Abandon All Hope...

Flakes of white feathers falling to a rest on their family. That's how Julian saw it. The once green trees now sheathed by piles of snow, frost making traces of leaves into ghostly replacements, as if their essence is still there but allowing the cold to take its place. Julian felt his  warm body relax under the sight in front of him. He needed this moment. To see it. To see the snowy landscape for one last time. The last time before He’d return in spring a new man all over again. He didn't need to check for his supplies like many times before, he was prepared, yet he entered his study and did so anyway. He found his garment bag filled with everything he would need on his journey. He made sure to pack in an extra scarf just in case. It seemed like every time he went back again, it got colder and darker.

As the same as the year before, cold shudders went down his spine. He never enjoyed going back there. Not down there. If anywhere, not there. It was a duty though, a promise he made to an old friend. Every year, at the winter solstice, he would travel there, enter and leave each circle and come out on the other side to that beautiful island not touched by mortal men ever.

He remembered that place. The shimmering blue waters, the warm sand so fine it was like wind through toes. The lush grass, spectrum of flowers and the fresh purely pure breeze of wind. No stench of sulfur or garbage, of excrement or blood. Nothing like that place. Far from it. The complete opposite. 

He grabbed his things, turned off his lights in his manor, from room to room. He set up his security systems, not only the electronic system but the mystical as well. He didn't want to take any chances, as certain forces had a knack for trying to take advantage of ignorant souls traveling out of their body. From the reiki symbols across the house to the pyramids of gemstones and tombs protection spells made from substances lost to this earth, Julian was ready for his voyage. He pushed the thought of time out of his head. When there, it wouldn't exist. He’d expected to be in and out, maybe by the first rainfall in march, yet a sliver of doubt crept in his belly. It swirled inside, cold against the warmness of his insides.

He kept moving. He checked his answering machine, made sure all calls were sent to their appropriate parties and friends. Yoyo, Duncan, Ember, Amanda, and Maverick wouldn't see him for a very long time. They would be okay, he thought. A few months without the immortal Gilgamesh wouldn't hurt them. They had no idea about true pain, not really, not even he, for the place he was traveling to truly defined it. 

Julian entered a small dark room, candles alit, with a prism in the center. Around each point laid blood-red candles with a soft blue glow. Julian stripped himself of his clothing. No need to weigh himself down with materials of this dimension. Especially since it was going to get much heavier where he was going.  He sat crossed legged and rested his eyes. He swam in the dark of his eyes for what felt like an eternity before he started chanting. Ineligible to most’s ears, but perfectly spoken with the right dialect and annunciations that were lost for centuries. The total recall was a perk of immortality. He always remembered to smile at that thought. Just not today.

Focus was required. He let the hairs on his skin stand as a soft cold breeze entered the room. It grew to a pushing wind, then a tornado. The red flames around him turned to a cold blue, then disappeared. The room did too. The immortal was already standing when he opened his eyes to see the world around him change.

The very atmosphere itself turned suffocating humid, rank with dirt, and bile alongside the moans and screams of lost ones all around him. Wait...no…

Something was wrong. The expansive cavern around him crowded with souls rippled with a cold. The souls around him shivered as they approached the giant gates made of impenetrable and unknown metal. Chattering teeth and quiet whispers begs and pleads sunk into his ears, instead of agonizing screams of torment. He stared up at the void-full sky and something landed on his face. Soft...cold…

A snowflake.

All around him the humid prison was now a tundra of snowfall. Souls bumped and brushed past him, slipping in snow as Julian took in the sight around him. It was coming sooner than he thought. Too soon.

The immortal tightened the coat around his body. His items from above were enchanted with an essence that could travel all dimensions, giving him an advantage over the confused souls traveling to their final resting place. He pressed forward through the crowd until the blackened doors loomed over him. He stared at the scarred words above. To others, it would be in their native language, and to Julian, it was in ancient Arabic, an alphabet lost to time, but no matter what language, it said the same thing.

Abandon all hope ye who enter here

Frost lined the inscription. Julian hurried his haste into the gate and through the gates for the next time in over thousands of years. He entered through the darkness and into a beautiful, lush garden, filled with flowers, trees, streams of water that seemed like a ghostly haze to him. There, but not there. Around him stood men and women in ancient robes, clothing lost to the ages before he lived. Old philosophers, poets, soldiers, kings, queens, and honorable people who were ignorant to the belief of a messiah before he was even born resided here. As they would say: “beautiful but not even close to the heaven they will never possess.”

As he passed, old friends, hermits of men and old women waved and nodded to their old immortal friend. It took two thousand years for most of them to realize that he was ever-living, forced to remain in the mortal world until the end of days. Small flickers of snow littered across the landscape sending goosebumps down Julian’s astral body. He met the eyes of the man he came here to see who made a look that gave Julian all the knowledge he needed. It was time.

His name was lost to the ages, yet his philosophies still lived on, being passed on from human to human on the living plane. He was a tall, nimble man, with pale skin, hairless except for his dark eyebrows. His muddy brown eyes and frozen face lit up in anticipation. The two men faced each other. “Long time no see Gilgamesh.” the man said. Julian nodded. They both stood in silence until either man let go of their breaths and spoke. “I hope this will help you along your way. A token from the man himself. He said you’d know what to do with it when that time arrived. And as you can see…”

Julian nodded to the snowy landscape around him.” Yes brother.” he went quiet. The immortal didn't feel this nervous in such a long time. He felt like a Sumerian king all over again, being crowned for his strength, ignorant to the journey ahead of him. He was alone most of these journeys except for Dante, but he was long gone. He didn't imagine the time would come this quickly for the next stage to unfold. Not now.

“Yet here it is,” the man said like he read his old friend’s mind. He held out his hand and a medallion, shimmering red ruby quartz with carved angelic inscriptions in it. When Julian touched it, it hummed with power. “It’ll take you past the other gates and to the center of Earth.”

Julian stared at the medallion. He tried to utter words, to say goodbye, but the man put a hand on his shoulder. “It's okay my king. Do what you must do. We shall meet again.”

The immortal nodded to his once counselor then vanished.

Darkness. It was the very first thing he saw and seen a thousand times. But it was different. Like any source of light, he’d use to guide him through this frozen place was gone in its entirety. A bitterly cold wind snapped at his body, ready to push him over, but he braced himself. The wind howled the moans and pleads of traitorous souls fueling the wind. He felt snow like icy needles, sting into his skin. He slipped on his mask and scarf, then rummaged in his bag for the gold-rimmed glasses he searched the earth for four-hundred-thirty-two years for. The dark world around him turned to a lighter landscape. He could see the outlines of rocks, boulder, mountains, a colossal mountain in the distance all outlined in cloudy gray.

He took a deep breath. He put one tentative step onto the ice of the frozen lake. Then another. He stared towards the large mountain, the source of the wind. He started to walk. He ignored the mounds of rock, only they weren't rocks, but the piling frozen bodies of traitors, forced to stay under a frozen lake for an eternity. Ones who decided to follow in the footsteps of the first traitor, the first villain in history. The one who started it all. The dark mountain ahead was Julian’s only ticket out of this place and to paradise. The Lightbringer. The most beautiful angel of them all. The one who was struck to this place after his war with his father. He went by many names, Samael originally, but he was more infamous by his new name. The prince of darkness. 

Lucifer.