was the blood. There was no other light source around, but the blood he was lying in, and the blood dripping from the numerous wounds of his attacker, all had a red glow to them. It wasn't neon or vibrant in any sense. They were simply supposed to see the blood here, and so they could.

The skinned man lifted Jack's head higher off the bloody floor, and he got a better view of the room. There were many others in the room, all naked and bloodied. Most were attacking each other, stabbing with pieces of metal or rock. Others screamed as they were being hacked to pieces. Some hung by chains and hooks, crying out as others cut pieces of flesh from them more slowly. Jack saw no walls, only an endless space of people hurting one another as that red glow splashed about. There was a ceiling though, composed entirely of bodies, held with chains, all naked and bleeding and moaning. Even stuck together along the ceiling, some still hacked away at others, cutting pieces out of them, adding more blood to the thick foot of it that covered the ground. And it stretched as far as Jack could see.

The skinned man holding him held up a knife (not one that could be purchased in a store, but rather a sharpened piece of some kind of metal, as if taken straight from the rocks).

"Need to see your insides," the man quivered, and brought the knife to rest on Jack's chest. But then the man was knocked sideways off of him, shoved by Rachel. She reached out to take Jack's hand. A strange feeling overtook him then. Time slowed. He saw Rachel very clearly, as if he was examining her with a magnifying glass. And as he did a voice spoke in his head, the twisted voice that sometimes comes about in day to day life, the voice that says to do something you know is wrong. Only in this moment it didn't seem wrong, it seemed sensible, soothing. He looked at her deep blue eyes – Those eyes are too bright, how easy they would pop out – Her thin lips and soft mouth – your cock would feel so nice between those lips – he felt himself getting hard, despite his mangled testicles, and his eyes moved down her body, her breasts, her hips – not bad for a chubby chick, and so fragile, be so easy to take her, hurt her, if you cut her your pain will stop – his gaze came to a rest on the light brown patch of pubes – you could cut her there, cut her deep, see if the entrails match the drapes!

"Get up, Jack!" she cried out, reaching for his hand. He shook his head, coming back to his senses, that cackling voice fading. Before he could take her hand, a man, missing his jaw, came up behind Rachel and grabbed her, pulling her back with an arm around her throat. He was joined by other bodies that grabbed hold of Rachel and kept dragging her away, starting to cut into her with the makeshift knives as they went.

"Rachel!" Jack called out, stumbling up to take off after her. But as he moved, a deep pain went through his hip and he found himself immobilized. He cried out in shock and looked back to see the skinned man burying the knife into him. The man left the knife there and stood up over Jack, who could barely twitch his legs now. Showing an unexpected amount of strength, the skinned man put his hands under Jack's shoulders and lifted him straight up in the air. Jack swung out at the man with his fist, aiming for the globe of an eye sticking out on the skinned side of his face (had that eye been there at first, or was he healing?). He landed the punch, feeling the eyeball squish down, but the skinned man walked on, unfazed, carrying him like a child. Then he dropped Jack down hard, and Jack felt blistering pain as a hook shot through his chest, hanging through his right ribcage. Jack felt his weight snag, his feet dangling just above the blood. The skinned man reached to the side and Jack saw his hand grasping around another of the hooks that hung from the ceiling.

"No, please don't," Jack spat out, blood choking out of his mouth. But the skinned man didn't have a chance to push the second hook into him. Another person, a woman perhaps, though they were missing more skin than this first man, stabbed a knife into the man's head and he went down. This skinless lady freed the knife and kept chopping into him on the ground. Then a third grabbed hold of the skinless lady, a hefty man missing one arm, but with his one good arm he started dragging her away through the blood as she screamed. It was a mad free-for-all in the room. All were meat here.

Jack looked down at the hook through his chest and the knife in his hip and whimpered. He noticed the ground was farther away, and looked up at the ceiling of bodies. The chain holding him was slowing retracting upward. If he didn't get out, he would be part of that horrible canopy.

Another voice spoke in his head, but this wasn't the violent dark conscience he'd heard before, this was the familiar voice of Cara.

"Jack, are you alright?" He couldn't see her, and her voice was very faint.

"No...I think I'm done for. I think we both are. We can't make it through this."

"Yes you can, Jack, I know you can. You have to. Think of your mom. Think of Rachel. They're counting on you."

"Rachel is better without me. Something inside was telling me to hurt her. I don't want to do that."

"It's just this place. It's messing with your mind, trying to break you, mentally, physically. You are stronger than that. I know you are, Jack. Now take that knife and cut yourself down. This isn't how your story ends." Jack looked down at the knife in his hip and gripped it with his right hand. It hurt to touch, but the hurt brought him out of his sorrow. They could still act, they weren't done for yet.

Cara's voice spoke up once more, softer, cautious. "Jack...watch out for Rachel."

"What?" he said surprised.

"These voices that are speaking to you, they might be speaking to her as well. You don't know what they might be telling her to do. Just...be careful, okay." And then she was gone. He felt that absence. He felt the knife in his hip. And he felt the hook raising him steadily higher, another couple feet and the hands of those trapped bodies would be able to grab him, and it might be too late then.

