Part 1

Skin Street

Allow me to tell you about the first time I saw Skin Street. I dropped out of my birthing sac onto the road, stood straight back up and got myself ready to fight. Nobody was there. Not one single person was out on a street that stretched for miles in either direction. I relaxed a little and took a look around.

Most of the streets in Dis are a labyrinthine network of buildings. You spend most of your stay in Hell paranoid that, just around the next corner, there’s someone ready to beat you down. Skin Street isn’t like that. It’s a single straight line with only the rain and the darkness to hamper visibility.

I felt more vulnerable there than I’ve felt in any other part of Dis. You ever walked into a wide, empty space and suddenly felt exposed? Yeah, imagine also being na.ked, unarmed and in Hell. Still, I knew what I was supposed to do. The first step was to find some clothing.

That’s where I learned how Skin Street got its name. Every building, every busted street light and gas lamp was decorated with flayed skin. I’d been in Hell long enough by that point to not be too freaked out but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t affect me. In a bleeped up kind of way, it reminded me of Christmas. Y’know? People hanging wreaths and lights from their houses, that sort of thing. I remembered the time I’d spent with my family… with my kids on Christmas morning.

Feelings like that get you killed. I pushed them back down and pulled some scraps from the nearest building. If somebody was going to leave clothing material lying about, I may as well take it, right? I didn’t know it at the time but every step I took on Skin Street was being watched. When the attack came, I didn’t even get a glimpse of the guy. Bang! My skull fractured from an expert swing of a club. Whoever hit me went for my eyes the second I hit the floor, stuck his fingers right into my sockets. I was blind and crying like a baby when he started to peel away my skin.

Here’s the thing, some people are fvcked up even by Hell’s standards. The loners, serial killers, stalkers and psychos all make their way to Skin Street in the end. Most of the damned use the whole body of a kill but the Skin Street people like to take trophies. They leave their ornaments out as bait for the ignorant, skulking in the shadows and waiting for the best moment to ambush.

If you find yourself on Skin Street, you’re going to have to think fast. Forget clothing, just grab a rock, piece of wood or anything else you can use as a weapon. Stay out of the shadows, keep checking behind you and get out of their as quickly as you can.

Perdition Farms

You’re going to be chased in Hell, that’s unavoidable. At some point, you’ll stumble into somebody bigger than you or you’ll find yourself outnumbered. Forget about a fair fight, if somebody can take you down without you fighting back, you bet that’s what they’ll do.

It’s easy to lose focus when you’re running for your life. You can forget to pay attention to your surroundings. That, my friend, is a big mistake.

The outskirts of Perdition Farms are littered with billboards. They promise free food and safety to anybody fvcking stupid enough to believe them. The tribes that fight over that particular territory like to herd people off the streets and into the industrial complex they call home.

The good news is that those tribes won’t kill you. The bad news is that they’re big fans of taking people alive. They’ve got a project you see, been working on it for as long as I can remember. I couldn’t tell you who originally decided that Hell should have organised food production, only that the idea stuck and that over the years, countless tribes have taken it upon themselves to try and make that dream a reality.

Get yourself captured by them and you can look forward to a bit of slave labour.

For the most part, the Perdition Farms tribes try to make use of the birthing pods as a source of food. They force their slaves to harvest them from the walls, grind them up in industrial vats, mix them with blood, body parts, rainwater and anything else that could conceivably make a broth.

The life of a slave is short, brutal and disgusting, particularly when those slaves are then used as guinea pigs for the latest concoction. You see, amniotic fluid can be drunk if you’re desperate, though drinking too much is guaranteed to make you empty your stomach from every available orifice. The flesh of the sacs is a different matter though.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what the birthing sacs are. Some people say they’re actual flesh while others swear they’re more like a fungus. What I do know is that they repair themselves over time. Eat some of their flesh and over the next few days you’ll grow a new birthing sac inside you. It’s a small mercy that you won’t live. long enough to see it break through your skin. You’ll be dead shortly after your stomach bursts.

If you’re lucky, your days as a slave will end when the tribe decides they want some real meat. They’re not stupid enough to test their broth themselves, not when there’s no shortage of slaves in Hell.

