FicWad

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Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

(Abandon all hope, ye who enter here)

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Ms. Lucille leads us down the stairs, the glass vial firmly gripped between her fingers. Even in the stark, white light of the hallway, I can still see pin-pricks of light dancing around it. She holds it out to one side, as if it's radioactive or might bite her. I suppose, if it's Axl trapped in there, then it might just do that.

Carefully she steps from one creaking wooden step to the next, balancing on shoes that seem miles too high for her. But it doesn't stop her walking with a sway to her step, ignoring Duff as he holds up the hems of her long clothes. Nimbly she reaches for the door that leads to the basement. A door that now looks heavier than it used to be. I'm certain it used to be flimsy and cracked, broken in places from too many feet kicking it shut. Or maybe I was imagining it. Now it's heavy and firmly closed with many brass locks, each looking more sturdy and more old than the other. Nervously, I flick my eyes to Slash, how looks as shocked and scared as I feel, before looking back to the door.

The black haired woman has a heavy bunch of keys in her hand. Painfully slowly, she inserts one into a lock and turns it, listening carefully as it scrapes and clunks, the lock finally pulling back. She repeats it over and over, each lock more rusting and grated than the next. Each holding back whatever lives beneath the bar. My breath stops as the door creaks open, wood flaking away as if the door hasn't been opened since it was set in the frame. Long, strong fingers wrap around mine and I look at Slash, unable to smile. Unable to move any muscles.

The air thickens as we make our way down the stone steps and into the basement. Stone steps? Where the fuck did they come from? They were old, moulding wood the last time I came down here. The air stinks and hangs heavy, enough to make my eyes water. Coughing, I pull my scarf up over my nose and mouth but it does little to help. Behind me, I can hear Slash gagging and I pull him a little closer, entwining my fingers with his.

"Fuck..." he hisses.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been into the basement and it has never looked like this. Maybe I've been hallucinating? Maybe it's always been like this? For the last year, my world hasn't been normal. Wrong and right haven't existed and straight lines have been bent and snapped. And it's all down to one person.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Ms. Lucille gazes up at us, her sunglasses propped on the end of her nose. Eyes as dark as oil watch us, impatience flickering through them. Duff stands to one side, face etched with boredom. I want to talk to him, find out how he came to be working for a witch doctor in New Orleans. There's something about him, something deep in his eyes, that says he's not who he is. He's another person who's here to turn the world on its head.

The witch doctor, or whatever she is, motions us deeper into the stone room. Sweat begins to bead on my forehead the further we go, dripping into my eyes. In a corner, something glows, casting flickering light onto the wall. Everything suddenly stills as we step up to it, my heart trembling in my chest as my lips dry.

A drain cover has been thrown to one side and there, in the once dark corner, is a gaping hole with fire crackling in its depths. Soul wrenching sounds spew from it. The sounds of bones breaking and fire crackling. It sounds like animals dying down there, somewhere beneath us but... Ms. Lucille spoke of an entrance to another world. I manage to wrench my eyes from the perfectly formed hole and to her.

"Is tha-?"

She cuts me off, "Yes. This is the entrance to Hell. Well." She shrugs. "One of a many anyway. It is here just for the moment. While we dispose of this."

She holds up the dusky coloured bottle, its tiny lights flickering behind it. I feel my eyes bug as she leans forward, the bottle daintily clasped between her long nailed fingers.

"Wait!" I reach out to her, grasping her elbow and pulling her back. "You're just going to drop him into /Hell/?"

Ms. Lucille looks at me, eyes filled with a dead emotion. She nods once, firmly.

"Yes. It is where he deserves to be. He is pure evil. A soul as tainted as his deserves nothing less."

She wrenches her arm away from me, flinging the bottle into the air. For a moment, it seems to hang above the hole before dropping. Howls fill the air as the bottle falls away and into the fiery. One of the howls is mine.

I fall to the floor, my hand going after the bottle. For a second, it brushes past my fingers, the glass oddly cold. Yet I can't seem to grasp it, it slithering between my fingers like sand. It tumbles end over end, falling away and into the flames. I lean over the entrance, the overbearing heat washing over my face and drying my tears as I try to reach for the rapidly disappearing bottle. Hands grab for my shirt, pulling me away, voices calling to him, telling me to come back. Yet I want the bottle, want to follow Axl to his fire filled grave.

Sitting beside the whole, I watch the flickering on the wall, hugging myself as tears stain my face. Why am I crying? I should be happy he's gone. But I'm not. Axl and I. Bill and Jeffrey. We went so far back that I couldn't imagine my life without him. Even the evil presence that has haunted our room. At least I knew it was him and not something else. And now he's gone for good.

Through my tears, I see Slash sit in front of me. Between my sobs, I can hear him talking, see his mouth beyond on my blurry vision.

"Izzy." Everything else begins to fade as Slash quietly repeats my name over and over, his hands coming to rest on my shoulders. "Izzy. This is the beginning."

I look at him confused, my body and brain exhausted and tired. Swaying, I frown and lick my lips. "Wha-?" I whisper.

"The beginning." His hands grip my shoulders tighter, steadying me. I lock my eyes onto his, focusing, trying not to pass out.

Again, I quietly say, "What?"

Slash's eyes flick over my shoulder and another presence is suddenly in front of me. A beautiful angel with a halo of blonde hair. Duff. Dark fingers twine around my pale ones, lifting them to my eyes. There, nestled on our joined fingers are two silver rings. The ones I brought for Slash and I. I stare at them, fascinated as light dances off them, highlighting the tiniest of scratches and the smallest of dents, battered and worn, not only by us but by their previous owners. I've often wondered how many of them there were, how many people pawned these rings to buy some other nugget of happiness. I've wondered when we'd pawn them.

I carry on staring at them, unable to tear my eyes away, as Slash whispers, "Duff's going to marry us."