Vicious_Cycle (vicious_cycle) wrote,
@ 2010-01-26 22:15:00

Entry tags:

Murderworld
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Ghost Rider follows the trail set for him. While its clearly a trap, the demon is very hard to kill and he knows it, and somehow, the aura of terrible sin, and this feels like some of the worst in a city known for its sin at times, has always been irresistable to the Spirit of Vengeance. Nick has let the demon have reign for now, gunning the engine and riding deep into the park after the trail.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 08:25 am UTC (link)

In good Inferno form, the last level was a frozen room, perfectly circular. The floor, or what could be called a floor, made from a plane of ice in which exactly one hundred people were entombed. Their hands, as frozen as the rest of the place, reaching out of the ice, faces twisted with screams looking out from just beneath the otherwise smooth surface. In the center of the room, where Satan should be held by the ice, stood a circular pillar that rose to support the domed ceiling above.

The pillar was made of plastisteel and stone and metal. An entirely smooth surface coated in ice. When circled, the Rider would find he could look in on three rooms, the sight blurred slightly by the frozen water.

It was in these rooms that the sinners resided. Safe behind the plastic that wouldn't crack or break even when frozen to forty below. There two men and one woman played with their victims. Each had been given nine. All were still alive. All suffered while those three sinners ignored everything but the ones they tormented.

The final door of this hell shut behind the rider, trapping him within.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 08:31 am UTC (link)

No!

No!

No!

The Rider blasted the plastic with the flames of hell... to no avail. He could feel the magical rituals performed on them by some dark sorceror, likely at great cost, repelling the hellfire.

Even the barbed chains don't scratch them.

Flaming hands ball into skeletal fists, and the rider hammers at one of the walls. It doesn't even have the good grace to scratch or char, no way to mark it even to hide the vision before him.

He howls at Vengeance denied. If they could hear him, the sinners would feel their very souls at peril for these sins, and yet the room is obviously soundproofed too, as they carry on.

The Rider's eyesockets burn with an unholy light, looking in on one of the scenes and sinners, unable to look away, close enough to feel the horrible stench of the evil that lays beyond, just out of reach.

And only then, for the first time in forever, does he begin to feel the chill reaching out for his bones.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 08:45 am UTC (link)

He looked in on Leanora 'Ginger' Nelson. She had issues with men. They were never good enough... never handsome enough... never wealthy enough... never loved her enough... never, never, NEVER!

But she had such a big heart, she always had to give them a chance. She had been given nine men to choose from. She was the bachelorette of her own little world and they were here to earn her favor.

The first was a nervous little thing. A smart man, from the looks of it, with those little black glasses and nice button up shirt. She loosened his tie and smiled at him, laughed as he joked about leaving. Why would he want to leave, he just got there and they were going to have such a good time.

She pushed him down on the couch and sat on his lap, pressing kisses to his neck. He tried to push her away and she felt her heart break. She'd given everything for him. Just like every other man. And he was pushing her away. She just wanted love. Was that so much to ask?

Her hand, perfectly manicured, flew across his face. A redding welt and scratches from the nails shocking him into submission for a moment. It was long enough for her to get his pants open. Long enough for her to take that tie of his and tighten it even as she began to jerk him off.

His face began to go purple as the scratched at his neck. Desperate for air as his body reacted to the stimulation. Her legs were spread and she was pushing him inside her. Taking the pleasure she wanted, taking the love she needed.

His body shuddered and his arms fell to the side, limp as the last of his life drained from him. She continued to ride that half formed erection, reveling in how it got harder after he was dead. Rigor mortis set in fast where blood clumped the most. She was almost there, almost to her climax when his body relaxed, bowels emptying beneath her... inside her. She gave a frustrated growl and leaned forward to admonish his dead form for leaving her unsatisfied even when he could no longer do anything.

