Hellbound

Trigger warning - This short story mentions suicide and suicidal ideation. 

Maya Wittle shook the bottle's last droplets into her cloudy, cracked shot glass and chuckled ruefully. She downed the liquor. Still sober, she felt the flames licking at the back of her throat; she choked on the burn and the afterthought of finishing her last luxury. She wiped her mouth on dirty flannel and laid her forehead on the back of her forearm. An appropriate 'dinner' after such an awful day, she thought to herself. A fresh batch of envelopes in her mailbox demanding money and two more interviews with nothing to show.  

"Maybe," Maya mumbled, "if you're sorry for turning me down, then ignore that I don't have enough years of relevant job experience." She felt weak, no, thin. Stretched like bubble gum where holes start to punctate if one pulls at it hard enough. 

Maya fumbled for her phone in the sad excuse of a pocket the cargo pants offered - the screen came to life, informing her that 9:19 PM was too early to call it a day just yet. Maya didn't worry about student loans or rent two years ago, but the next arbitrary exam. She wondered if anyone besides her Master's committee cared about her esteemed degree. Her mentor and the rest of her chairs cared, surely, but certainly not the university; funny how quickly the aspirations soured to cynicism when you figured out you were just a tiny cog in their money-making machine. She wondered what little Maya would do if the present Maya warned her where she would end up. 

Maya's expression softened; she smiled, longing for such a fantasy.

The evening's rain hid the sun beyond the clouds, literally and metaphorically, in Maya's case. It drenched the city, but she figured she should enjoy a warm shower before they realized she couldn't pay the bills. She raked her skin raw until the soap started to sting. Maya absentmindedly thought that everyone needed a good cry in the shower, and staring up at the mildewed ceiling, she waited for tears to well. She waited until her eyes swished back and forth, awaiting the crying to come on suddenly. Shaking her head in disbelief, Maya considered herself either stubbornly resilient or woefully naive.

Hair dry and towel hung, Maya inspected herself in the small mirror. She softly patted her cheeks, took a deep breath, and told herself, "Not yet."

Throwing on an ex's oversized 'Def Leopard' shirt and PJs, Maya exited her bathroom to find two beady eyes of pale light staring up at her from the baseboards. A sharp jolt of cold adrenaline hit her, and her hand flew for the light switch. Fluorescent bulbs came to life, revealing nothing but dust-stained wood. Wide-eyed, Maya steadied her breathing before moving an inch. Getting on all fours, she ensured nothing lurked in her bedroom - she even checked under the bed.

Narrating for herself, Maya murmured, "Nothing to worry about, schmuck, just a shadow monster with hungry eyes." She paused mid-step towards her bed. "Sparkling eyes." Captivating, too, she thought in the sanctity of her mind. 

Leaving the bathroom light on for the night, Maya scrolled the Instagram stories of her more successful fellow graduates in bed —soldiers, doctors, and every other job that would earn a parent's pride. Fear lessened, and frustration resumed. She worked just as hard as Kalie Baumgardner and certainly more than Thomas Carpenter, but Maya wondered if she would end up in the same crusty apartment with no job or prospects even if she chose a different career path. 

Setting her alarm for an early morning to figure out how to salvage her life, Maya felt she wouldn't sleep. She would stare at the ceiling, willing her eyelids to feel heavier. But when her eyes chanced the hallway door, she screamed. The colorless eyes preyed upon her, and now Maya saw the rest of its outline. The eyes rested in hollow voids in a mishappen serpent's head but long like the snout of a horse and its blackened flesh like a burnt animal. Its neck craned low to fit its bulk through the door, with thin stray hairs wiggling vigorously along its frame. The skeletal body was supported by jerking, brittle limbs, elongated and folded at hideous angles. She heard something that her brain reasoned was the swishing of a tail from the hallway. The horror peeled its moist lips, revealing yellow-orange and decaying teeth of inhuman size, and breathed a husky drag that Maya thought acidic and foul, like what a vulture would smell like.