Look, I can’t force you to stay out of Perdition Farms. I can only offer advice. In my opinion, if you think you’re being herded there, it’s better to take whatever’s to hand and cut your own throat. I’d take fresh meat status a hundred times before spending another day on the farms.

The Boneyard

So maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey. I’m the kind of nutjob who’d join a cult. Is there anything in Hell for me?”

If that sounds like you, the Boneyard has you covered. You see, there’s a certain kind of religious fanatic who really does belong in Hell. I’m not talking about the old dears who bake cakes to raise money for the new church roof here. I’m talking about the guys who went to war because God commanded it, who burned women for supposedly consorting with demons and who saw nothing wrong with fucking the odd kid.

When those people get to Hell, they’re too thick-headed to make sense of what happened. Why face reality when you can pretend it’s all just a test of faith? They find likeminded folk in the Boneyard.

I’m told that at one time, the Boneyard was a cathedral surrounded by a cemetery that stretched from horizon to horizon. Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. These days, it’s a shanty town of temples and churches built from materials scavenged from the streets. Everywhere you look, you’ll find wild-eyed zealots preaching their own twisted version of redemption and gangs of masked men on the prowl for fresh converts.

Mortification of the flesh is the main pastime in the Boneyard. If you listen to the cacophony of sermons, you’ll be informed of how the flesh is wicked and must be purged of sin. How lucky we are to be given such a holy duty, how fortunate to be given the opportunity to redeem ourselves before God.

The people of the Boneyard have had a long time and plenty of fvcking practice when it comes to mastering torture and degradation. I’m not a good person. I’ve killed, ra.ped and cannibalised but I can honestly tell you I’d never have been able to dream up some of the sh*t that goes on in the Boneyard.

I wandered in there by accident once and I’ve never been able to get what I saw out of my brain. I watched a woman, naked and bound, forced onto her knees and violated with iron rods. A preacher sewed his own eyes and lips shut in front of a crowd before sawing off his manhood with a piece of slate. A boy of maybe fourteen was publicly crucified, a girl was drowned in sh*t, an older man had sharpened flint pushed under his fingernails… I could list off a hundred other atrocities done in the name of redemption.

Stay away from the Boneyard. The people there decided that Hell just isn’t hellish enough for their liking. Forget about redemption. Forget about God. The only way out of Hell is by riding a pillar of fire and taking over a living body. Focus on that if you want to escape. The damned can’t offer you salvation. The damned only offer pain.

The Slaughter Man

Take a moment to think about all the celebrities you know. How many of them do you reckon would do well in Dis? Not many, I’ll wager. Perhaps none. Fame and fortune on Earth doesn’t count for shit when you’re dead. Very few people are strong enough, mean enough and downright psychotic enough to earn a reputation in Hell. Those few who have what it takes are people you never want to meet.

The Slaughter Man is one of Hell’s legends. A huge, bearded man with filed teeth, bloodshot eyes and foam on his lips. Rumour has it that the day he first emerged from a birthing sac, he was unlucky enough to land at the feet of a slaver tribe. Well those tribesmen chuckled to themselves and readied their clubs and whips, only too happy to take some fresh meat captive.

Outnumbered a dozen to one, na.ked, unarmed and brand new to Hell, most people wouldn’t stand a chance. If you believe the stories, the Slaughter Man shrugged off the clubs battering against him and the whips cutting into his flesh as though they were insect bites. He picked up the first slaver, put his hand into the man’s mouth and pulled his jaw right off his skull. He moved onto another, then another, tearing them apart with his bare hands until the survivors turned and fled.

Nobody knows for sure who he was in life. I’ve heard theories though, the most popular one being that he was the berserker of Stamford Bridge. Supposedly, a single Viking held up the English army single-handed. It didn’t matter w that he could never win, that he was outnumbered, that his enemies had better weapons and armour. He stood on that bridge and he fought. By the time he was brought down, he’d killed no less than forty men.

I don’t know how true any of this is. I’ve never seen the Slaughter Man for myself and I don’t fucking want to. What I can tell you for sure is that people don’t become legendary in Hell without good reason.

