Cozy's Inferno: a Journey through the Darkest Void

Cozy Glow

Me, Sunset and Helel, our guide, had no choice but to continue walking through the marshlands in the near complete darkness. The only light coming from Sunset’s torch. I tried not to think about the worms and bugs my hooves crushed underneath. My hooves kept sinking into the bug-infested marshes if I stood in one place for too long, leaving me with little choice but to keep walking through the marshland. What made matters worse was the swarms of insects, mosquitoes and hornets that harassed us every step of the way. Occasionally stinging me and Sunset. However, Helel was left alone by the insects, the swarms seemingly being repelled by the bright light within them. The flame of hope from Sunset’s torch seemed to have the opposite effect on them, the swarms being drawn to it as if it was honey. There was something incredibly strange with Helel, for their feet didn’t seem to sink into the marshlands the way it did for me and Sunset, instead they seemed to hover above it like they possessed no mass whatsoever. All of this would be manageable if it wasn’t for the visions of that young filly I saw when I first entered through the Gates of Perdition. She would always appear at the edge of my vision, hanging from the air in a noose and whispering something in my ear along the lines of:

“This is all your fault.”

Eventually I managed to jog my memory enough to remember her, Aurora, she was an earth pony that I knew in the orphanage where I was raised, she was the closest thing I had to a friend. Both of us had always been the odd ones out, the socially awkward geeks that the other kids liked to bully and harass, it was difficult, but we got through it because we relied on one another.

But I eventually got tired of being everypony’s punching bag and started to hide my real self behind a façade, a façade that reflected what the others wanted me to be. In a short amount of time, I had managed to go from one of the most unpopular kids to among the most popular, all because I started lying to both others and myself. If there was a point in time where Cozy Glow the lying manipulator was born, it was here.

The price paid for my newfound popularity was that I left Aurora in the dust, I never actively bullied her myself, but I did nothing to stop it, and I would refuse to associate with her from that point onward to not sacrifice my recent popularity. It eventually ended with Aurora hanging herself in her room, for without me at her side, she just couldn’t take it. I had always told myself that it wasn’t my fault, that Aurora should’ve been stronger, that she should’ve done what I did, put up a façade and be only who others wanted you to be so that you could be loved. But now I finally understood, by doing nothing to help her, I could just as well have tightened the noose around her neck myself. The death of Aurora was the very first major sin that stained my soul. I told Aurora’s ghost:

“I am sorry, I wish I could go back in time and help you, but what’s done is done, I can now only ask for your forgiveness.”

Aurora’s ghost nodded and told me one final thing before it disappeared, this time for good:

“Find me in my place of eternal torment, seek me out in the Forest of Suicides.”

That was a foreboding name for a place if I had ever heard one.

As we continued through the marshlands, I could occasionally see the ruins of buildings, its architecture coming from the many different cultures and places, very few which I recognized, but there was some Equestrian architecture in here as well, the buildings seemed to be slowly sinking into the muck. I would also see the outlines of groups of people in the darkness, the light from Sunset’s torch illuminating them as we got closer. The group consisted of both humans and ponies, but also larger winged creatures like Helel, only that the light that made up Helel wasn’t present in them, instead they seemed to consist of featureless dim fog, their wings were clipped and chained, a shroud cowering their face.

They were all marching in large groups, constantly harassed by insects, carrying banners with no iconography. From time to time one of these people would stumble and fall into the marshes, only to get up and continue their march. I asked Helel who these people were, their answer sent a shiver down my spine:

“These people are the souls of the indifferent, those who chose to do neither good nor evil, those who by their inaction allowed evil to happen. After all, all that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. They are doomed to march here harassed by insects for all eternity, marching under meaningless banners symbolizing their lack of cause in life. There are also Malakhim here, their beauty shrouded to prevent the other damned from getting even a sliver of relief from the beauty of my kind. During the War in Heaven, a third of our kind sided with Lucifer in support of freedom and autonomy, another third sided with Yaldabaoth in pursuit of order and perfection. But there was also the last third who didn’t take a side at all. Yet that was enough for Yaldabaoth to reject them, for in their eyes if you were not with them, you were against them, confining their souls to these marches as a punishment for their indecisiveness. It is a testament to Yaldabaoth’s cruelty that they punished even those who remained neutral. Not that I am especially fond of them either, these Malakhim were cowards who wouldn’t take a stand against tyranny. Yet if you think their fate is bad, you should see the fate of those who took an active stand against the Demiurge.”

Helel seemed to get progressively angrier when he was talking about the indecisive angels, but it was the name Yaldabaoth Helel pronounced with real contempt. Sunset also seemed visibly disturbed by all of this, voicing her grievances to both me and Helel:

“I understand that not doing anything to stop something bad from happening when you have the power to do that is awful. But isn’t all this a bit much? Most of the people here are not evil people, don’t they deserve the chance to redeem themselves? I am sure everyone here would learn from their mistakes given the opportunity.”

Helel tried her best to explain to her that the powers that condemned these souls didn’t care, her image of goodness being very different from that of Yaldabaoth.

Eventually we would reach the shore of a blood red river so vast we couldn’t see the other side from the riverbank. There were countless people waiting at the shore, humans and ponies, all insubstantial like ghosts and shadows, which made it hard to make out facial features and distinguish one person from another. Helel told us that this was the river Acheron, where the ferryman Charon would ferry the souls of the damned to their eternal punishment. A boat would eventually arrive, and enormous ark larger than any seafaring vessel I had previously seen, made to house thousands upon thousands of people, yet it didn’t appear big enough to house all the people who were waiting at the shore. The boat appeared almost tiny compared to the gigantic boatman who helmed it. Charon was a gigantic bipedal creature, he had long white hair and beard, and his eyes burned as pyres blessing upon the inextinguishable darkness of the air without the star, Charon carried an enormous oar, Crimson with blood and fire. His voice was thunder, shaking the water as he spoke, telling the damned to get on the boat.

When I first saw this creature, I could feel a primal fear deep into my bone, overpowering even the constant freezing chill that consumed my entire being always. Whatever Charon was it was something ancient and terrible. Helel approached the boatman, demanding passage to the other side for them and to me and Sunset. Charon chuckled, and told him the following:

“You, you belong in the deepest recesses of the abyss, but them, they are still alive, they don’t belong here, not yet anyway. Why should I carry them across?”

Helel was clever, explaining to Charon that they were hoping to take us on a guided tour through the underworld, so that these mortals could learn the error of their ways. Charon accepted this as an answer and allowed us on the boat. Charon telling his demonic henchmen to leave us be. These henchmen were bipedal, with rough scaly skin, a horned head like a goat and a pair of batlike wings, something about them reminded me of Helel, but these were far more malevolent.

As we boarded the boat, we did so together with thousands of others, these strange shadowy non-substantial beings, Helel called them the dolorous people, and explained that we were the only ones here with substance to us as we were still alive. The only way to distinguish one of the dolorous people was if we met someone we knew in life. We were packed very tight, like sardines. As the boat set off to the other shore, the souls of the indifferent tried to climb aboard, but Charon would smite them with his oar, making them fall into the blood red river. I couldn’t help but pity them. The ride across took an indeterminate amount of time, could have been minutes, could have been years, it was hard to tell in this place, for there was no sun, moon or stars to help you determine the passage of time.