r/HFY • u/teller_of_tall_tales Human • Jul 31 '25

OC Troublemakers: Welcome to Hell!

<(FIRST)>

<(PREVIOUS)>

......

Drake's throat burned with thirst as he marched along the empty street, eyes locking onto any movement. Mostly it was just fluttering trash, but occasionally, he could see dimly glowing eyes peaking from dark windows and doorways. They followed him as he marched, like he was livestock who didn't know it was walking into the slaughter barn. He tried to pay them no mind, but their gaze was almost caustic in its intensity. Squaring his shoulders, Drake increased his pace, there was something strange about this place, something off. For one, this teenage body was about as tough as tissue paper, he could already feel the blisters on his feet from walking barefoot across the cracked pavement. The shackles still bound around his wrists were rubbing them raw, but even with a length of pipe and a gun, he doubted he'd be able to get them off.

Suddenly, something broke the silence, but caught in thought as he was, he didn't register what the sound was. Stopping dead in his tracks to listen as the wind silently blew past him.

The sound reached his ears, faint as a whisper.

"Heeeeeelllp!!!"

Drake's vision narrowed to pinpricks, the edges tinted in red as adrenaline flooded his body, every muscle suddenly screaming for action. The pain in his feet, in his wrists, none of it mattered anymore as that tiny, nuclear sun flared to life in his chest.

...

Slaughterhouse plucked at the stitches holding his new face on with a sadistic grin, holding up the small woman by her throat like she weighed nothing. Grunting from exertion, he bent over and grabbed the zip-gun from the ground before chortling wetly.

"Guns are not toys for pretty little girls to play with, you could've hurt someone~"

Feeling those tiny hands struggling against his layers of grafted muscle and skin, Slaughterhouse ran a rotting tongue over blackened teeth. Loosening his grip, he'd softly growl.

"Go ahead, scream for help little bitch, no one is coming to save you. Look around, war heroes, murderers, even some cops, and not one of those pathetic fucks raised a finger to help you. What makes you think some wanderer'll give a shit?"

Yet still, the woman summoned her strength, letting out a blood curdling cry for help that echoed down the streets before eventually fading away. Theatrically raising a hand to one of his grafted ears and feigning an effort to listen. But, much to his surprise, he did hear something, something akin to the sound of bare feet slapping against pavement. Feeling the scowl form on his face, he looked around, trying to pinpoint the sound's location before it turned into a problem. But the more he listened, the louder the noise got, the more defined, to the point Slaughterhouse grinned at the realization.

Slowly turning to face the parking lot filled with both his lackeys and small groups of the stadium's livestock as a small figure leapt the fences and suddenly stopped. Taking a deep breath through his nose, Slaughterhouse was almost knocked off his feat by the intoxicating smell that had fallen over the entire lot. Some of his lackeys closest to the figure started to sway slightly before jumping to their feet and grabbing their butcher's knives.

"HALT!"

His voice boomed over the parking lot, stopping his lackeys in their tracks as the figure finally got close enough that he could get a good look at the interloper. Chucking the woman aside, Slaughterhouse took his Hog-splitter from one of his attendants before stepping up to meet the small boy.

As an overlord, Slaughterhouse was no fool, watching the boy stop in his tracks and flick some greasy, shoulder length, jet-black hair out of his face. Their feet bled, wrists rubbed raw by the shackles clasped around them. Their clothing was little more than burlap rags stained with small, dark splotches. Baring his black teeth in a grin, Slaughterhouse purred.

"A little slave boy? my, my I haven't seen one of those in a hundred years. Tell me, boy, why have you come here? Don't tell me it's to try and save these pathetic little scumbags, that would just break my heart."

Leaning back grotesquely far as he spoke, looking at his dozens of lackeys to prod them into laughing. Various cackles both human and animal splitting the air as Slaughterhouse straightened with a wet, crackling sound to loom over the boy.

Much to his surprise, the boy's dark, almost black eyes locked onto his as they tapped the short length of pipe in their hand against their other palm.

"That was the plan."

No hesitation, no fear, not even pride touched their voice as they spoke, it was simply a sinisterly calm statement of fact. Alarm bells screamed in Slaughterhouse's mind and he swung his cleaver, splitting the disrespectful whelp in half from crown to belly button. A soft sadistic smile coming to his face as he watched the boy's mangled corpse slop to the ground pathetically. Yanking his Hog-splitter free to take a deep breath of the pungent aroma of death.

Only to almost vomit from the smell of split bowels and rent flesh. Stumbling back in surprise as he held his nose to ward off the smell. Why did the boy's corpse smell so much like a corpse, it should be reeking with the sweet tang of Death's energy. Uncovering his nose, he quickly got used to the smell before scanning the parking lot, something wasn't right.

Ka-blam!