Maya lost control of her body. She began to shake, kicking at her bed to get away, her shoulders slamming into her headboard, her arms flailing uselessly at the sheets. Falling out of bed, she tore a shelf from her dresser, her socks and undergarments spilling to the floor, prepared to throw it at the monstrosity invading her bedroom, and punched the light switch again. Lightbulbs flicked on, illuminating her bedroom, and the monster disappeared, replaced by a tall, half-naked male.

He stood six feet tall, clothed only in a tattered robe covering his groin with the remaining length draped over his wrist. Pristine ink-black curly hair fell past his proud shoulders, the colors contrasting with the rest of his Olympic-athlete body the tone of milk. She thought his silhouette glowed, but only faintly. Lingering embers. But Maya focused on his face, upturned to where he sneered down his scrunched nose and jutted chin in disgust. His irises, a magma gold, ensnared her. She repulsed him, clearly, but the gateways of his pupils indicated this individual's age and wisdom. Still terrified, she dared not lower her drawer, but his gaze and composure convinced her to stop screaming.

Unmoving and unblinking, the man assessed Maya, waiting a few moments before exhaling through his sharp nose, "Well?" His voice caressed her ears like silk despite the venom in his tone. 

Maya looked around the room, hoping something would help her understand. She shook her head and stuttered, "W-what?"

The man sighed again, "You called me here."

At hearing this, Maya's head cocked to the side, "I certainly did not." Confusion overcame some of the fear and fueled her defiance, "Get out of my apartment." The man didn't react, and she shifted her feet uncomfortably.

"I cannot leave until we come to a deal," the man explained. He took his eyes off Maya for the first time and evaluated her bedroom. Tidy but not clean. Her landlord didn't consider chipped paint and a creaking floor his problem. The man lazily grooved a cut in her wall with a fingernail. 

"Hey!" Maya took a step toward him. It proved near lethal when the man's gaze fixated upon her. Something sent cold sweat running down her back, weakening her knees. Melancholy poisoned her veins, making her weary, ready to accept whatever punishment awaited her for acting so disrespectfully to this man. She felt so small. A moment later, strength returned when the man turned his attention to his index finger. It felt like stretching after waking up first thing in the morning.

The man rubbed his fingers together; drywall crumbling to the floor, he asked, "What do you desire?"

Careful not to upset whatever this man - this creature - was, Maya chose a more level-headed tone, "Please, I don't know who you are; I don't know what you want." Her voice cracked, "Please, don't hurt me; take anything you want and leave."

The man closed his eyes and shook his head, "You misunderstand, cretin, purposefully or no, you called, and I came. You crave something, and I will give it to you." He uttered 'crave' rather oddly, as if suppressing a gag reflex.

Maya breathed, "I didn't call you. I don't even know who you are."

The man hummed, "Inconsequential." The man remained as still as stone, unyielding in his apparent efforts to make a deal with Maya. 

"Inconsequential-" irritation rose in Maya's throat, but she calmly asked, "Wha- who are you?"

"Maggots should not care whose heel threatens them," the man's dry tone conveyed that he couldn't stand to breathe the same air as Maya. 

Fists balled and shoulders squared, she pursed her lips. Maya suppressed the need to scream, only this time in favor of fight over flight. Instead, her voice came out grated but low, "Who are you?"

Slowly, as if gathering himself, the man blinked and replied, "The world and," He paused, "Others shackle many names to my person since before the first dawn of the sun. But, I permit you to call me The Adversary." As Maya listened to The Adversary, the room grew cold. Cold enough that her breath fogged and her skin prickled. Huffing frigid air for a few moments, Maya recalled vague memories of Mass and the one being in all of creation whose name roughly translated to The Adversary. 

She retreated a few steps in quiet terror from The Adversary. 

Watching her, the gold in his eyes brightening like a predator, The Adversary said nothing. But she swore a corner of his lips tugged into a hint of a smile.

"A deal?" Maya asked. When The Adversary nodded, she shook her head violently and spat, "I will never make a deal with you!"

The Adversary looked to the ceiling, but Maya got the impression he stared past the molding. He sighed, "Stipulations require me to offer you one chance to reconsider."

"Why?!" Maya couldn't escape, not with The Adversary blocking the hallway. But if she cleared the bed and opened the window in time...

