Estimated reading time — 16 minutes

Today is the day it ends for him. Luther has his last meal, which is a cheeseburger, fries, and a soda. Luther looks at the men who watch him eat it, who look at him with disgust. Luther just smiles through his food as he eats. Besides, in a couple hours he is going to be dead. They are going to get what they want anyways. No matter. Nothing will happen to him afterwards. He learned that lesson a long time ago. There is no bigger plan. There is just an empty blackness that he will float through for eternity. If anything he will be more at peace than all of these poor bastards will be.

Whatever justice that they all hope he will get, will not come to pass. An hour later, he is marched into the execution chamber to receive the lethal injection. The families of his four victims sit on the other side of the glass, waiting for him. Fuck them. Luther lets himself be strapped onto the table, and lets himself be raised up to face the crowd in front of him. Luther only grins at them, which draws expressions of disgust from the families. The priest reads Luther his last rites before he is asked if he has any last words. Luther looks at them and simply says, “I’ll see you in Hell.”

Luther says his last words with a smile plastered on his face, and nods for them to get it over with. The first injection follows shortly after. He feels his eyes flicker shut, and he is unconscious. Luther doesn’t really feel anything. Or maybe he is so used to pain that it feels like nothing. But what he does feel, or more like the last thing he feels, is his ability to move. His body falls limp. There is some pain towards the end, and then it is over. But instead of darkness, Luther opens his eyes. He sits up straight, and sees everyone looking at him. No, they aren’t looking at him. They are looking through him. Luther turns around and stares in shock at his own body, lying lifeless on the table. Luther stands up and staggers away, fear now gripping him. What the fuck was going on? This isn’t supposed to happen. No, it is supposed to just be darkness. Just an empty void to float through. Not this!

“Luther Paltrow?” A male voice asks behind him. Luther turns around to see a tall man wearing a black suit, as well as a black fedora and gloves. “Who the fuck are you?” Luther demands. The man takes a few steps closer and checks his watch. “I am going to need you to come with me.” “Like hell I will!” snarls Luther, “Where the fuck am I going?” The man smiles ironically. “Hell. Punishment for your sins in life.” Luther staggers back. “No… no this isn’t supposed to happen! This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!”

The man nods. “That’s what a lot of people say… But regardless, you need to come with me.” Luther doesn’t budge. “Like Hell I will!” The man laughs lightly. “That’s the idea.” In a second the man has Luther by the neck, locking him in a tight headlock. Luther gags and chokes as he struggles against the man’s grip. The man doesn’t look that much stronger than him, but it is locked like a vice. “Open below,” the man says. Luther watches as the ground opens up, leading to a large staircase that descends way down. Luther is dragged down the stairs by the man, who says nothing to Luther as it gets hotter and hotter. Luther is sweating, his mouth growing dry, his eyes burning and tears streaming down his face, which burns his face as well. When Luther finally reaches the bottom, he steps into a dark world, one with blood red clouds and constant thunder and lightning. One of these lightning strikes hits him dead in the head, flooding his body with searing hot electricity and painful vibrations. It feels like he is on fire from the inside out. Luther collapses to the ground, but he doesn’t lose consciousness, the pain flowing through his body.

“Yeah, that happens once in a while. If you’re unlucky enough.” Luther barely has time to take it in as he is brought into a large building, and taken through hallways that remind him of prison, complete with strange looking guards. Now Luther is afraid. He isn’t prepared for this. At all. He gave up on religion and spirituality very early in life. He convinced himself that none of this was real. That nothing they did truly mattered beyond their life in the moment. But he was wrong. Oh, how he was wrong. And now he is going to pay dearly for it, whatever that price is. Luther is eventually led into a large room with multiple large doors, a furnace, and numerous inhuman guards standing watch. A hooded man approaches the reaper. “New inmate, I see,” Hooded Man says.
The Fedora Man nods. “Luther Paltrow. Serial killer. Five victims.” Hooded Man grins. “I see. Chamber Five?” “Chamber Five.” “What the hell is Chamber Five?” Luther demands, his voice cracking and trembling. “Oh you’ll find out soon enough, don’t you worry,” Hooded Man tells Luther.