She pulled away, dejected as she went to the closet and pulled out a new dress. She still had eight more dates to go this night. And even though the men were never good enough... never loved her enough... her heart was just so very big.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 08:51 am UTC (link)

His hands go to the sides of his head and he screams. The ice hanging from the ceiling shatters at the banshee howl, raining down what for some would be crystalline death on the floor. It tears his jacket and pants, but melts before it reaches the flaming bones. The enchanted walls are untouched.

He hammers at the wall, a bony knuckle cracking under the force while the wall shows no impression of it.

In torment, feeling the sin, but unable to quite touch it, and just feeling that he's the one man, out of all of them who can see her, that she won't look at... won't look into his eyes and feel her victims' pain, he staggers and stumbles to his knees, finding himself peering into a second of the rooms.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 09:06 am UTC (link)

The Rider found himself gazing at a man of God. Reverend John Kline, a priest who could see the sins of everyone around him and was finally given the means to do something more than preach on dead ears.

He was given a room with eight sinners. Nine counting the unborn child housed in the body of one. By request they were all chained to the floor and ceiling. Men and women locked with their heads down and their arms wrenched behind and up. Naked every one.

His sermon was already in progress as he dressed them down for their crimes against God. The first was the pregnant woman, and obviously so. An unwed mother that he mocked for her loose ways. Lipstick the color of blood, the color of a harlot, was forcefully pressed over her face. Painting her as the whore she was.

When he ended his prayer and she only cried and begged to be let go... for the sake of her child... he grabbed her hair and snarled at her. She had no right to ignore the Lord in such a manner. The bible, the good book, came down on her back. He would beat the sin out of her.

Again... and again... and again it fell. Her body, already strained by the chains, unable to hold up. Her shoulders were wrenched from their sockets, body falling like a broken doll as she screamed. Not just for the agony of her arms, but for the feeling of loss between her legs. The splash of liquid that dripped out and the life of the unborn innocent ceased to be while its mother sobbed and the Preacher began his sermon anew.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 09:14 am UTC (link)

The Rider's hands press to the plastic. He wills the flames of hell hotter and hotter, until it feels like they will sear even the bones of his hands. The pentagrams carved on Nicholas' palms, and somehow carry even into the bones of the rider's skeletal hands glow brighter and brighter.
A man who admonishes others for their sins and is blind to his own. It cuts Hell's Hunter to the core. One look, one moment of gazing into his eyes, and the man would see the wages of sin.

And the flames die down. The walls are unscathed. Whoever built this place knew what they were doing. Four walls to hold the devil's own, and freeze him to the quick.

The chill sets in a little deeper as he drags himself, bony fingertips screeching along the plastic, back to his feet. He can't even stagger now. The hunger, the damned hunger is too bad.

Using the wall for support, he crashes before the third scene, bones rattling in an unearthly tremble, unable to close lidless eyes to the horror that lies beyond.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 09:34 am UTC (link)

Eric Donovan Mitchell (the fourth) was an artist. No, an ar-teest! He had a vision, a skill beyond words and no one appreciated him. No one but his newest patron who so willingly, so generously gave him exactly what he needed to make his masterpiece.

The nine (two grown men - both blond with waist length hair; two grown women - both red heads with waist length hair; two boys exactly four foot tall with black hair to their shoulders; two girls exactly three foot nine inches with brown hair to their shoulders; one old man age fifty-one that looked exactly like his father had before he passed) sat in chairs behind him, strapped there with clamps on their wrists and ankles. They would be witness and a partner to his masterpiece.

He began by covering his canvas, leaned against the wall opposite them, in white primer. Art couldn't be perfect if the base was not clean. He followed this with long sweeping strokes of an eggshell blue. He didn't even wait for the first coat to dry before he was moving the old man across.

He was heavy, but the chairs had wheels and each person had been drugged to keep them from putting up too much of a fight. The old man would be the centerpiece. A Jesus allegory, nailed in a cruscifiction pose. He had to hold the man against the canvas with his whole body until the first nail was through the left hand and dug deeply into the wood beyond.

