1 Hell

Pain. Such a displeasing word. Why is there pain in this world, why must I be submitted to this suffering?

Hell, the place where those that have committed terrible crimes pay for their acts, it's also the place where I currently am. Why am I in hell you might ask?

Well, there's no better place to put a true murderer in this world. Even when my crime was perfectly justified, I still have to be put through this misery, forever entangled in a dance with the devil. Forever imprisoned in an endless darkness, condemned to suffer for eternity.

…

Ethan Edwards, a young man born in England. After marrying at a young age of no less than 23, he got to experience life as a husband and father.

Being born from a wealthy family, there was nothing that Ethan could ever want that he couldn't get, which led him to believe he was the most special being, a man of unquestionable will.

Later, he went on doing terrible things, using his money and political power to use others as pawns in his interests.

But fate is merciless to any. By using others, he himself was used by others. Involved in a conspiracy of unprecedented levels, he was guided into losing everything he ever had.

His father fell ill and lost his mind, dying a few years later. His mother, taken by grief, took her life by her own hands. His wife, having married him for no more than his money and power, abandoned him once his standing diminished in level. And his son, his last hope, the only one that kept to his side after everything, lost his life in a bank assault.

Having no one else, Ethan threw himself into self pity, drugs, and alcoholism, without the courage to kill himself. There was nothing else to him, only a previously gray soul, now corrupted by depression, hatred, and sin.

Moved by his wish to end his miserable existence, Ethan murdered the man that created his suffering, and took his life with an overdose of morphine.

He's now locked in a darkness that he himself calls 'Hell'. But such a place is not the last for Ethan, his fate is another one. He shall be used once more, but this time, it shall have a grander purpose.

…

In the Darkness.

After an impossibly long, but also incredibly short, period of time, Ethan finds himself awakened by an indescribable voice, a voice that pertains to the fundamental concepts of this reality itself, "Do you wish to leave?"

"What…" Ethan, surprised by the suddenness of the voice's appearance, failed to answer it immediately.

"If you wish to leave, I could let you. Haha, it's been a very long time since an 'Original Soul' has been corrupted to such a degree, by letting you out, I would finally get some quality entertainment."

Original Soul? Terrified that the voice would go back on its words, Ethan had no time to consider the foreign term and immediately answered, "YES! I want to go out, please, send me out!"

"HAHAHA, such quality entertainment. Very well, I'll send you out, but I have no authority to let you go back to your previous reality, 'That Guy' wouldn't like that."

"It doesn't matter where you send me, just please, take me out from this miserable, suffering, I implore you!" The suffering this place caused was different from common pain, it was more like his mind was being weighed by an entire planet, unable to extricate itself from it.

"Anywhere, are you sure?" The voice asked with an amusing tone.

"YES! Anywhere! Please!"

"You might regret that." The tone of the voice suddenly changed, now it seemed to have a sharpness that cut through the listener's mind.

After that, the voice disappeared, with the darkness soon following suit.

…

June 28th, 1349, Backlund, East Borough, in a small cemetery.

A young gravekeeper was wiping the tombstones to prevent them from accumulating any moss.

*TUSH

Suddenly a pale palm emerges from the tombstone in front of him, "AHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Terrified by the sight of a long deceased and buried corpse suddenly coming to life, he abandons the dirtied cloth in front of him, running for his life.

*RUSTLE

The corpse, having its palm exposed from below the earth, immediately propels itself from the ground, ascending from its current predicament.

"That voice actually let me leave that dark hell?" The corpse was none other than Ethan, having escaped 'Hell'.

After getting up from the ground, Ethan immediately analyzed his body.

He was in perfect condition, very different from the state a corpse should be in. The only problem was, "An old man? Are you kidding me?"

His body was full of wrinkles and had an aged appearance overall.

After a brief analysis of his current situation, Ethan turned around and inspected the tombstone of which he raised from, trying to find out his name and age.

However, looking at the tombstone, he couldn't find anything written on it.

"Is this old man from unknown origins? Well, that makes things easier, as long as I leave this place I should be able to live the rest of my short life without any disturbances" He crouched down and started walking towards what looked like a gate, keeping low to the ground and close to the shadows all the time.