They burn his hand on some kind of ashtray, and burn a scroll that states his name. Luther no longer exists. Besides a grave stone, he will be condemned here forever. There will be no saving him, and nobody will mourn him. But that is just the start of his pain and misery. The vault-like door to Chamber Five is thrown up, and he is thrown in shortly after. From then on it is a never ending torment. Waves of countless human bodies are thrown about in a constant storm of pain and screaming. Luther finds himself crushed under bodies of men and women, who bite and scratch at him, sometimes tearing chunks of his flesh and muscle out. But Luther doesn’t bleed out, and he doesn’t die. Instead he heals, only to be torn apart again. He doesn’t know how long it iss before he finally decides to fight back.

There is no concept of time in Hell. It is eternal. A never ending cycle of torment, inflicted on himself and on others. But Luther isn’t one to stop fighting. Nor is he one to stop killing. It is what he had been doing his whole human life after all. A constant fight for survival until he was at the top of the food chain. Luther punches, scratches, bites, kicks, and does whatever he can to pull himself from the bottom. When he breaches the surface of bodies, it becomes another struggle. Masked creatures carrying spears and swords wait on higher surfaces and the cavern-like ceilings above, occasionally dropping into the pile to inflict more pain. Luther watches several of the creatures stab and dismember a man and throw his body parts around the seemingly endless chamber, including his still living head. Luther endures something similar to this several times before finally being able to fight back against the creatures. But it still isn’t enough.

Soon, reality hit him. In this place, he is no longer a ruthless killer, or a feared man. So was everyone else in Chamber Five at one point or another. It doesn’t matter who he is. He is just another damned soul. Luther at one point takes the spear, and uses it to fight the creatures and fight off those who try to pull him back down. But then the waves start again, and he is crushed under a mountain of bodies once again. Whenever this happened, the creatures would start tearing their way through the piles. This is always the worst part. There is nowhere for him to run, and no room for him to fight. Whenever this happens, he has to brace for the pain as the creatures gut him and tear him apart, just like the others. He has to watch his head fly into the air, get snatched by one of those things hanging from the ceiling, before feeling and watching his eyes get chewed out before being thrown back into the pile. Then, after an even longer period of time, he would be put back together, and he would have to fight his way back to the top all over again. And the flow of people being thrown into Chamber Five doesn’t stop either. There is always new competition.

But then, one day, he is given a way out. While clawing his way through the middle of the pile, there is a beam of red light that broke through, blinding all of them. The creatures, though, do not flinch, simply getting out of the way and seizing their activities for the time being. A large creature, with large leathery wings, carrying a large spiked weapon, armored horns on its head, glowing, menacing eyes piercing through them, steps out of the portal. The creature lumbers from the portal stomping on the piles of bodies and crushing numerous souls under its large feet.

It searches for Luther until it finds him, picking him up with ease, despite Luther’s resistance. The creature pulls him through the portal, dumping him onto another hellscape that he does not recognize. But it is solid ground. For the first time in what felt like centuries, he feels solid, rocky ground, ignoring the pain as it burns his feet. A group of humanoid creatures carrying what looked like guns seize him and begin marching him across the rocky landscape. Creatures fly around in the sky, inhuman screeching, wailing, howling, and roaring echo constantly. They soon come to a large palace made of bone and stone.

He is led inside, where he is taken into a hall made of black stone that seems to pulsate every so often. “Where am I going?” Luther asks weakly. Instead of an answer, the creatures escorting him beat him into the ground. “That’ll be enough,” a voice calls. They release him, and pull Luther to his feet. Standing at the end of the hall was the silhouette of a man, wearing a military officer’s uniform. Luther is pushed towards the man, until he is a few feet away from him. The man stands a few inches taller than him, wearing a crisp, black uniform, with strange medals and designs that he also does not recognize. The man looks like a zombie. Withered, gray skin, pushed so far into his face that Luther can see his skull and teeth. His eyes are empty, though they glow red in a way that even Luther has to admit intimidated him. The man stands at perfect attention, looking Luther up and down. “Follow me,” he says.

Luther trudges behind the officer, who walks at a stiff, yet smooth pace, standing perfectly straight and looking straight ahead. Luther looked around at the vast hallway, which is lined with statues and portraits of himself and other men, wearing similar uniforms. Finally, they come to a door at the end, which is guarded by two armored soldiers, wearing skulls for masks. The officer nods to them, and they pull open the doors. Luther is shocked to discover that it looks like a normal office. Except for the carved desk with a snarling demon face sculpted on the front, and it iss lit with fire not lights, like the place he was taken to.

