John Jackson - The 9th Fortress

The unnatural, and impossible wall glowed with an alluring, radioactive light.

"It is over." said Harmony, daunted.

Nearing the end of the bridge, a crack became visible on the unblemished rock. A hairline at first, the crack soon widened to a crude entrance with space enough to squeeze through.

"A way in!" declared Eddinray. "And surely our way out!"

Floating bodies smashed off the dense wall below us, and the sound of their cracking bones was sickeningly similar to normal waves breaking against boulders.

"Who first?" asked Harmony, moving to observe the pulsating crack.

"Volunteering?" asked Eddinray, gloomily examining the rough edges inside.

"I am no leader Godwin. I'd just prefer to be out of this nightmare as soon as possible."

"I'll go first." I said, forging to the crack and feeling the wall buzz a glow over my face. It was hot. Extremely hot. "No-one touches it." I added, unwrapping the connecting rope from my forearm.

"Are you trusting me Fox?" asked Curtis, smiling. "Is that what this is?"

"Our umbilical chord." I said, securing the rope around my waist. "Now there's at least six feet connecting us; that's all the trust you're going to get." Then, and without his permission, I proceeded through the crack. Shimmying sideways through the crude opening, I heard my prisoner complain at the searing stone at the end of his nose.

"Keep moving." I uttered, the heat provocatively sizzling.

Struggling to fit inside this jagged kiln, this was a game of don't touch the edges. Unfortunately, the walk across the bridge had left us weary, and mistakes would be inevitable.

The others followed further back, and Harmony's cries came uninterrupted as her prominent wings brushed continuously against the fizzing stone. Eddinray's armor came into contact too, causing it to steam like a copper kettle. For all our care, we were soon left with no choice but to touch, to climb to an open hole some forty feet above.

"Typical!" I groaned, feeling Curtis bungle into my back. "It leads out!" I called to Kat. "I see the way!"

"You sure?" Curtis whispered. "That stone will eat the flesh from our hands in seconds."

"Better move fast then." I said. Curtis was right. My palms burned immediately on touching the rock. Foot and handholds were firm on the way up, but the pain was unbearable. Curtis let his agony be well known, while I focused on haste rather than pain, grunting, spitting, and forcing my body toward the hole despite it all. Bludgeon trained me for this trial with his cloudy walk through fire, but what of my friends? Kat, come rain or shine, would see Yuki up here on his back; but how would the angel and knight cope?

At one loathsome point, my prisoner's weight became so heavy on the rope that I was convinced he had blacked out underneath me. Carrying on regardless, I eventually clambered out of this constricting burn, through the hole and dragging John Curtis with me. "Get off!" I moaned, his hot body pressing over me.

He rolled off my chest and we lay with burnt hair and crisping skin, hearing the harrowing sounds of companions still climbing.

"What…is…that?" asked Curtis, his recovering voice distinctly horrified. I sat up, stunned by the horizontal tunnel before us — a vortex of stitched bodies, a quilt of bobbling bald heads, snoring mouths and hanging hands.

"What else?" I whimpered. All was still throughout this burrow of interweaving black, white and yellow flesh. All eyes here were closed, and their collective breathing gave the area a stale, sauna like air.

"They're alive." I said. "Every last one."

I returned to the steaming crack to see Kat climbing with Yuki locking her arms around his neck.

"Not a sound up here." I whispered, extending my hand for him. He grimaced back and I assisted them both out of the hole. All of us made it out with blistered burns or singed hair, and before Harmony spotted the gruesome pattern of sewn bodies, I cupped my palm over her mouth to snuff her scream.

"A trap." said Kat, smearing sweat from his brow. "Another."

A thousand arms hung down like vines, or grew up as a confused bed of seaweed; there was also no step free from the fat heads — wherever we would set our feet, these things would instantly be aware of it.

"Well, well," said a smug faced Curtis; "can't escape without waking them, and they won't be too pleased about that. See the teeth?"

Closer observation revealed the shark like teeth inside these mouths, and the fingernails like many knives and forks. Sensing my friends awaiting some kind of concise, confident advice, I gave the best I had to give. "This is it. We carry on. No matter what. Keep moving your hands and feet. Climb, run, race, and don't stop for anything."

"Are they going to eat us?" asked Harmony, shivering.

"Would that surprise you?" returned Eddinray, thoroughly exhausted.

"Just don't stop!" I stated. "We're done if we do, understand?"

Worried, I glanced at a labored looking Kat and his slight wife.

"Is she up to this?" I asked him.

"I am." she abruptly answered, her voice so delicate that I almost could've imagined it.

Eyes welling up, Kat proudly pressed his cheek against Yuki's. All of our smiles seemed to surprise the woman, and she was further embarrassed by Harmony's warm embrace. "Welcome back!"

Curmudgeonly, I hushed the angel quiet. I wanted to show Yuki my support, but right now I was more concerned with the Gauntlet. I shuffled to the beginning of this rising tunnel and its sitting musk, disquietly examining the sleeping faces, those hairless, frowning things. When would their eyes open? When would their nails scratch? When would their teeth bite?

After triple checking the rope's knot around my waist, I turned to whisper at my prisoner. "Ready to run?"

He nodded. "Don't plan to be eaten alive to spite you Fox. I will run. Don't you worry about that."

Searching for the nerve, Eddinray and Harmony held hands. Kat and Yuki also prepared themselves. We were all…ready to run.

"On three." I said, feeling a much-needed kick of adrenaline. "One…Two…Three!"

Leaping, I landed a sturdy foot on one face, and sure enough, the thing woke from its ancient sleep. Its mouth opened wide and screeched, disturbing the rest from their slumber.

"Move!" I bellowed, starting my scramble over feet, necks, faces and chest parts.

"FOOD!" announced one grizzly mouth. "FOOOOOOD!"

Thrashing fingers attempted to snatch us, their starving sound like an overpowering dong of a church bell, reverberating off the walls of this fleshy tube.

"Let go!" Harmony cried out, when one hand dug its dirty nails into her ankle. She forced it from her but fingers reaching down from above caught her yellow hair. "Help! Help me!"

Directly behind her, Eddinray was flat on his back having stumbled, and numerous hands and nails ravenously scrubbed and scratched his armor and face.

"Harmony!" he moaned. "Danny! Kat! Help her!"

Teeth closed around Harmony's shin and she howled as the blood streamed down her foot. The tongue inside that gob hadn't a second to enjoy her taste however, for Kat returned, dancing back over faces and boring his katana through its hairless head.

Crying, Harmony pried the mutant jaw from her shin as Kat set Eddinray upright. Then, typically bold, the samurai returned bouncing up the tunnel for Yuki, throwing her over his shoulder as every orifice snapped at his feet.

Ahead, my scale up the wicked woven was thus far trouble-free. I didn't stumble — Curtis didn't fall, and when one of those hands did take a hold, one or the other would kick it off.

"FOOOOOOD!" they endlessly screamed, mouths deprived of food and water for a millennium. "THEY CANNOT ESCAPE US! THEY CANNOT!"

This was the Gauntlet, seen by the virtuous, those no longer deserving their eternal place in Hell. Faces here did not eat to satisfy hunger, they had no bellies to fill or bodies in need of sustenance; they ate for the simple and vindictive reason of preventing souls from achieving what they cannot — freedom.