I’d guess that the only one who knows the truth is the Slaughter Man himself and he isn’t saying anything. Since the day he arrived in Hell, he’s only spoken once. The fleeing slavers heard it as the Slaughter Man tore their tribe apart. Na.ked, bloody and surrounded by corpses, the Slaughter Man looked up to the storm-wracked sky and bellowed a single word… “Valhalla!”

Hellhounds

How about a little story?

I wasn’t new to Hell. I’d made myself some clothes and a wooden club, found shelter and had a big slab of meat roasting over a campfire. The only thing I didn’t have was a tribe. The area I’d been birthed in seemed slummy even for Dis; all half-collapsed hovels and mud huts. Iron was scarce, barely enough to make myself a water bowl. All in all, not a good spot for a tribe.

My plan was simple enough. I’d have a decent meal, carve myself a shiv or two in case I lost my club, then find somewhere more or less dry to sleep. After that, I’d set off to look for a tribe. Even the mildest tribal initiations result w in a few scars and a broken nose, so I wanted to be as well rested as I could be.

Sleep in Hell is both vital and dangerous. There’s a knack to finding somewhere that’s simultaneously sheltered, hidden and with access to an escape route. Even then, you never get more than a few hours at a time. In Hell, the slightest suspicious noise should scare the shit out of you.

A low, throaty growl definitely counts as a suspicious noise.

I leapt out of my impromptu nest of skins and wood, raised my club and returned the growl with one of my own. A woman had crept into my building and was staring at me with dilated pupils. She looked to be in a bad way, skinny, naked and covered in weeping sores. Her lips peeled back to reveal broken and jagged teeth.

It took me all of a second to size her up. She’d been living rough for days or weeks. Judging from her protruding ribs and bloated stomach, she was well on her way to dying of starvation. So, she was weak, hungry and didn’t even have a weapon.

“I’ve already eaten,” I said, relaxing a little and giving my club a few practice swings. “No sense in letting you go to waste though.”

I took a step towards her and she bolted. Just turned right around and scampered away in a strange, animal gait. I took off after her, certain that I could outpace her. Even if there wasn’t much meat on her, bones can still be useful.

I chased her through a few streets, struggling to keep my footing on the muddy ground. When I finally got close enough to swing my club, she stopped dead. The suddenness of it caught me off guard and I tripped over her, losing my club as I fell.

She howled in triumph, a sound that was echoed by a dozen other throats.

That day, I learned two things about the Hellhounds, the people who lose their minds and become little more than w beasts after enduring centuries in Hell. Firstly, they have the necessary animal cunning to hunt as a pack. Secondly, human teeth and fingernails are perfectly capable of ripping flesh from the bone.

The Surgeons

Modern doctors rarely thrive in Hell. Academia and reliance on technology don’t leave you in the best state to endure the endless violence and brutality.

There are exceptions though. The people who learned to sew their friends back together amid the machinegun fire of the Somme. Shamans, witch doctors and holy men who endured famine and warfare. Survivalists who knew how to cauterise their own wounds in the middle of a forest. Those are some of the people who might just be strong enough to ply their trade to the damned. After all, working knowledge of basic medicine is just one of those things that’s beyond a lot of the meatheads roaming Dis.

Most of Hell’s surgeons find a tribe as soon as they’re able. Their tools might be crude but they soon learn to make do. Flint, slate and shards of glass serve as their scalpels. They make thread from human hair and needles from slivers of iron. Whenever a member of the tribe has an infected sore, a surgeon will be the one to drain the pus. A tribal surgeon could well save your life… but they’ll do it without anaesthetic.

Then there are the freelance surgeons, the people who try to go it alone. They make themselves a uniform, the theory being that the damned will recognise them if they all look alike. It doesn’t really work but then you can’t expect much logic from people who’ve lost count of how many times they’ve died.

For one thing, fashions change over time. I’m told that freelancers wore headdresses and bone necklaces at one point. The current trend is to mimic Venetian plague doctors by donning a beaked mask and wearing a long coat of fire-blackened skin.