The old man had little energy to cry out, only able to produce a stream of tears that the Eric chided him for. His masterpiece did not call for a tear streaked Jesus allegory. Once the second hand was nailed and the man was secured, Eric went about cleaning those tears away.

Then he brought out his sculpting knife, sharpened to sculpt the only material worth sculpting. With a careful cut along the line of the old man's sternum, the artist began to pull the skin to one side. A Jesus allegory with butterfly wings made of the sins of flesh.

His masterpiece.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 09:50 am UTC (link)

He stares. Man's inhumanity to man is nothing new. The gorss sins of lust and need and complete lack of connection he understands. Rage and Righteousness likewise have gone hand in hand for ages, and Zarathos has seen it.
Likewise, terrible as it is, its nothing new to Nicholas. He's seen pimps beat their whores and leave them bleeding on the street in the middle of winter because there is no business.
He's seen people, children even, starve to death for lack of care.
He's seen insanity, rage and pride take good men and women.

But this is suffering to try and create something beautiful, when really, its just taking something pure and innocent and beautiful and making sure it can never be that again.

And they howl in anguish together. The Rider's banshee wail and the horse cry of a man who has not been innocent a day in his life.
Somewhere within the Rider, Nick can feel tears welling in his eyesockets, and tiny hisses of steam rise from the empty, soulless holes for it.
He slams his fists on the plastic time and time again, then scratches, burns, and flails, and leaves not a mark.
The wails shake and crack the ice, but the walls and door hold.
And then he realizes he's trapped. Stuck inside this box, while the people who have put what little faith they have in him are out there... with the monster who let these three loose.
The monster who built this hell.

The flames of hell begin to die down, smoke rising from bare bone. A terrible, horrible chill, far worse than 40 below sets into the bones with the realization.
He's driven into hell, and with it comes a horrible truth. Once fallen, an angel can never rise all the way again.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 10:01 am UTC (link)

As he cried, as the flame cooled, the three continued to do as they did. Ginger took the life of another man who just wasn't good enough. Reverend Kline broke another pair of arms and cracked a skull with the good book, blaming them all for the blood staining it. Eric wheeled one of the children over and began laying her out so her hair would fall just so.

The chill of the room continued and perhaps in that there was hope. For the chill had to come from somewhere, didn't it?

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 10:12 am UTC (link)

The chill comes from somewhere. The thought takes longer than it should to percolate. He's not used to thinking in terms of complicated solutions. The demon knows right and wrong. Every solution is a hammer.

And its that thought that does it. He knows they're not looking at him, not monitoring him. To do so would risk the penance stare, a silly thing like distance is no salvation from the Rider's eyes.

The Rider doesn't have the solution. Its a fight, a painfully long fight while people suffer horribly, possibly die, while Nicholas battles his very own personal demon. But he knows the way out.

And he finally figures it out - Nicholas can save himself, but more importantly the others, but the Rider must have his say first. A bargain, a horrible, painful bargain between man and demon.

Fire gives way to flesh, and the damned has soulless eyes in place of sockets once more. The demon bike returns to itself, and, with deadly chill setting into his bones, especially with his clothes tattered, Nicholas fumbles for his toolkit - he always has a set on his bike. Its his baby, his pride. And that sin may save him.

He finds what he's looking for, and holding the screwdriver in a near deathgrip, forces himself up the wall towards the vent, leaving flesh and frozen blood on the wall every time he peels his bare hand from it. But if he can get there, get it open, perhaps he can get to the next room over.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 10:22 am UTC (link)

The vents were placed a good twenty feet off the water line, a little over twelve above the three sinner's rooms, spaced just far enough to spread the cold evenly when turned on. The actual covers were decently sized, as the air itself would freeze while passing through and the cold needed to get to its destination. Ice encrusted them, as it encrusted everything else and the wards that kept the Rider at bay did nothing to stop it's human host.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 10:29 am UTC (link)

He has to work desperately for a time. His hand doesn't want to work right with the tool. He's losing consciousness and he knows it. Its only that work like this is second nature that carries him through.

