Blaze awoke with a start, the foul smell of sulfur burning his nose. He was flat on his back, staring up at a dark ceiling on a cold, hard stone floor. He tried to pick himself up, but found that he was unable to move. He tried to look for what was binding him, but found nothing holding him down. He struggled harder, beads of sweat appeared on his brow.
“Your spine is shattered Mr. Blaze, any attempts at movement will probably damage it more,” a sinister voice growled from in the shadows on his right.
Johnny didn’t realize anyone else was in the room, and the sudden burst of dialog startled him. “Who the hell are you? Where the hell am I?” he quickly spat.
There came a low, guttural laugh from the shadows. Blaze could now see two specks of red in the darkness that glowed with an unearthly light. They looked exactly like eyes.
The injury is just making me see things. I’m hallucinating, he told himself.
“The operative word in those two questions is hell, Mr. Blaze, which is exactly where you are,” the voice said.
“I got to wake up,” Blaze muttered to himself, trying to find his way out of this nightmare.
“Rest assured, Mr. Blaze, you are awake, your spine is broken and you are exactly where I said you were,” the voice growled. “Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Gieall.”
With those words a horrible-looking creature stepped into Blaze¹s field of vision. It was a tall, humanoid-looking creature. It looked like a man who had the flesh burnt off of his bones. Two leathery, scab-covered wings protruded from its back. And just as Blaze had seen before, his eyes glowed red.
“You were killed in a motorcycle accident at your most recent show,” Gieall said with a chuckle. “Would you like me to show you?” With a wave of his talon-tipped hand, the demon conjured a swirling mist over Blaze’s chest. In the mist Blaze saw himself on his bike, heading towards the ramp when the front wheel fell off sending the bike and Blaze into cartweels. Reality finally set in for Johnny Blaze. He had died and the demon was telling the truth. A tear creeped from his eye, “Clara...” he whispered.
“Ahh, your loving wife,” the demon laughed, his rotting teeth chattering. “I wouldn’t worry about her, you got more important things to worry about, my master wishes to meet you.”
Blaze held on to his fighting spirit, even in these most dire circumstances. “Then tell him to get in here, as you can see I’m in no shape to move,” Blaze spat, motioning to his lower body with his chin.
The demon just shook his head and snapped his decaying fingers together. Johnny Blaze felt a jolt of pain unlike any other he has ever felt before shoot throughout the length of his body. He has broken almost every bone in his body during his stunt career, but he has never felt pain like this.
“There,” the demon’s grating voice announced. “All better.”
Blaze couldn’t believe it, as he started to rise to his feet. Once he got up, he realized the demon was in fact, very short, probably no more taller than a normal teenager.
As Gieall led the way to an open door, that wasn’t there before Blaze thought at once he could take the demon. After all he was a lot bigger and had the element of surprise on his side.
“Don’t even think about it,” Gieall said, apparently reading Blaze’s thoughts. “This is my domain, something you know very little about. I could snap my fingers again and leave you laying on the floor with a snapped spine again.”
Blaze decided better of his plan and followed the small demon out into what looked like an elaborate parlor, but instead of people demons lounged around at tables and on pillows talking in languages Blaze couldn’t even fathom.
Gieall motioned his hand towards a set of very large ornate doors at the opposite side of the room. They were covered in pictures of humans being thrown into a fiery pit, with a large-mouthed demon waiting at the bottom. “The master awaits you,” Gieall said. “You and he have much to discuss.”
Blaze turned towards the small demon and gave an indigent chuckle. “Let’s just see what your master has in store for me freak,” he said as he sauntered across the room. He stopped just in front of the doors and put his hands up to push them up when he suddenly withdrew. “They’re hot,” he said as he shot a quizzical look back towards Gieall.
Looking down at his hands he put them against the doors again and pushed, vanishing inside with out a sound.
* * *