Freelancers are rare. Very rare in fact. You’ll see thousands of the damned for every freelance surgeon you come across. When you do come across one, be fvcking careful. Firstly, surgeons don’t get a free pass in Hell. The damned are more likely to attack a freelancer than they are to barter their tools, clothes or slaves in exchange for his services. You can’t be certain if the man in the bird mask and black coat is really a surgeon or somebody who murdered a surgeon and took his clothes. Perhaps they made the outfit themselves in order to draw the weak and the wounded close. Advertising doesn’t always work as intended in Dis.

If the freelancer turns out to be genuine, that doesn’t give you an excuse to drop your guard. Freelance surgeons aren’t usually the most stable people. Put another way, freelancers are usually sadistic fvcking psychopaths. Sure, they might stitch you back together and send you on your way. They might also decide it would be more interesting if they stitched you to somebody else. They might think paying an arm and a leg for their service should be taken literally. They might turn out to be some wannabe serial killer who’s yet to find their way to Skin Street.

For each freelancer trying to do a tough job in a tougher place, there are a dozen or so Mengeles who want to try out their toys on somebody too injured to fight back. Stick with your tribe’s surgeon if you’re lucky enough to have one.

Failing that, learn to patch up your own wounds. Trust me, if you’re able to read, you’ve already got the intellectual advantage over a lot of Hell’s residents. Universal education is pretty recent. Freelancers aren’t worth the risk.

Cambions

I’ll be honest with you here, I don’t know if cambions actually exist. What I’m going to tell you is something that somebody else told me. It’s up to you to decide if it’s true or not. Personally, I really fucking hope it isn’t.

People rape one another in Hell. It happens a lot. If you’re not strong enough, it’ll happen a lot to you. The good news for the ladies out there is that damned men fire blanks. You’ll almost never be impregnated. I say “almost never” because, if you believe the stories, there’s an incredibly slim chance that a couple of those little swimmers will be awake and looking for an egg.

Just to put this in perspective, we’re talking conjoined twins levels of unlikeliness here and that’s just conception. The chances of a pregnant woman surviving the full nine months in Hell are probably conjoined triplets levels of unlikely. You’re talking about a perfect storm of beating the odds here … but this is eternity. A monkey randomly mashing keys on a typewriter will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare if it goes at it for eternity.

The result of that perfect storm, of those monkeys with their typewriters, is a cambion. A child conceived and born in Hell.

I’m not saying they exist, okay? I’m saying I’ve met somebody who swears its true and that he’s seen a cambion for himself.

You see babies in their birthing sacs from time to time. Usually it’s just a body, occasionally you see one drowning. Most of the damned ignore them. They wouldn’t survive a day on the streets even if you could afford to devote your full attention to them. Better to leave them be.

It’s only the really fvcked up people who cut through the sacs and... Yeah, I’m not going to finish that thought. I'm getting sidetracked.

So, this cambion who may or may not have existed, apparently looked like a normal child. It cried, it shit and it sucked its mother’s tits just like a regular baby would. The mother was part of a tribe and they’d been able to protect her throughout her pregnancy. Couldn’t tell you why. Curiosity perhaps?

When it was born, the whole tribe gathered around to have a look. Among them was the man who told me this story, somebody I’d meet years later and eventually kill. This man cut the baby’s cord and lifted it up to his face. Every man in the tribe had ra.ped the mother at one point or another and he wanted to see if the child looked anything like him.

The cambion looked like a normal child in every way but one. Its eyes were dead. Lifeless, like a doll’s. Sure, the kid was alive. It wriggled and cried like a normal baby. Those eyes were wide open though, not scrunched closed like a new-born’s eyes should be. Wide open, empty, doll’s eyes.

If that story is true, I don’t blame the tribe for killing the child. Something like that shouldn’t exist.

Right, I’m done. I have to go.

This is the point where people like to have things nicely tied up. A few dragons slain, a few maidens saved. At the very least, you could expect some kind of moral lesson to think over.

I think that, in this case, that sort of thing is missing the point. There are no dragons to slay, no morals to learn. We do not live happily ever after. There’s no grand revelation, no clever twist, no purpose, no redemption, no hope.

There’s only eternity among our own kind.