The officer sits down and looks Luther in the eyes. “I am General Steil. Commander of the Second Agony Legion.” Luther doesn’t answer, only waiting to see what he will say next. “I understand you were a murderer in life.” Luther doesn’t answer. “You still have a mouth in Hell, you know. You can speak.” Luther shakes his head. “Just get on with it.” General Steil grins, revealing rotted, broken teeth. “To the point. I like it.” Steil pulls out an ashy paper. “I’ve been watching you for a while now. Four hundred years to be exact.” Luther’s eyes go wide. “What do you mean ‘four hundred years’?” “In Hell,” Steil answers, “Time works very differently. On Earth it was probably four days or four weeks. Maybe four months but that’s unlikely.” “So what, you’d just been watching me this whole time?”

“Well not you exactly. I watch Chamber Five to look for recruits. Many of us do. I watched you go from being a piece of meat at the bottom of the pile, to the king of the fucking hill. For that, I am rewarding your efforts with freedom.” Luther eyes him suspiciously. “What kind of freedom?”

Steil clears his throat, which sounds more like a ragged cough. “We’re at war. We have been for over a millenia. It’s us, and the ones above. You have been unfortunate enough to be condemned here, to below. Every once in a while we expand our army not through creation, but through recruitment. If a soul is seen as useful enough, we offer them a chance. You fight for us, or you suffer until the End of Times, and then you suffer some more after that.”

Luther takes a moment to think. Luther isn’t sure “What would I do?” “You would be an Agony Trooper. Think of a walking, breathing, killing machine. Literally. You would serve with me and my unit, and we will train and fight whenever we’re needed.” “And what would that be?” “Well, it’s mostly training. Our real battle won’t be until the End Times. But every once in a while there will be a spiritual war, or an assault by the enemy on our home territory. But what matters is that you will no longer be tortured in those awful chambers. You aren’t the first I’ve recruited from there. Nearly everyone is eager to get out when given the option. And judging from the looks of you and your condition, I would recommend you take it.”

Luther knows he isn’t wrong. He doesn’t want to spend any more time in Chamber Five. The constant feeling of being crushed by bodies, or torn apart by other souls or those damned creatures. But at the same time, does he want to risk spending the rest of his afterlife as some kind of soldier for the Devil? How much better would that be? But, in the end, he decides that it will have to be better than spending another four hundred years in Chamber Five again. “I’ll take it. Anything to get me the fuck out of here.” Steil grins. “All right. Good choice. Welcome to my Legion.”

Luther is taken to a factory complex, complete with heavy machinery, smoke, and goblin-like creatures and other human souls laboring on various projects. Luther soon finds himself standing in front of a towering suit of armor, with multiple weapons hanging on hooks and pulleys on either side. The armor was opened up, revealing screws and spikes pointing outwards. “Oh shit,” he breathes. “Step inside,” one of the goblins hisses. Luther climbs the ladder nearby and climbs in the human-shaped cockpit. He rests himself inside, and almost feels the cockpit mold around him so that he is snug inside. The goblin creature leaps onto his chest, inspecting the mold. The goblin gives a sinister smile before saying “Brace yourself.”

Before Luther can ask anything further, he watches the armor close up tight. It is pitch black inside, with no window or anything in the cockpit. How is he supposed to see and move? But once again, before Luther can ask, he gets his answer. A few seconds later he feels dozens of screws, spikes, and other sharp objects impale his arms, legs, chest, neck, head, and spine. Luther screams so loud that his throat goes hoarse and his vocal chords nearly crack. “What the fuck?!” he cries as white hot, unimaginable agony and pain courses through his veins. Suddenly, his vision turns red, and he is looking at the factory, the goblin creatures looking at him and inspecting the suit. The inside of the suit begins feeling like an oven, and his skin begins to burn, and his sweat begins to fry on his flesh. Luther doesn’t scream, only cries with pain. The first time he’s shed any tears since he was a child being tortured by his sadistic parents.