'It's best that the young guy that ran away doesn't see me.' After reaching the gate, he noticed it was wide open, probably from the young man going on a sprint.

'Good thing we're in the middle of the night, and as it's also clouded, it's perfect for me to leave unnoticed.' Sprinting with his body lowered, almost touching the ground, Ethan was finally able to leave the cemetery.

After circling around and entering an intersection, he heaved a sigh of relief. "Now, it seems the old man was some kind of tramp, he probably died due to illness and was buried in the cemetery, as no one knew his name, his tombstone had nothing to be written on it."

Looking at his clothes, Ethan came to a conclusion that the body he currently possessed was from a tramp. "On the other hand, why was he buried in a cemetery? By the looks of the current architecture and that gravekeeper's clothes, this seems to be the industrial era, most certainly a mere tramp wouldn't be buried at all in these turbulent times, being cremated in a factory's furnace would be too much already."

Ethan finally had the time to sit and analyze his current situation. "I am now a resident of this world, and I don't even know anything about it. What's even worse is that my body is old and rusted, I could catch a cold and die the day after tomorrow for all I know, sigh, really, I find myself in another miserable situation."

Before Ethan could continue his vents, he noticed a group of drunkards coming in his direction. After thinking about the condition of the street he was in, and the fact that it was the middle of the evening, Ethan realized that the drunkards might just be robbers that would make his current situation even more difficult to handle, so he hastily made way through another intersection on the street.

"Sigh… I need to find a place to stay, but it's best if I can find one with better streets, it's probable this is a big city judging by the state of the streets."

Ethan was very exhausted, and after staying in that 'Hell' for far too long, he decided it was time to find a place to sleep, even if it was in the middle of the road.

'I'll have to resolve the food problem later.' Trying to find a way to leave the dangerous-looking place he was currently in, Ethan noticed something, a dying man on the side of the road, with his chest completely open.

The man had an enchanting appearance, with lustrous black hair, captivating blue eyes, and a garment dominated by black attire.

'What the fuck!? How can he still be alive with that horrible injury?' The man was currently lying with his back against a number of steps, seemingly on the brink of death.

The dying man looked at him, he seemed to be smiling at him, it was a kind of smile that screamed of amusement, "Those motherfuckers, hahaha. They will soon have another Criminal on the streets, hahahahaha."

The man seemed to be going insane from his injuries, murmuring incomprehensible things about Criminals and other things in a language Ethan couldn't understand.

However, having sustained such severe injuries, he soon went on to lose his life, falling to the dirty ground on his side. The moment the man died, Ethan considered just leaving him be, but the possibility of the money that could be hidden on the man made him act otherwise.

Approaching the corpse, he started rummaging through its pockets, finding several notes with faces he didn't recognize, a silver inlaid lighter, a revolver with a full black body, and a pack of 12 bullets. During this period, Ethan's mind seemed to be taken by greed, he just wanted everything the corpse had, going to the point of unclothing the dead man to take his fine-looking black trousers, long coat, boots, and top hat.

This didn't take Ethan much time, only 3 to four minutes. But after finishing, he realized there was something else on the corpse, something he didn't find before. There was what seemed to be an eyeball full of popping blood vessels on it, it had an incredibly dark luster and evil aura around it.

Before Ethan could even consider what it was, his mind was taken by an inconceivable hunger, a gluttony of disproportionate proportions.

Ethan immediately picked the dark eyeball full of blood vessels, stuffing it into his mouth without a moment's notice like a hungry beast. After that, his actions immediately stopped, his body falling to the ground like a bag of potatoes.

Ethan's mind was now in chaos, a bunch of incomprehensible knowledge started being engraved in his mind, along with a torrent of memories that didn't belong to him.

After a full 5 minutes, Ethan was finally able to regain his consciousness and clarity of mind. "What… was… that…?"

Still a bit dizzy from the amount of information his mind suddenly received, and confused by the reforms that happened to his body during this short period of time, Ethan was unable to immediately act.

However, just a few seconds later, he finally regained his bearing. There was something different though, many memories were swirling in his consciousness

"Charles Roqueford." Ethan suddenly said a name. It was none other than the name of the dead man that he just robbed of his possessions.