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When Hell Freezes
by A.F. Stewart
The colour drained from the world the day that Hell opened upon the Earth.
A wave of grey and white, dull silver and black, submerged what we knew, a deluge wiping away vibrance. Millions died in the first hour, the brightest souls burning with dreams and imagination, wearing vivid hues as a second skin. Colour leached from flesh and clothes, pouring down immobile bodies into the ground and streets, puddling, vanishing into a muddy drab. Caught in the initial surge, their voices silenced as they transformed into blank slates, these people crumbled into cold ash blown away on the winds…
Winter blanketed the world the day that Hell opened upon the Earth.
There was no fire or brimstone, no demons. Only bleak cold, and bitter gales. As the hollow storms of Hell swept in, everything turned to snow and frost, and more dead followed, the ones with hope clinging to their edges. Their bodies froze, caught in perpetual screams, flesh turning to ice that shattered into slivers, then glacial dust. Their remains blew on chill gusts, coating the cities, the trees, we few that remained alive…
Death stalked the world after Hell opened upon the Earth.
We were the privileged, the forlorn, that witnessed the end. The fatalities, the creeping ice, the never-ending layers of winter. We were the expiring, the tortured ones, taken slowly, life stolen bit by bit from the cold, from starvation. At night we heard the echo of the screams, and the laughter of Hell.
One by one we died, bodies entombed in ice where we fell.
Yet, I survived. Outlived them all.
I will be the last to die in Hell.
.
Fiction © Copyright A.F. Stewart
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from A.F. Stewart:
Visions and Nightmares
Tragedy spares no one… and takes no prisoners.
In the twilight shadows, secrets are revealed past the whispers of madness.
Wander into the realm of the old gods with Elenora, where humanity and marriage are a prison.
Step through a looking glass of dark horrors with an Alice you never knew.
Join with Zenna to seek the truth as her death by magic grows closer.
Journey with Olivia as she crosses paths with a monster of the forest and runs for her life.
Watch Isobel summon the faerie to solve her problem of an unwanted husband.
Shiver as Doctor Killbride experiments with corpses to create life from death.
All that and more await within the pages.
Ten stories. Ten women.
Who will survive? Who will fall? And who will succumb to their inner evil?
Find out in Visions and Nightmares.
Warning: This book contains disturbing scenes that may be upsetting to some readers.
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