"It is unwise," The Adversary's voice went dry, "for lesser beings to question higher authority."

"You're a liar!"

"The first, but yes."

"No matter what I ask for, you'll find a way to take it away from me," Maya pressed her back against the wall and shimmied to the left, inch by inch. But she stopped, that bored stare The Adversary pierced her with told her she shouldn't bother trying to escape. "I'll die a horrible death and be damned for eternity if I make a deal with you."

"Refuse the deal, and I damn you now. Slowly."

Maya's eyes watered, a swelling of despair but tinted with rage, as if she pounded against a door trapped within a sinking boat. Her mind racing, she refused the ultimatum - it wasn't fair. But, something in the back of her mind comprehended the equation. Make the deal, and she would enjoy fleeting happiness, poisoned with knowing she would lose it and go to Hell. It seemed worse than getting it over with now. But Maya stood her ground and felt her best chance would come if she kept The Adversary talking.

As Maya opened her mouth to speak, The Adversary said, "Prolong this conversation at your peril, cur." She slammed her teeth together in a silent snarl and wondered if he could hear her thoughts. Defiantly, she imagined a world where she possessed enough courage and strength to wrap the loincloth around his neck and choke the life out of him. If The Adversary could read her mind, he made no further indication.

"I'm," Maya blustered, "literally damned if I do and damned if I don't." She began to pace back and forth, ignoring The Adversary. "No telling how long Forked-tongue McGee will let me live, not that I would trust him to uphold his end anyway; I don't even know what I would wish for. I'm guessing I can't wish my way out of damnation, can I?" 

The Adversary replied bitterly, "You may."

Maya blurted out, "Wha-? Then that! I wish for that!" She smiled incredulously, delighted to find such a superficial loophole.

Silent for a few moments, save for the heavy breathing, The Adversary eventually cavitated, "I relay to you a warning, human: the outside powers that care for you will not save you from me. They will watch, apathetic, as I render your life to nothing. I will strip you of joy and purpose until I drive you to suicidal ideation. And when you succumb, you will damn yourself. And I shall greet you with flame and pain unending." The Adversary's voice alone knocked Maya onto her back, his words infecting her mind with the hopelessness he inflicted upon her earlier. She would succumb; she wanted to surrender now. She felt cold, helpless, and frail. So weak that she could not muster the strength to wrap her arms around herself when shivering. She could barely move, let alone feel, her fingers.

And, in a single breath, the barren feeling disappeared. The feeling's echoes haunted Maya still; she shook with renewed fear. She was doomed, but she wanted more than anything to hurt the sadistic narcissist leering down at her. Perhaps if she mustered enough courage at that moment, she would wish for such strength or ability.

But quoting The Adversary said, it felt 'inconsequential.' And so, she sobbed for a few minutes, but her lip curled, refusing to blubber. She glared up at him and knew what she would wish for.

"I wish I could restart my life. I want a life where I win. If I'm damned, give me the life that earns me a spot in Hell." Maya snickered. "I want to be loved - I want the world to love and mourn me when you inevitably take me. I want parents who didn't leave, lovers who never cheated, and so much success that I'm forever drunk on it. I want the perfect joy ride of a life." She laughed silently, holding her side and running her fingers through her hair. But then she stiffened and added, "But no one gets hurt; I don't ever hurt anyone else. If anything, I help them." She jutted a finger at The Adversary's face—a mistake.

The room groaned in agony. The Adversary's cheek twitched but otherwise withheld his anger. Eventually, he said, "And do you want your memories?"

"Hell no." Maya surprised herself by replying so quickly.

The Adversary nodded and extended his hand to her, "Bind the deal and, with it, your fate."

Maya fixated on the large, open palm before her. It looked human, saving the size, but she felt it pull at her. Like gravity. Like looking at food when starving or in the eyes of someone filled with lust for only you. She gripped it but felt no warmth or cold, barely even registering it. 

"You shall awake anew, your wish granted," The Adversary said and turned to go. He walked the length of the short hallway into darkness. Maya blinked once, and his form returned to that of an unspeakable and grotesque physique. It turned and husked, "I'll see you in Hell."