The Dungeon (Short Story)
I gathered myself before stepping onto the elevator.
Cold silence boomed all around me.
*Step-step-pause.*
The sleek steel chamber felt like a time capsule, giving me access to spaces and places previously unknown.
As the massive door slipped shut, I could see all around me, full panorama.
Seeing through walls was nothing new in situations like this.
But this place… This place…
The elevator descended past darker and darker cave-like structures. Fire and brimstone sparked all around, almost taunting me.
“The dungeon,” I thought to myself. The internal monologue doubled as a test — a test of the stability of my consciousness. I would need a level head to make it out unscathed.
Soon enough, the elevator came to a smooth stop. I was at the bottom of the realm.
The pits of hell. The Dungeon.
I knew exactly where He was.
Before the elevator even unsealed, I could hear him screaming. The door opened and the violent outcries amplified. He was roaring like a dinosaur, shaking the very structures of The Dungeon.
My feet glided off the steel and onto the hard, rocky ground. I walked straight toward the source of the roaring.
After wrapping around a rocky corner, I saw it.
There He was, in his cell. Still where I left him, a long, long, time ago.
I walked right up to the iron bars. We looked each other in the eyes, and his erupted with fiery fury.
“You!” He yelled, rising up. His big, muscular body tensed while he pointed a charred finger at me. “You locked me in here! How dare you!”
The words reverberated through the whole dungeon, shaking the stone walls surrounding us.
I remained unshaken. Instead of fear or panic, all I felt was a calm compassion.
I looked straight into his blazing eyes — with steadfast benevolence — as He exploded with rage.
In a flash, He lunged towards me.
The old me would’ve ran for my life, or reacted in a way that would’ve cost me my life. Yet I maintained my gaze of grace and remained unfazed.
Face-to-face with this beast of a man, I let him do his thing. He roared, punched, spat, flailed around — anything to throw me off.
Yet he was just punching the air, in more ways than one. I had nothing for him to touch, no hate in my heart to react with.
As his violence tapered, I finally spoke. “You were a danger to everyone and everything. This was the best option for everyone.”
“The best option for everyone!?” His voice lashed out, “You locked me away for ages!”
As He yelled, two gigantic pillars of light appeared, one on each side of me. I knew exactly who they were — light-beings, archangels (they go by many names).
At first, He didn’t notice them. But after a few seconds, He looked up and his jaw dropped.
He must’ve thought this was a disciplinary action, because he went into another fit of rage. A storm of anger filled his cell.
The light-beings and I just stood there, with untouchable love and infinite patience.
After a while, one of the giant light-beings reached into the cell and placed a giant “energy hand” on His back. It was like a father comforting a small child.
His rage dissipated as he felt the hand. He looked up. The realization hit him. I could see it written on his face. “I’m like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.”
In the presence of beings infinitely larger, and obviously holding power unimaginable to Him, he dropped to his knees in exhaustion.
I spoke again, knowing he was ready for another level now. “Do you want to say anything? I’m here to listen to you. That’s why I came.”
Words blurted out with anxious rapid-fire. “I’m so angry. I’m sad. I’m scared. I feel trapped, alone, miserable...”
He continued. “I know what I did. I’ve tortured myself about it just as much as The Dungeon has tortured me. Yes, I’ve done all of the most horrific things you can imagine: murder, rape, pillaging, annihilating entire populations.”
I was dimly aware of all that happened. It was a distant memory that haunted me like a ghost just outside of my perception. That’s why I sent him to The Dungeon ages ago. Hearing it from his mouth though, gave it an entirely different depth.
His words lingered in the air.
“You have the opportunity to leave now,” I said to Him. I didn’t even know why I said it, but it came out.
“What?” he asked, stupefied.
“You have the opportunity to leave now,” I repeated.
Those words were more powerful than any weapon I’ve seen in all of my days, because He broke down into a cry beyond crying. Sobbing, his muscular, charred frame collapsed into an uncontrollable shaking frenzy.
The shaking intensified… And intensified… The Dungeon shook, not with rage this time, but with grief.
Now I was surprised. I expected confrontation, violence and rage, but not this.
His shaking began to take on a different form. His heavy body sparkled, then glowed, then exploded into a bright supernova.
~
My vision had to adjust to the light.
Him and I were standing side by side.
A rainbow staircase stood before us, surrounded by radiant clouds and luminous air. Everything was vivid and incandescent.
As my vision expanded, I noticed them. All around us were thousands upon thousands of beings — angels.
They were gazing at us, with indescribable compassion, and applauding.
Angelic clapping and etheric music greeted our senses. I broke into tears.
“They’re applauding you,” I said to Him.
These thousands of beings were all saying the same thing. I relayed the message to Him. “What you did, no one else here has done. Your strength is greatly admired.”
He cried again, this time as an undulating sphere of light. Now I felt purity and gratitude in his aura. He really did it. Not in a million years did I expect this twist of divine fate.
He rose up and said, “Let me speak to The Creator. I wish to give thanks.”
We all replied at once, as one. “Everything is the Creator. Look around you. It’s all aspects of The Creator.”
We let Him soak it in and watched the realization permeate His being.
“But we do have an Ambassador…” On cue, a light-being, somehow even bigger than the ones who stood next to me in The Dungeon, walked up to Him.
They held a conversation together that I can’t remember. Maybe I’m not supposed to remember. It took a while though. Long enough for me to rest in this angelic, rainbow-light realm.
After a mini-eternity, He turned away from The Ambassador and spoke to me. “I choose to return to Source, The Creator.”
I nodded my head solemnly.
“You have all of the records,” He said to me, referring to his entire life. “You have it. It’s with you.”
I smiled and sent him a blessing. My heart exploded with gratitude, mixed with nostalgic sadness.
He bid me adieu, then jumped up to hug The Ambassador. The Ambassador held him in its center, then carried him into a portal of pure light.
He disappeared. Only wisps of colorful energy remained.
As I watched the floating thin waves, I whispered to myself. “He’s with me, always. Now just in a different way.”
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