As Luther looks around, he realizes that he can not only move his head, but he can move the suit’s head as well. He is now hooked up directly to the machine. He watches as the creatures guide the pulleys down, lowering the weapons until they are leveled with his arms and shoulders. More pain follows as each one is hooked up to his new body. It feels like they are being drilled into his flesh and bone, even if it is only to the machine’s arms. Luther can’t breathe, he is burning up, his body feels like it has been ripped to shreds but he is still intact. The pain is worse even than the pain he experienced in Chamber Five. That was mixed with discomfort, noise, and pain that would eventually wear off once he was put back together. He had gotten used to it, and while it didn’t stave it off, he could put it out of his mind. This is a consistent, ever escalating agony that feels like it is hurting him on every single level in a continuous cycle of torture. His mind and spirit feel like they are no more, leaving only a withered shell hooked up to this steel contraption.

Finally, he is released from the hooks that were linked up to the machine’s back, and he can move forward. It doesn’t stop. Every motion, even the smallest gesture or flinch, brings forth a wave of excruciating pain. So this is why they call it an Agony Trooper. Luther now towers over everything, looking down even at things that once looked down at him. Another Trooper marches in front of him, and Luther decides to follow it out of the complex. Soon enough, Luther finds himself walking in line with over a dozen other Troopers and monsters that are smaller and bigger than he is. A dragon-like creature flies overhead and travels West, flying through the thunderstorm that illuminates its massive intimidating silhouette. Another Agony Trooper walks side by side with him, though he isn’t sure if that is by choice.

The Agony Trooper stands as tall as he did, two razor sharp blades anchored to both its arms, a metallic armored head where the cockpit should’ve been. There is also some kind of small cannon on its arm, but it is hooked up to the back and not armed. The Trooper moves awkwardly, and Luther can hear what sounds like a woman in pain groaning inside the machine. They eventually reach another base, where other Troopers who look just like them are all lined up. Some of those Troopers look different. One is colossal, with multiple weaponized arms, three large heads, and extra cannons on top and something at the center of its chest. Another is more lean, and carries a large serrated sword.

The Trooper next to Luther is knocked over and the woman goes down with a scream. There is deep guttural laughter from some of the Troopers, as a bulkier Trooper with a massive cannon for a face steps on her. Luther braces for a fight as two other Troopers close the distance. There is grunting to his left as he sees several of the Troopers fighting the new ones. One charges at Luther, raising its sword. Luther raises his arms, triggering another wave of intense pain as the two collide.

Luther screams as he hit the ground, sending a jolt up his back that nearly paralyzes him. But that isn’t possible. Not in this world, and not in this life. Luther’s screams turn to roars of rage as his killing instinct kicks in and he throws a punch, connecting the bladed end with the Trooper’s head. There are sparks and a crash as the Trooper staggers back. “Motherfucker!” she growls. Luther growl under his breath as he charges forward, suddenly ignoring his torture. Suddenly a shot rings out from a cannon, and everyone stops what they are doing. Another Trooper looms over the cliffside, looking down at its army. This one has a different design, with a much larger build, a large rifle-like construct holstered on its back, with a snarling animal face with horns protruding from the front. The head opens up, revealing General Steil in the center.

He is shirtless now, revealing all the nails and plugs impaling and hooking up to his body. But Steil doesn’t look like he feels any of it. In fact, he welcomes it, a twisted smile plastered on his face. “My fellow brothers and sisters of Agony!” He bellows, his voice projecting as if he is right in front of Luther’s face. “I see you have welcomed our new recruits!” The other Troopers cheer loudly, some banging their weapons together in a concussive symphony. “And now for your final test! To prove you have what it takes to fight for His Dark Majesty!”

The other Troopers move out of the way, leaving Luther and five other Troopers standing in the center, facing a large gate in the rocky wall. Luther took a step back as the gate began to lift. There was a low growl from inside, as Luther heard something begin crawling out. What the fuck did he get himself into? Luther and the others gaze in horror at the creature that crawls out of its dark abyss that is its cage. It is long and lean, moving on all fours, with long skinny claws with sharp talons at the end. It had thick, crimson colored skin, with thick bony ridges and spikes lining its spine that looked razor sharp. On the sides, starting from the lower back up to the neck, are long appendages with barbs about several inches long that swung around, ready to strike at whoever got too close.

