I closed my eyes for the final time, letting the darkness wrap itself around me like a warm blanket. Some may approach this final stage of their life cycle with fear or anger, but I felt the comfort of a life well-lived.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long.

Soon, the heat became unbearable, suffocating. The blackness pressed in on all sides, until eventually, I felt myself mummified by the dark.

Then I opened my eyes. And I was in hell.

It was everything they said and more. The lakes of fire, the rusted metal racks of torture and pain, the anguished cried of the suffering.

I looked around me and took it all in, unmoving. How could I have ended up here? I wanted to sob, but somehow, I couldn't. The only thing could make my body do was walk.

Much to my surprise, no one ever stopped me, questioned me, or even noticed me. Everywhere I looked, horrifying creatures inflicted the worst torture I could imagine on screaming souls, ripping their bodies apart again and again. But none of the creatures so much as looked at me.

Still, I walked carefully and quietly, afraid to attract the attention of the muscled demons with blistering skin or the ferocious hellhounds with teeth dripping venom. But none seemed to see me, all the while my tears of fear and horror trapped behind my eyes.

As I became more confident that I could move unnoticed, my focus turned away from the monsters and onto the souls suffering at their hands. The horrors they inflicted were almost beyond imagining. I ached to offer a drop of water to the women being submerged again and again in boiling pitch or to speak a word of comfort to the men whose skin was being pulled from their bodies.

I swear I walked for years, wondering not only how but why I wandered freely while they were trapped in torment.

Until one day, I'd had enough.

Choking on the sobs caught in my throat, I stared at a creature made of eyes as it slowly, methodically broke each bone in a woman's body, pausing in between each snap and crush to let the screams echo through the caverns. The woman's clear blue eyes met mine, and I couldn't walk away. Slowly, I approached, keeping my gaze away from the myriad blinking eyes of her captor. I stood near her head and reached my trembling hands to stroke her tangled mess of hair.

"It's okay," I whispered, "I'm here."

At my words, her sobs took on a different tone, and I continued running my fingers lightly across her head, murmuring whichever hollow words of comfort came to mind. I chanced a quick glance at the creature still working its way across her already broken body, but still, it seemed to take no notice of my presence. I stayed with the woman until all 206 of her bones were cracked and splintered. All the while, she gazed and me through a window of tears, her shaking lips unable to form a sound other than groans of agony.

Eventually, I felt compelled to move on, leaving her cries of pain echoing behind me.

Next, I approached a man whose body was being filled with needles, each gleaming point puncturing a new spot in his skin until nothing could be seen but blood and metal. Just as the last time, I whispered words of comfort as his torture went on, his bloody eyes begging me for relief.

For years, for decades, for centuries I travelled, offering what solace I could through my stifled weeping. Until one day, there was a door in front of me. As I approached the burned wood and caressed the tarnished knob, the door swung open, and a cool breeze beckoned me to enter.

Inside waited the devil himself.

For the first time, a creature of hell looked me in the eyes. And he smiled.

I dropped to my knees, the eons of tears that I couldn't cry finally able to pour down my face.

"Why?" I asked through a sob. "Why am I here? Why am I being punished?"

"Oh, sweet child," his voice rumbled. "You aren't being punished. You are the punishment."

I shook my head, unable to comprehend what I'd just heard. A thousand replies spun through my head, but all I could choke out was, "No."

"Yes," he replied, his voice getting louder and angrier with every word. "A punishment and a lesson. To show the sinners just how disgusting they are by making them face a truly good soul, just like the ones they battered and broke in life. You see," he said quietly, "It's not just about punishment." He paused and leaned his lips close to my ear. "It's about understanding."

I dropped my head to the ground, wracked with the sobs of a thousand years, the centuries of pain finally filling me, and I could do no more.