My bathroom had witnessed hellish scenes before, mostly in the form of horrific gastro-intestinal events, usually post-kebap.

But this was something else.

As soon as the goat-man raised his hand, a tear seemed to appear in the middle of the small space. Its edges were black and burning and the widening gap in reality that revealed itself was exuding heat and such a profound sense of misery and pain that something inside me shriveled. I wanted to rear back, to turn tail and run for my life, but my feet were rooted to the spot and the sense that there was nowhere to escape to anyway descended on me like the proverbial damocles sword falling once and for all. This was the other shoe and it was dropping right on my chest, crushing any sense of joy and hope I had ever dared to have.

This wasn't a nightmare, I understood that now on a deep, visceral level, even as my brain tried to fight the onslaught of overwhelming fear and dread.

Between my bathtub and toilet a gate to hell had opened and I could hear the screams torn from the throats of sufferers. There was black, jagged rock, smeared with blood and entrails, there was the sound of breaking bones, there were creatures, dark and shadow-like, multi-limbed like insects or arachnids with glowing reddish and purple sets of eyes. I felt their stares stripping the flesh from my bones.

The hellscape was fire and ice. A cold so hot it burned. My skin could not tell the difference and perhaps, in the end, there was none, pain was pain, it had no specific color or smell. It could be stabbing, or crushing, or slicing, burning or freezing, but I understood that, once it surpassed a certain level of intensity, my nervous system would no longer care to make the distinction. Agony would just be agony.

Tears rose in my throat, but when the creature snapped his fingers and that hellish vision blinked out of existence, something else came up as well.

My stomach convulsed and with a choking noise I finally vomited up every ill-advised drink I'd had the night before, spewing yellowish bile onto my lip balm pentagram, the candles and the goat-man's shoes.

"Ew!" he exclaimed. "My, you humans are such messy creatures, filled with wet and slimy things. We certainly wished you'd keep them inside."

I was panting, unable to pull myself together enough to reply. My insides were churning and my mouth tasted like puke. I dry-heaved some more, making animal noises, while tears streamed from my eyes, followed quickly by snot from my nose.

"Pl-Please," I managed, though I had no idea what I was begging for. And even as I said it, I knew there'd be no mercy from this thing in front of me.

"You still have a choice," it told me. "Twenty-four hours, little human."

I stared at his impassive goat-face. Tears blurred my vision.

"We will see you tomorrow morning. Until then." He nodded, snapped his fingers and disappeared without a trace.

As soon as he was gone, I wanted to tell myself that he'd never been there, that I was simply losing my mind. Maybe there was a gas-leak somewhere, maybe I'd inhaled fumes of some kind, any kind, to make me see things that weren't there.

But while trying to convince myself of this, I knew I hadn't dreamed up this horror. I could see the crushed santa candle, flattened by a leather shoe with an imprint-less sole, a kind I didn't own, in a puddle of my vomit. Plus, my heart was still hammering and the air around me was heavy with a strange, sulfuric smell.

So hell is real, I caught myself thinking, a hysterical pitch to my inner voice, and I'm gonna go there tomorrow, no big deal, right?

I wanted to simply lay down and die, that's how exhausted I felt. But there was no time.

My mind started racing even though my head was still swimming with nausea. I couldn't sit around and do nothing, I had to figure something out. A way out of this. I stumbled back into my bedroom and started googling.

If stuff like this could happen, then I couldn't be the first person in the world who'd gone through this. Others must have encountered demons, and these days, people posted about everything. Surely, if someone met a monster, that'd be a blog entry. Or at least a tweet.

I spent the next hour going down an internet hole, into the darkest recesses of reddit, youtube, wikipedia and tumblr. And while there was a lot of weird stuff, I didn't find what I was looking for. No "how to get out of hell contracts"- subreddits, no wikihow on getting rid of suit-wearing demons. Plus, a lot of the things I did find sounded so out of this world that I kept asking myself how I was to determine what was real and what was the product of mental illness. But then, this whole ordeal might just have been the product of my own mental illness. Who was to say I hadn't just experienced my first schizophrenic episode?

Before I could fall down another internet rabbit hole, I ran back into the bathroom and stared at my puddle of vomit and the crushed candle. It had happened. It had been real. My stomach cramped at the memory of that hellish vision the goat headed demon had shown me.

"Fuck," I muttered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Another thought struck me. He'd said I had time to reconsider. That I could still escape this predicament. You've offered us two souls, that*s what he'd told me. The wretched memory of my stupid drunken spell flashed through my mind. Of course, I'd said two names, Julie Markus and Pavel Adamski.

Julie ...

Could I be so callous and condemn her to eternal suffering? It would be a truly monstrous thing to do. Just because she didn't return my feelings?

My heart was pounding and my stomach clenched once more. I had nothing left to throw up, but I still felt sick. I wanted to curl up somewhere and die.

Instead, I rinsed out my mouth, brushed my teeth and ran back into my bedroom to throw on some clothes. It was Saturday, so at least I didn't have to go to work, not that I would have, what with hell hanging over me.

Anyway, I grabbed the first pair of jeans and t-shirt I could find, pulled my long dark hair into a somewhat messy ponytail and ran out the door.

Without thinking too much about it, I hopped on the subway and headed for the place I knew Julie would be right now, the supermarket where she worked.

I didn't really know what my goal was. I knew I wanted to see her. Ever since I'd first laid eyes on her, I pretty much always did. But what could I even say to her now that she'd told me there was no romantic future for us but that she'd like us to stay friends.

As I slumped in my seat in the subway, wedged between a grandma openly reading Fifty Shades of Grey and a scowling teen of indeterminate gender, I had the painful realization that I'd never been a friend to Julie. I'd been a selfish asshole, throwing all my feelings at her and then cursing her when she didn't know what to do with them.

I'd acted like your run of the mill nice guy incel.

Hell was starting to look like exactly what I deserved.

Minutes later, I was standing in front of the supermarket, bathed in the glow of the warm yellow light it exuded despite it being the middle of the day. Was I the only one who was deeply comforted by supermarkets? By their sheer existence, the wares on their clean shelves, the suggestion that there was more just waiting to be restocked somewhere in the back?

Supermarkets were a symbol of abundance and I was here for them. And even as I thought that I realized that where I was going, there probably weren't any.

There was just pain and suffering. Unless ...

I bit my lip, letting the small sting wash over me as I set one foot in front of the other, the automatic doors soundlessly sliding open to grant me entry.

Inside, I looked around for Julie and spotted her, sitting behind the register, her blond hair done up, makeup subtle and flawless. My eyes darted to the bow of her pink lips and I remembered the waxy strawberry taste of her lip gloss the few times I'd been allowed to kiss her. My heart ached for a second, and then she raised her gaze and looked right at me.

"Hey, Julie," I stammered, feeling foolish and out of place.

"Nevin ... hey!" I could tell the brightness in her voice was forced, as was her smile.

I took a deep breath and walked up to her, wondering what I was going to say. Because, for all I knew, one way or another, this might very well be goodbye.