At first you can not believe what you find beyond this harmless trapdoor. Animal cries fly all around you; it makes your blood run cold. But right after that you are overwhelmed by the dreadful heat of the place. Something like sixty degrees Celsius.

You are absolutely sure that you stepped in hell. Inside a cathedral ribcage where flying buttresses are the ribs, some columns as well as a few side ridges remain here and there.
Flames spurt out of the floor cracks. And the melting earth insides smoke from these flaws. The statues are overturned on the ground, broken and all beheaded.
Bone remains everywhere. At the back of the apse a crouched coal black horned demon soils the church books... He is proceeding with the service, this new sacristan ! Another feeds a fire with crucifixes, retables and wooden lecterns.

He is stirring his blaze with a large red glowing trident fork. Of the building facade only a section remains, which is not higher than the bottom part of the wide central bull's eye, like a moon quarter. Of the two towers only one stake remains, around which a raven swarm circles.

You wish only one thing : that none of the inhabitants of this place notices you around. But a Hell Baron suddenly lands on the altar ; he folds his huge batwings over on his back and gives a roar in your direction, which ends like a sigh towards this underground world surface.

A ruby eye slides on to you : there is no doubt he saw you. Maybe he does not like competition. Thus you immediately get rid of your cumbersome monarch cloak. Blaring with rage, he nonetheless moves forward at great speed.

His strides are like four times as big as yours.

You take to your heels and run for it to the back of the ruin by a nave side. But your wild escape soon has to stop.

You are stuck indeed. The cathedral facade is the only wall left. You hear the loud hoof shakes getting closer and closer. In a moment he is going to crush your bones. Farewell life !

All of a sudden something grabs your shoulder and snatches you behind a pulpit in a secret place. Taken aback but relieved you immediately look for your benefactor's face.

"Anatheos" he says while hurtling down the narrow stairs of a footbridge before you.

Two white wings are fitted on his shoulder blades. He is smaller than the baron but he nonetheless reaches 8 feet of height. He tells you that he is an angel.

Sent by Heaven special forces, he is an anti-demon legionnaire. So he tracks down little devils, incubuses, imps, ghouls and vampires. He usually roams the devastated fields bordering the Sheol, on the underworld boundaries.
But this time he ventures in real Hell ; he is after the Nun and he asks you whether you saw her. She is to blame for everything, he says.

And when you ask him "for what ?" he answers so naturally :

" I've had my eye on Heaven for so long. But I can only get back there once my mission is accomplished. "

He explains that all demons take pleasure in murder and desolation.

On earth, they let men take care of their own destruction.

All the mire of vice must be annihilated. Joining suddenly the acts to the words, he slaughters a group of happy gnomes passing by. In five shotgun discharges he makes a minced meat heap out of them.

" I will make that damned abbess tell me which door they come from to spray their vices in angels' hearts. "

" And I'll nail up that evil crow on the way ! Then all trace of sin shall be eradicated up there. "

And he shoots down some carefree bats sleeping at the ceiling.

You would gladly agree all this. However you have all the reasons to doubt the soundness of such an enterprise.

You would not want to look over-considerate. But the way he chooses, killing as such without discernment and restraint, doesn't this embrace perfectly his enemies' way, the way of evil ? Doesn't the means defeat the end ?

You reckon that harm committed with the best intentions, without being aware, is worth as much as a minor sin.

And, even though evil could incidentally serve good, how could a being – even an angel – who has spent more than 3000 years making war to hell creatures conceive of a return to heavenly felicity ? He, who has built so much hatred and so little lenience with the passing of the centuries...

But for the time being, the issue is to get out of the dead end. This angel obviously thinks that you are one of his kind. You, the damned soul ! Could this last... Although you would be interested to look in a mirror and understand what may lead to such a mistake !

By the way, you spot a mirror over there. You can not wait to know whether you have the pink cheeks and the pretty golden curls of an angel.

Anatheos turns over to you with all his stature. He tells you to follow him and starts walking in the mirror direction.