Its head is narrow, with a long snout, but there aren’t distinctive features, other than a skull-like armor on its face, with long canines and gnashing teeth. It had no eyes, only sunken eye holes. The creature lets out a screech that sounds like a ghostly wail mixed with a bird cry. Luther raises his weapons, but they aren’t activated. The swords are still slightly retracted. That punch earlier was a lucky strike delivered at close range. As Luther struggles to figure out how it worked, the creature charges forward. The other Troopers cheered and taunted as it attacked Luther’s group. Luther dives out of the way as it leaps at him, falling awkwardly on his face. The creature lands with ease and immediately turns to face them as a Trooper rushes forward to take it down.

The creature swings its tendrils, the barbs and spikes slicing and tearing at the armor. The Trooper screams his throat raw as it falls to its knees. The creature roars again and jumps on top of the machine, ripping the head and front armor open, and tearing the man out, shredding him to pieces. “Come on, come on,” Luther grunts, trying to activate the blades on his arms. The other Troopers around them jeer and shout at them as the creature moves onto the next.

“Let’s go, you pussies!”

“Aw, don’t be shy! Move in! Let’s go!”

“You call yourself a man?!”

Luther wants to snap back, but he has no time to worry about that as the creature is now charging him. He raises his arms in self defense as the creature leaps in the air, tendrils and arms ready to strike. Searing pain cuts through his arms as the creature tries to tear through his defenses. But Luther holds strong, planting his feet as it collides into him, digging him into the hot, rocky earth. The creature snaps and snarls at him, its eyes darting between him and the Troopers beginning to surround it. The creature shoots its tendrils outwards and begins holding the others off on their own, leaving Luther to fend for himself. Luther strains to keep it at bay, eventually grabbing it by the jaw and pushing it back. He throws several punches with his right arm, the edge of the blade cutting at the creature’s face and neck. It is enough for it to stagger back, but once again not enough damage.

As Luther staggers to his feet, he realizes that his body is now numb. The pain now feels like a heavy buzz in his body, throbbing and pulsating every so often. Luther stands weakly as the creature attacks and kills another Trooper, once again ripping open the machine and tearing the pilot straight out, leaving him in pieces. Luther looks at his retracted weapons, still wondering what exactly he needs to do to get it to work. An Agony Trooper from earlier raises her arm which has a mounted cannon. She fires a glowing dark orange projectile, throwing her arm back and sending her off balance. The shot clips the side of the creature, knocking it over with a shriek of pain. “Thrust your arm forward,” the woman grunts, “That’ll activate it!”

Luther looks at his arm and thrust his arm forward. Instantly, the blade swings outwards, feeling as if it was slicing through his skin. He does the same with the other arm, and now he is fully armed. The blades began rotating like a chainsaw, creating a loud metallic whirring sound. Luther raises his blades as the creature charges again, taking the other Trooper to the ground, and slashing at the third that tried to approach from the rear. Luther readies his stance and prepares to strike, keeping his eye on the tendrils and the claws as it rushes forward.

Wait for it…

The creature shrieks, closing the distance. The female Trooper firing her cannon is struck with one of the barbs, which slashed=s across the head, and breaks through the armor. But the creature is focusing on him, charging at him with sheer animalistic rage.

Wait for it…

It leaps.

Now!

As it goes for a strike, Luther swings his right arm, connecting with the plating on its face and neck, slicing a chunk of it off and breaking skin. It roars in pain, but it still doesn’t fall. “Come on you bastard!” Luther yells, this time going forward. The creature spits blood and attacks again. Luther dodges, and backhands with his left arm, slicing a few of its tendrils off. “Hit it! Now!” Luther shouts to the last two Troopers. They open fire on the creature, and this time it takes damage to the face and body. Enraged, the creature screams, and makes one last attempt at an attack. Luther “From this point on they will be on your side. You will learn to work with all factions of our Dark Majesty’s Legions. It will be painful, and it will be punishing, but that is Hell, even in this side of things. Now let me ask you, are you ready for your new purpose?”

Luther does not hesitate. “I am,” he says. The other two do the same. Steil smiles. “Good.” He marches back to the center of the group. “Troopers! Welcome your new brothers and sisters!” The Troopers turn to face them and let out a collective cheer, and Luther and the others join the group. Luther smiles to himself, welcoming his newfound sense of purpose and belonging. Looks like he stuck it to them after all.

Credit: GhostShogun28