“Welcome to Hell.” the voice said.
“Hell?” I replied, “This doesn't look like Hell.”
If the strange voice hadn’t have told me otherwise, I would have thought it quite the opposite. Before me stretched a vast ocean, it was dark. It’s gloomy clouds rumbling over soft waves. Behind me was a cabin, a nice, wooden beach house. The trees of the forest behind it swayed softly in the wind. Apart from the disembodied voice that accompanied me, I saw no signs of any life, not even any birds. I walked my way up to the small cabin, and pushed the door open. A fireplace sat in the centre of the wall opposite me, in front of it, a couch in the middle of the room.
“Cosy, right?” the voice said.
I tried to pinpoint where it was coming from, but it seemed to be from nowhere at all.
“Are you sure this is Hell?” I asked the voice.
“Quite sure,” it replied.
I took a seat on the couch in front of the fireplace.
“What did I do to get into Hell?”
“Hardly matters now doesn't it?”
I say nothing for a moment, trying to make sense of the situation. Strangely, nothing helpful comes to my mind.
“Has Hell always been like this? It seems so…”
“Pleasant?”
“Precisely.”
“It's not like this for everyone,” the disembodied voice said, “We all get what we deserve. And this. This is what you deserve.”
“Isn't hell supposed to punish those who've sinned?” I ask. “What's my punishment? Boredom?”
The voice laughed, and not the happy kind, it was condescending, all knowing.
“You’re a writer, no?” it asked.
“Yes, why?”
“You now have all of eternity to write as much as you want. Congratulations!”
I stood up, “Really?”
The voice laughed again.
I looked around the room. It was empty, the only things in it were the fireplace and the couch.
“Oh, but you have no one to show it to, do you?”
“That doesn't matter,” I affirm, “I don't write for others, I write for myself.”
“And what would you do if you could never write again?”
I ran over to the other end of the cabin, and heaved open the door, the only thing that greeted me was an empty room with a plain bed.
“No,” I said, refusing to believe that this was real.
“You'll have to spend all of eternity with those stories in your head. Unable to leave, Unable to be told. Write it on the sand if you feel like, it'll just wash away.”
I ran out into the forest. It's not like I could escape this voice, I knew that.
“Run around as much as you like, there's nothing here.” the voice said,
“just you…
… and your thoughts.”