"Mark! How many times would we keep on having this conversation about your late returns every single time these days?" Rita Clinton shouted furiously, her eyes blazing with rage.
Mark Clinton, her husband, had returned late from work again, drenched in alcohol and looking every bit the wreck. His hair and entire body gave off the sickly stench of sweat mixed with the wastefulness of drinking.
"Woman, just… just… shut it, all right? I… I've ha… had enough of your bi… bic… bickering of late!" Mark retorted shakily, his body still betraying subtle reflexes of his drunken state.
"And why would I shut it when the whole neighborhood is fueling evidence-based rumors about your secret encounters with ladies from work? Do you think I don't know all of this is just a façade?" Rita queried, her expression still seething with anger.
Mark kept quiet. He chose to remain silent because he had nothing to refute his wife's accusations. His past experiences had already taught him to keep his cool around this woman.
If they were to battle back and forth, neither he nor his wife would have a good night ahead. So he walked away, shoving her lightly aside as he climbed the stairs to their bedroom.
"MARK!" Rita screamed, but Mark ignored her vehemently, as though he weren't the one being called.
Rita clawed at her skin, trying to rein in her anger by biting her lips until they pulsed. Eventually she sighed in frustration and headed back to the bedroom in hopes of confronting him.
Storming back in, she was dismayed to find Mark already collapsed on the bed, snoring aggressively.
She contorted her face with exasperation, struggling to swallow her astronomical rage at seeing her intended target already asleep.
She stormed out again, determined to restore her mood, and left Mark alone in the bedroom.
Now Mark hovered between half-sleep and half-wakefulness. His next move depended on whether his annoying wife would resume her tirade or grant him a reprieve.
Thankfully, she opted for the latter and gave him some space to rest.
It would only be a little while before everything was set and he could elope with his lover to live in bliss away from his wife's torment and this cursed household.
Rita, meanwhile, retreated to the living room. She stared blankly at the ceiling for a long moment before she broke down into emotionally fueled weeping.
"God! I know You're there, and I know that You've heard me all this time. I wouldn't want to do to Mark what I—or the children—would regret for a lifetime. Deal with him as You would any other lost sheep. Like the prodigal son, take him back into Your embrace and let him be the faithful husband I once knew…" she prayed, tears streaming as she collapsed into the seat, wailing.
Her weeping had drifted beyond Mark's hearing range, as he enjoyed uninterrupted slumber without a nagging wife to keep him in check.
His mind and spirit had left his body to wander aimlessly in the world beyond. Like everyone else, he dreamed while sleeping and awakened to a reality shaped by those dreams.
However, tonight's dream wasn't one of his usual boring, swirling visions. In fact, it would be one he'd remember for the present and the future alike.
"Mark Clinton!" A dark, demonic voice called to him in the world of dreams.
Only now did Mark recall—or question—where he was in the dream world.
"Wh… Where am I?" he stuttered, struggling to make sense of what was happening to him.
He felt himself sinking into a strange abyssal zone that seemed to block out sound and light with every foot he fell.
Strange, ghostly, demonic, soulful screams echoed from the invisible depths toward which he was plummeting. For a moment, Mark realized something… something he had always willfully chosen to disbelieve.
And why wouldn't he? After all those vain sermons, the same old messages since forever, the repetitive haunting idea of some Christ dying to save him from his sins.
They claimed Christ came to die for the sins of the world to redeem us. In what way did He redeem this dying world? There was nothing free about being in the body of Christ anyway—just tethered to teachings that banned certain freedoms and monitored his conduct.
"Be on Jesus' side and avert hell!" the evangelists by the roadside screamed as he drove past day in and day out. He never cared to listen, speeding away and chasing vain labor.
Back at home, his wife pestered him for his sudden retreat from church, accusing him of backsliding. He argued in defense, calling his actions a discovery of freedom.
"Who cares about an afterlife? If Jesus were who He claims to be, we wouldn't have lost Angelo or Micah. We wouldn't have lost our first house, my mother to cancer, or your brother to the scourge of AIDS. If there were a hell anyway, I'd walk right into the devil's embrace. Your Jesus could die again— I wouldn't care," Mark could remember, the stony shield he placed in his heart guarding against her pleas to return to the fold.
He spent years rebuilding his faith in his own time, hoping he could wait to reconcile with God when he saw fit.
But the decision to willfully step away from God had led to this twist he couldn't explain—dream or actual death.
He felt himself falling wholly into the dark abyss, unaware of time. Eventually, he reached a moment of stability and crashed into a spacious field.
"What is this place?" he asked himself, grunting from the pain of the collapse.
"Welcome to Hell, my little friend! Hahahaha!" Mark's spine chilled as he beheld the speaker in that same instant.
His head spun, and his mind reeled in terror at the confirmation of his half-doubt.
He was indeed in HELL!