David's Inferno

Lo, God hath granted me a vision of what awaits those who do not follow the path of Goodness and Light. Verily, I shall share it with thee. Hold on to thine hats.

Okay, so actually, the dream started out with me watching "Angel", my Joss Wheadon-created guilty pleasure. Somehow, the characters all ended up in hell. Why not? Now, at this point, I either join them or take the place of one of them (Angel maybe?). Hell is pretty bad, it turns out, but not as bad as you might think. More like a maximum security prison with psychological torments added in for fun. For example, everyone is compelled to obey Satan and kneel before him.

Quick description of Satan: He's fat, bearded, and has an English accent. And his skin, while fairly reddish, also has splotches of black. Oh, and he has a big ol' tail that he can use like a branding iron. I learned about that little feature when some chick I was with tried to get uppity. She said something like, "What are you going to do to me if I don't do what you want? I'm already dead; you can't kill me again." And Satan said, "Well, you're right about that," and then proceeded to whip out his tail and burn her arm with it. This hurt real bad, as one might imagine.

Back to hell. Most of one's time, it seems, is spent just trying to make a living, so to speak. Everybody has little tasks they're assigned to, like washing the dishes or foraging for food. Oh yeah, the food. The meals in hell pretty much suck, it turns out. There are these nasty little sprouts that grow all over the place that look kind of like seaweed, but ... erm ... nastier. That's all you get to eat.

Now, I mentioned some psychological torments: you're not allowed to have fun. What I mean is, there's some kind of magical field surrounding the place that monitors your state of mind. If you start to relax or become accustomed to the state of things, it's like you're given a dose of anti-Prozac. Also, and I'm not sure if this is part of the deal for everyone or just me, you share your sleeping quarters with someone you find really attractive and who feels the same way about you, but, of course, you're not allowed to have sex. Anti-Prozac field, don't you know.

However, there is good news. It seems it's possible to escape from hell. Not quite sure of the details, but it involves Satan's back being turned and you closing your mind off somehow. So you get out of hell, but you're still a spirit. So to de-spiritfy yourself, you have to find a big ol' machine that looks kind of like one of those ferris wheels with the egg-shaped cars. Now, you have to move quick, because the minions of hell are, as you'd expect, highly pissed that you've escaped and are coming after you full steam. So hop in the ferris-wheel-thingie and press the big "Go" button. Here's the tricky part -- the machine takes a few minutes to run. So you've got to find someway to distract the hellions while that's going on. But assuming you've managed that and the machine can run its full course, you're back to mortal form once again. However, you may be deaf. But hey, it beats being in hell.

Now ye are warned, children. Avoid the nasty tubers and branding-tail of Satan. Beware the magical misery field and the hot chick who putteth out not. Amen.