THE SNOWBEAST CHRONICLES

Day Forty and Two: The Skyward Window of Hell

Hark! and O! and Ye Gods! Ye Gods!

What hole hast Thou wrought? The window to Hell lay before me. The entryway to Satan’s great halls, all decorated with ornate, lusty sculptures and tables full of chalices gleaming with greed; swords glinting menacingly upon sconces assembled from the bones of long-fingered traitors and liars and criminals, whispering self-righteous and aggrandizing tales of sloppily-justified bloodletting; bathed in the entrails of unbaptized infants, the humidity steaming off of their virgin hearts mixing with the heat of torrents of sinner’s bile falling from a black sky holding up clouds made of batwing and farts.

Surrounding the hole’s perimiter, breaking the pure whitness of the snow which surrounds it, is the distinct yellow-orange urine stain of that hated Snowbeast.

O! What terrible unholy thing has this world bred which hath caused such an abominable thing as this Abyss? Art thou or art thou not related in some capacity to that reviled Snowbeast? That terror of ice and malice, the Snowbeast, a creature of such indefatigable wretchedness and depthless hate that where he urinates, the Earth falls away to reveal a portal to Hell?

For I see with my own eyes an unnaturally green steam issuing forth from the hole. It curls lazily in the air as it comes up, dissipating into our world to undoubtedly spread some sort of pestilence—perhaps this noxious vapour is truly what poisons the thoughts of man.

And perhaps… perhaps my exaggerated proximity to this devilish smokestack is to blame for my ever-skewing sense of justice and my dwindling humanity. As well as for the berries which wage war upon the intestines of man. Or perhaps even that snakeblooded Snowbeast finds himself partially ruled by this heretic fume. Perhaps.

Here: Today as I found my straighter stride in this grotesquely symmetrical wood, I stumbled upon a hole in the ground. 6 feet in diameter by my calculation. Warmer within than without—snow melted and dripped down into the pit, where it feel into a shallow puddle. Based on the span of time between a droplet leaving its snowy origin and landing in the pool, I estimate the depth of the initial drop to be a mere 7 feet. That such a puddle remains so shallow in this location clearly suggests a waterfall, which must run deep into earth, and perhaps open up on to a cave of some sort. My guesswork is strengthened by the sound of running water one hears as one leans one’s head into the hole.

As I leaned my head in to check for this sound, the horrid air belching out of the hole overtook my senses and I nearly passed out. I sit now, several yards from the hole, regaining myself.

I have already decided that I will enter it. For why else should I stumble across it. It is the deliberate placement of Fate; this I know.  And what lay beyond its threshold I know not, nor do I know whether I will even be able to make it more than several steps before dying of poisoned lung.

Either I will be sentenced by Satan for my sinister transgressions, or I will redeem myself. Or I will be simply euthanized. I will take any of these outcomes, for I feel as though I have been listening to an unresolved musical chord for far too long.