The vent crashes away, and soundproofed room that it is, no one sees, no one hears. Their own security measure damning them.

He crawls for a time, almost losing it, before he feels himself pass the wards. His hands light, and at first, its all he can do but to warm himself by hellfire - a thought that would disturb many, but for now, its comfort.

And then the pentagrams alight with unholy fury, and he burns, then tears through the vent, dropping himself into an elevator shaft.

With some work, he finds it leads to a maintenance tunnel - a way back to the surface. A way to get to the rooms along the way so they can be maintained. A way to save the victims.

And then his eyes light up with unholy fire. He's made a devil's bargain today. That he had little choice in the matter is no matter. The wicked must pay before the innocent go free.

Leaving the victims to their fates a little longer, and the Champions to whatever awaits them, the Ghost Rider turns and goes deeper, not upward.

An iron door is torn viciously off its hinges with a damned shriek as he enters the artist's room. He tries to use the shock and awe of the moment to catch the man's eyes. A single moment that will leave him forever bathed in the results of his own "art."

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 10:37 am UTC (link)

The man covers his body in reflex, arms raising to protect his face from whatever was blowing the door in and sending him falling to the floor. He looks over, of course. Looks over and sees the burning body of the Rider and his eyes, alight with sudden inspriation at the sight of hell's own messenger meet the pits of flame.

He finds himself feeling as though his flesh were being peeled away. Carved by a delicate hand. His own hand. A smile curves its way across his face. Joy flooding him. The burning man had given him the greatest gift. He had become his own art.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 10:43 am UTC (link)

There's a few moments of confusion. How can the man feel joy at such horror and suffering. Nicholas, likewise, recoils at the thought.

And then Zarathos realizes he doesn't care. His is not to care that some enjoy the devil's lash once they're under it, until the devil finds a new tool, his is to send them on their way.

He doesn't free the tied victims, only those still alive on the wall. There are more innocents to save, but more importantly, there are two more sinners.

The reverend is next. For while the woman certainly needs to meet the fate she's wrought, the loss of the one true innocent in this whole place, the unborn baby, cannot be forgiven.

The Rider just melts through the door this time, the heat of the fires licking at him hotter than even he ever remembers them being, the punishment of the artist giving him no release at all with so much evil yet here.

"Reverend..." he growls. "Judgement... it is not yours."

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 10:52 am UTC (link)

The Reverend, having been in the middle of a prayer when the Rider so rudely interrupted, continued with his eyes shut and his hands upon his bible. He would not be deterred by the sinful unbelievers.

It was only when he finally finished and looked up, face contorted with contempt and mouth ready to damn whoever dared to say he didn't have this God given right that he paused in his wrath. He could feel his heart spasm in his chest even as his eyes looked into those burning pits. His body giving out even as his soul was torn asunder by the lash of the devil.

The last death he caused was the first he experienced. He did not see through the eyes of the mother. He saw and experienced what that budding life had felt before it was extinguished utterly. And then he experienced it's death. The death of an absolutely pure soul. The penance didn't need to make him experience anything else. That one death, so perfectly needless and unjust, was all the Reverend would ever feel again. Over and over and over unto eternity.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 11:02 am UTC (link)

And there's one more. In its own way, the cruelest, but most needful thing. The Rider has had Nick in control of the body before. He's reigned in the demon.
This time, for the first time, as the last step of the bargain, before he can set to freeing the victims and seeing to the Champions, Nicholas needs to let the Rider drive.
He's flesh and blood again, but its the Spirit of Vengeance who drives his steps. He opens the door into the woman's room, nearly naked from the damage done earlier, his wounds somewhat healed over by the time as the demon rider.

