Alex stared at the yellowed bone. His hands, pale and translucent, began to shake. He looked at the weapon, then back at the angel "No".
The Angel's many eyes narrowed, a thousand suns dimming at once. "No?"
"I didn't... I didn't make them come!, I simply passed the invitation" Alex's voice broke into a high, hysterical shriek. He clutched his head, his fingers digging into his scalp. "They have legs! They have eyes! They could have left when the door opened. They could have said no and stayed in the alley!"
"I just wanted warmth and food! I just wanted to not be hungry for one night! I didn't hold their hands down the stairs! I didn't put the food in their mouths! They chose to follow me because they were hungry like I was! They were free to leave!"
"It's not my fault. It's their fault for being stupid. It's Ms. Harper's fault for being a monster. I'm just a kid! I'm just the one who was invited. That's all! I'm just a kid who was invited!"
"You would trade the truth for a coward's peace? You are drenched in their blood, Alex. Do not call it rain." Az-Bogah's voice was no longer a vibration; it was a hammer.
"It's not my blood!" Alex shrieked, his voice cracking into a raw sob. "I didn't ink anything! I didn't ask for a bone or a flock! I'm not a shepherd, I'm just Alex! Please, just put me back in the alley. I'll stay in the dirt. I'll be quiet. I'll never lead another soul as long as I live. I'll be a nobody! Just... please, let me go! JUST LET ME GO!"
The Angel remained motionless for a heartbeat that felt like an eon. Then, the jawbone sank slowly into the sand, as if the earth itself were swallowing a disappointment.
"Send you back to the alley?" The Angel's voice echoed from the center of Alex's skull, dripping with a cold, celestial irony. "But Alex... you died."
Alex froze, his breath hitching in his throat.
"There is no 'back,' Little Rabbit. The alley is a closed book. The city is a tomb. You are standing in the throat of the infinite, begging to return to a grave."
The Angel's many eyes narrowed, the amusement curdling into a cold, cosmic indifference. The golden mist of the lake didn't just fade, it began to rot, turning the color of dried blood and old bruises.
"You beg for pity while your brothers and sisters are being ground between the teeth of the abyss," Az-Bogah hissed. "You fear the weight of the weapon, but you didn't fear the weight of the door as you closed it behind them. You are a small, hollow thing Alex, A shepherd who walked his lambs into the slaughterhouse and expected to be thanked for finding them a roof."
The Being stood to its full, terrifying height, its wings casting a shadow that stretched across eternity.
"I have no use for a blade that refuses to cut. And no room for a shepherd who loses his flock for warmth and food."
The sand beneath Alex's feet liquefied, turning into a black, viscous tar that pulled at his ankles. He tried to scream, but the air was being sucked out of the realm.
"If you will not be the monster I require," the Angel commanded, its hand igniting with a blinding, white fire, "then go and be a feast for the Dark. Go where the ink is thickest. Go where the debt is collected in full."
Az-Bogah struck. The flaming palm hit the center of Alex's chest with the force of a falling star.
"Go back to the pit they bought for you. Go to the hole that has no bottom. GO TO HELL, ALEX."
The golden world exploded into a million shards of jagged glass. The weightlessness vanished, replaced by a sudden, bone-crushing gravity.
He became a streak of white light plunging through the layers of the universe, screaming into the mouth of the abyss.
A hysterical laugh escaped his mouth. The sheer impossibility of his situation began to grate against his sanity. What was the odds of this happening to anyone? This has to be a nightmare
He'd hit the "ground" and the impact would serve as the ultimate alarm clock. He'd wake up in that damp alley behind the warehouse, shivering and smelling of trash, or he'd just be dead.
Either was fine.
[Below]
The Common Pit was a gathering place for many magnificent creatures in the place most races call hell.
Low-level demons crawled everywhere, a chaotic blend of beast and insect. Humanoid shapes were rare at this depth, an evolution jackpot far beyond these bottom-feeders. They lived for nothing but the next meal, the absolute lowest tier of the food chain.
Then there were the mid-level demons, those who had fought long enough to earn a definitive form. They were a violent, cunning, varied lot. Some stood in humanoid shapes, mimicking the look of their superiors; others were bipedal beasts, massive and armored in thick hide.
Some remained insectoid, their bodies covered in jagged chitinous plates. While their intelligence was still blunt and cruel, they possessed the raw, sinewy strength required to survive the Pit.
Seeing higher-ranking demons in a place like this was metaphysically impossible. The Abyss had designed this layer specifically as a crucible for the low and mid-level castes to struggle on their own, far from the influence of their masters. Here, the mid-level demons were the undisputed peak
Among them moved alien lifeforms from distant worlds. Some were there willingly to trade, but many others were the survivors of civilizations conquered and enslaved by the infernal legions. Whether they were merchants or just part of the scenery, they were all treated as property within the endless bureaucracy of Hell.
They were all busy, shouting and bartering in a dozen different tongues, until the sky above broke.
One moment, the air was thick with the smell of scorched copper and the rhythmic, guttural chanting of a thousand demons. The next, it peeled.
A jagged, violet-white scar tore through the bruised atmosphere, moving with a velocity that turned the air itself into a screaming, pressurized wall of heat.
In the center of the Pit, the merchant-demons and the armored overseers didn't have time to scream. The shockwave arrived as a theft of existence. The mid-ranking demons, standing in their plate armor like monuments of malice, were turned into silhouettes of ink etched against the ground.
The shockwave flattened the market stalls, vaporized the low level demons into thin, black splatters, and turned the jagged stone floor into a lake of bubbling, mirrored glass. When the light finally curdled back into the bruised red of the Hell-sky, the city was gone.