The developments of the mind, the most complex and sublime artistic and architectural works, the progress of science and techniques... what is the point if not to make our stay in this world more comfortable ?

What is the point since everything is doomed to emptiness ? Everything will become atom dust when it is time for our planet to burn like a match head.

With a painful insight you have seen the potential for cruelty hidden in a corner of the human soul. You know that we all are potential torturers.

Deep inside our subconscious we all have dreamed of the most delightfully dreadful and sophisticated tortures...
Invented by us from scratch !

So you chose to begin you journey down to the Underworld right away.

Awareness is a bitter beverage. However, the resulting despair does not scare you. On the contrary : you drink it up to the dregs.

Man's life is absurd ; conscience is the original sin that got us out of the state of childish fusion we maintained with the world.
We are mortals and we are aware of it. That is our misfortune.

The Nun of Hell guides you through endless corridors. The walls are flanked with heavy nailed doors. And from behind these doors you sometimes hear screams of pain – or maybe of insanity...

You eventually arrive in front of a two-sided massive brass plated door. The Nun caresses the doorknocker. She turns her head over her right shoulder and smiles at you. Then she pushes the door sides.
A clamour immediately flies up to your face. It is a buzz of complaints, from the deepest to the shrillest, of ringing metal, of snapping and crackling noises.

At the same time a gust of heat inflames your cheeks. A strong barbecue smell invades your nostrils.

" Welcome to the antechamber of Hell's room of honours. You have the privilege to be among the very few damned ones who got here. Make the most of what you see ! "

Here upon those words the Nun of Hell walks away. You would be quite willing to follow her. But what this gigantic room offers to see holds you back big time.

Tormented people are all around the place. One of them especially holds your attention : his body is no more than a misshapen sweaty mass. Bulges of fat flop down on each other.

Slumped in a steamy and thick mud inside a large brass tank, he is condemned to give himself body care forever : bath, sauna, hair removal, diet for ever and ever...

With his voice virtually obstructed by fat, he sheds light on the reasons that led him to suffer such a punishment :

" During my life I was constantly focused on look. I was maintaining my body so meticulously with a girlish obsession. In the morning I used to scrutinising the smallest cellulite traces on my stomach muscles. I was lifting tons of iron to increase the size of my biceps, legs and pecs. I wanted a chest on which the Greeks could have modelled a breastplate.
I sold my soul – let's rather say what was left of my intellect – for the illusion of everlasting youth. I looked after my body as if it was eternal. Let me tell you that I had a hard time of it.
Then I was reaped just when what I had been gathering and sparing so many pleasures for was fruiting at full steam. I was playing old and beautiful. "

Stunned, you watch the man plunge himself back into the swampy bath, absorbed by his forced occupation.

Further away you see the punishment of the ambitious. For all his life he postponed happiness, reviving his endless dissatisfaction with successive projects. Never settling down, never attending life, always on the run. For now and ever he is condemned to content himself with the bare minimum, so much so that his unique obsession is to survive, just survive.

He had lived his life like you would roll a stone up to the top of a montain without understanding – like Sisyphus did – that such a life is a damnation, an absurd chore.

" Here I am, reduced to satisfy myself with what today has to offer ; a root, an earth worm, a piece of toilet tissue, a silent and dark corner; here is what my everyday life is focused on now. "

Your spine shivers. Have you got your place reserved in this antechamber ? Does your journey stop here ?
Which mania damned you ? You wonder.

You imagine yourself sharing every day with that dim-witted who is feverishly sounding his intestines opened out in his hands looking for a feared as much as imaginary tumour. Or with this other one in charge of selling the benefits of their respective situation to every tormented soul... with a grin.

Fortunately the Nun of Hell is coming back to you as if to get you out of this nightmare. Still so graceful a pace and those green eyes with a disturbing deepness.
Are the prospects awaiting you less gloomy then?

Her authoritarian finger points out a chest. You go and open it. It contains a heavy sword, a red velvet coat with golden seam and a goatskin loincloth.
As things can never be simpler than they seem, you must take only one of the three items.