"Ginger." he calls softly. He doesn't want to know how the demon knows her name. He just does.
"You've been waiting a long time for someone you could count on, for something real and true and forever." he says softly, in tones a demon shouldn't have.
"You've found him... in all your efforts, for all your work, you finally have his attention. Look into my eyes."

Should she do so, the very human eyes lick with hellfire, ringing the dark mirrors of the penance gaze.

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ng_murderworld
2010-01-27 11:15 am UTC (link)

She sits on the abused body of her latest lover, tears of anger dripping unheeded down her cheeks.

His voice draws her attention she gazes at him without seeing. As if hypnotized, her soul aching for the words he spoke, she slid off the empty shell of a man and fell to the floor. Her legs were weak as she sobbed, making it difficult to stand. Stand and go to the man that would finally be perfect.

She crawls across the floor. Using the door frame for support as she stands, one hand reaches out in disbelief. Shaking as her fingers touch his chest. And then she is against him. Holding him to her desperately and kissing him. Kissing him and finally able to see him, to hear him. She looks up, into those eyes that promise her everything she's ever searched for.

Her grip tightens, perfect nails digging into his shoulders as her body is wracked with sobs. All the pain of those she loved... they never loved her. She had hoped for so long that she'd been wrong, that somewhere inside one of them there had been a glimmer of true affection. But there wasn't. There was only more pain. More fear and heartache. There wasn't even hatred. None of them even cared enough to hate her for what she had done. They were only frightened and in pain.

She would never know love... and she would never know hate. She could only watch and cry as she died in her own arms again and again. Feeling nothing of any real consequence. She meant nothing to no one... not even herself.

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vicious_cycle
2010-01-27 11:31 am UTC (link)

Realization comes flooding back to him. The world, the deception his body just played host to. The tiny little corner of a private hell she just reserved for herself. And he knows he should somehow pity her. There should be an ember of doubt or remorse or... something. That the human soul has enough empathy to find forgiveness, and to pity the monster.
But he has no soul. His parents sold it on the day he was born, the day they carved damned sigils into his innocent hands, and he would never be innocent or pure again. This woman made her hell, and now she has to lie in it, alone.

Nicholas can't help but wonder as he frees the survivors, these people who may now be haunted forever by what they've seen and experienced, scarred by their victimhood... first the men, then the reverend's victims, then the models, and then through each layer of hell, navigating the maintenance tunnels, demanding that the strong and able restrain the violent, carry the weak, anyone with medical training tend to the worst of the injuries...
Despite the commands, the insistence man care for man, the strong help the weak, and that together, and only together, they will find light and escape, even if they will never find peace...
Do they know he's not here for them? He never was. Their suffering might have gone unheeded, they might have died alone and unheard, as many others did in their company. There was no salvation for the victim, save that there was damnation for the wicked, and only that darkness drew him there.
Some of them might call him a hero. He saved lives. Some may fear him nearly as much as the sinners, and perhaps rightly so. They, at least, had souls, however wicked. There was in them depths to which they couldn't sink. The woman sought love, even if she was willing to deny it to others to try and find it. The reverend sought the Lord's punishment for the guilty, however overwrought, and in that, Nick can't help but remember his own reflection in the man's eyes - be careful when you stare into hell. The artist sought beauty.

But Nicholas? Nicholas is empty and damned. Whatever good he might do on this Earth, it may never be an untainted thing.

He nears the surface, and the light, leading his unholy procession of sinners and saved, examplars of vices and sins who now have to find somewhere to start again. His hands light - the pentagrams always light first, unholy shimmers lighting and playing over the surfaces of the scars.

Within moments, the flickers are an inferno, and the Ghost Rider is reborn. With the maintenance doors opened, he's able to call his very own pale horse - the bike roars up the tunnel, responding to his master now that he needs it again. These people will have to fend for themselves, hopefully for each other now.
The Ghost Rider isn't a hero... but he has heroes to save.

The final door from hell bursts away in a blaze of flame, and the Demon rides the Earth again.

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