The Comet

The bloated, bleeding heart of the world lay shattered. Relentless, pitiless light pulsed from dull veins sprawled across the sky. Roiling dull clouds fought with the harsh illumination, smudges of smog and acrid smoke that hung low. It was thick, but occasionally the source of the light peered through in all their aweful glory: the twisted, wracked limbs of the Tree, sprawling and huge, like the tentacles of some unspeakable terror grasping the entire place in its odious embrace.

They compassed the sky, mountains leaning horribly above the realms, ready to crush out all existence, casting sickening light, solemn and galling testament of damnation. The smog was oppressive, poisonous, but it offered relief from that terrible sight when at last it recovered the limbs. There was an almost solid quality to the thick gray matter. It muffled sound, distance, a solemn tomb for the realm of Ymir, the Fallen.

Abruptly the lurid sky was ripped open with a radiant brightness that cast away the veils of darkness. Plummeting like a fallen angel from the utter reaches of the highest, a streak like silver, brilliant in its purity, sang across the sky. It cast light across the hopeless realms below, and for a moment they were laid bare, naked to each other and to the heavens.

The nine realms of Hell.

There was the broken Gates of Terror. Among its broken columns, a mausoleum of promethean proportions, nightmarish denizens gave flight, their panic-stricken shrieks rending the air like claws.

There was the Carrion Fields, realm of the gluttonous, mounds of flesh cradled in the gargantuan Ribs of Ymir.

There was the Gall of Bitterness, burning in fury and bubbling in bitter bile, its own garish light for once diminished by the dazzling comet streaking across the sky.

There was the seductive mounds and curves of the Garden of Earthly Delights, where temples to hedonistic pleasures trembled at the heavenly force.

There was the Bone Forest, rattled with the sound like thunder, shaken and humbled.

There was the Burning Tower, the streets of Babylon strewn with the bodies of the dead and the cries of the fallen. Here, a miracle, for a moment, just a moment, the endless carnage ceased as combatants paused uncertainly.

There was the Frozen Halls, their tombs and tomes warmed, a chill breath crackling through the streets, the ice and silence broken by light and music.

There was the Middle of Nowhere, and here too a miracle as the listless deoldrums glanced with wary interest at this intrusion to their monotony.

And there, in the middle of them all, was the plains of Shagaroth. There, in the Ninth Realm, the Battleground, where plains were watered with three rivers red as blood- there, in the center of Hell where the ancient city lay, barred by Eia against its corrupted inhabitants, guarding at its very center, at the center of all these forsaken worlds, there was the Tree.

The light of this miracle shined, brighter than the forgotten sun. It burned closer and closer, until at last it pounded into the Ninth, into Shagaroth. Then, gloom descended again across the realms of hell, hiding them.

Something new had come, and in the sky there was the proof.

The comet had nearly brushed one of the limbs of the Tree, and in that place, the gut-wrenching, lifeless light burned softer. Gradually, it was replaced by a soft green light. A sight not seen in this underworld realm for thousands of years bloomed into sight: The Tree, so long lifeless, had leaves, thick and green and cleansing to the smog-choked realm. The angry veins that had cracked its surface, in this small place, were calmed. Nestled among the tender, foreign growth, a tiny bud shone like a brilliant white star.

The demons, in their teaming hordes, in their millions, in their gibbering broods, shuddered in dread. Their doom, foretold so long ago by Eia the Sunderer, had come.