Without pausing to think, Jack yanked on the knife, and ripped it out of his hip. He screamed, but as with freedom from the tunnel, there was relief in that scream. He passed the knife over to his left hand, now the hard part. He brought the knife up to his right collarbone and began to saw his way down. The pain grated, but of all the suffering he had experienced, there was almost satisfaction in this. He was causing this pain; he wasn't a victim in this moment. Hands began to brush along his hair as the metal knife connected with the hook, and then...rip. Jack fell, collapsing into the blood, and came up screaming. He had been sure to hold onto the knife. He needed to save Rachel.

Jack staggered through the floor of blood, his right arm hanging at his side, but his sawed open collarbone didn't hurt anymore. He ran in the direction that Rachel had been dragged. A woman approached him, knives in hands, tongue waving wildly through split open cheeks. Jack didn't think. He stabbed his knife into her throat and watched her drop to the ground, submerged in that red glow. He felt stronger again, his right arm moving once more. He felt...good. He switched the knife back over to his dominant hand just as a body flung itself out of the bloody floor at him, barely more than a skeleton with thin muscles. Jack swung with the knife, severing the skull from what remained of the body. He kept moving, pushing past others that were contending themselves with other victims.

Then he saw her and the group that had gathered around. Rachel was hung up by hooks, two sticking out through her chest. She was mutilated. Her legs were gone, her thighs in mangled shreds. Her abdomen was sliced open and guts were spilling out. Her breasts had been cut off. Her right arm was missing, and the left was in the process of being removed by a man standing beside her. Another was crouched before her, slowly pulling her guts to the floor. And a third was behind her, scalping her hair off. She barely whimpered, barely moved, the fight leaving her. Two more were fighting in front of her, and Jack recognized one as the man that had originally grabbed her. Jack started with him, walking up behind and slitting his throat. There was a rush of pleasure that came with that. Jack didn't hesitate and stabbed the next man, plunging the knife up through his jaw into his brain. That man dropped too, and he focused on the three around Rachel.

The one crawling in her guts he went for first, walking up behind him and opening his throat. The one sawing her arm stopped halfway and glared at Jack. He was a big man and swung the large knife he was using as a saw at Jack, barely missing as Jack leapt back. The large man kept coming, crying out at him, building momentum fast. Jack used this, quickly sidestepping and held out his knife, slicing along the man's hefty gut as he barrelled past. The large man collapsed into the blood, and another pounced on him, stabbing repeatedly into his back.

Jack looked at the man scalping Rachel, who had ceased his work for a moment, staring back, but still clutching Rachel's hair tight, knife pointing out nervously at Jack.

"Don't hurt me!" the scalper squealed as Jack approached. "You can hurt her. We can share. Look, she cuts fun." The scalper moved his knife up and cut a smooth line into Rachel's cheek. "See, fun." Jack approached slowly.

"Yes, fun," he agreed. Rachel's eyes shifted up at him, nervously.

"You want to cut her pretty face too?" the scalper asked, holding her head tight, licking her ear and some of the blood running along her cheek. Jack nodded, eyes locked on Rachel. The scalper now seemed giddy with excitement. "Yes! Cut! Cut!" he chanted. Jack brought his knife up, aiming at her face, steadying his grip. And then he stabbed forward, just to the side of Rachel's face and into the eye of the cackling scalper. He tumbled back, crying in shock. He was on his feet and running away in a second. Jack focused on Rachel, and wrapped one arm tight around her waist to steady her, and with the other he pulled the hooks out. They didn't come loose easily and Rachel cried out as they did, but he got her down and she gave a sigh of relief as he knelt with her in his arms. He felt a burning intensity in his chest.

"We have to move fast and get out of this place," he said, looking around, trying to figure out where to run. Rachel gave a bleary look up at him and managed to reach one hand up to his face.

"Jack..." she said, voice very faint.

"Yes?" he said, eyes still frantically searching.

"Put...put the knife down." He looked at her and saw he was holding the knife tight, angled toward her throat, nearly pressing into her. Jack tossed it aside hastily. Some of the burning intensity he'd been feeling left as he did.

"I'm sorry," he said and held her tight. "We need to get out of here fast."

"Jack." It wasn't from Rachel that he heard his name this time. Jack looked up, and off in the distance, past the hordes of people slicing and hurting one another in every imaginable way, was a small boy, silhouetted by the red glow.

"It's a shiny person," Rachel muttered in her delirious state.

Jack stared at the boy as he turned and started walking away, seemingly unconcerned by the violence surrounding him. Jack latched onto this small chance and stood up, carrying Rachel in his arms. He started running after the boy fast as he could. The boy seemed to just be walking but Jack never got any closer. However no one else attacked as they followed the boy. A clear path was always kept between them and the boy, no one crossing it as they attacked each other on all sides.

And then, at the end of that path, something beyond the red glow. There was a vastness of open space, and what Jack could have sworn were stars.