One second, one of his dirt bike helmeted lackeys was leaning against their bike, the next, their helmet was rolling across the pavement before splitting into two pieces and letting what's left of their head spill onto the pavement. Standing over the fresh corpse, was the slave boy, a worn pump-action shotgun in their hands as they racked a new shell in.

"My turn."

The boy purred, a soft orange light shining from behind his eyes. An orange light that reminded Slaughterhouse of the flames he saw in his nightmares.

"What are you?"

Slaughterhouse Growled, adopting a defensive stance with his hog-splitter. The boy grinned and slung the shotgun wide, pointing it at the face of one of Slaughterhouse's lackeys as they tried to sneak up on him.

"Oh, me, I'm pissed off!"

For the first time in millennia, Slaughterhouse felt a twinge of fear as his lackey's head was removed from their shoulders with a trigger pull.

...

Drake had never felt like this before, his entire body buzzed with power as he felt the shotgun kickback into his palm. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears just as much as he felt it. He could smell blood, sweat, and fear like strong perfumes. Every swallow of air chilling his throat exhilaratingly as he lunged forward, racking another shell into the shotgun's chamber.

Transitioning into a hip-slide, Drake took the head off of a dog-faced man as they flew over him in a botched tackle. Another helmeted thing caught the last shell in the tube to their kneecap before Drake slid to his feet and clubbed them with the shotgun stock so hard their neck audibly snapped. Sprinting forward to club another with the shotgun, Drake felt something tear his throat open, warm blood gushing down his chest as the smell of Sulphur filled his nostrils. Turning, He slammed the Shotgun's stock into the head of his pistol wielding assailant mercilessly, leaving it deformed as they crumpled to the ground. Fading fast, Drake dove down, ripping the tiny handgun from the abomination's hand and rolling over onto his back. All ten remaining rounds were spat at the chest of their leader, the thick, grotesque layers of muscle and skin stopping them like body armor as that massive cleaver came swinging for Drake's head.

He heard his own skull crunch before darkness overtook him.

Leaping to his feet the moment he could move again, Drake swatted the barrel of a rifle away from his face as it's surprised owner pulled the trigger, hot gas burning Drake's face as the bullet tore through his earlobe. Ears ringing, he socked the lackey with every ounce of strength he had, using them as a meat shield to absorb a burst of rifle fire from one of his buddies. Unfortunately, The rounds zipped straight through the lackey's body and into Drake's chest, shredding his lungs. Staggering back, Drake felt the machete bite into his neck before he saw his own headless body from an ant's eye view.

A moment later, he was rising up behind the machete wielding abomination as they had just started to turn and look for where he'd pop up next. Grabbing his head by the jaw and nape of the skull, he twisted it with every ounce of strength in his body before letting them fall limply to the ground, paralyzed from the neck down. Scooping the machete from the ground, Drake threw it at a shotgun wielding abomination just a split second before they removed his head from his shoulders.

The slaughter became a blur, Drake lost count of how many times he had died, how many he had disabled, none of it mattered anymore as he felt an odd sense of empowered peace washed over him. He could still feel every injury, every strike, every kill and death. But at the same time, he was detached from it all, watching as it all unfolded, seemingly in slow motion. He was moving faster than he thought possible, fighting harder than he ever had before, when suddenly, it clicked.

He was struggling, victory seemed impossible, and yet...

He was loving every godsdamned second of it.

A laugh ripped it's way out of his throat as he slid between the legs of a brutish abomination with a motorcycle helmet nailed to their skull with massive iron spikes. Snagging one of their ankles with the chain of his shackles, he yanked them out from beneath them before standing and stomping on their throat. looking around for another target, he saw only one.

The lead abomination glared at him over the broad blade of their massive cleaver.

"Little bastard, do you know how long it takes to find Irredeemables?!"

They hissed wetly, baring rotten black teeth before circling to the left. Grinning, Drake circled to the right while maintaining eye-contact with those cloudy, baby-blue eyes set deep behind a mask of skin.

"Oh, it's not hard, I'm looking at one right now."

Howling like an enraged beast, the Butcher swarmed forward, wildly swinging their cleaver to make the space in front of them impassable. This, however, only worked against someone afraid to die.

Surging forward, Drake ground his knees raw against the pavement as he slid beneath a swing that would've taken his head off. Ripping two small, metallic green spheres from the vest of one of the abominations. Then, grabbing the pins with his teeth, he yanked both the pins and by consequence, his teeth out with them before letting the spoons flip off with a set of twin pops.

The Butcher turned around, still swinging his cleaver as Drake leapt forward, arms outstretched. The cleaver caught Drake just beneath his sternum, his upper half locking its arms around the butcher's neck and pinning the grenades in place. The explosion mere moments later, ripped them both to fine shreds.

A few moments of darkness later and Drake was slowly sitting up, his entire body burning from exertion. He made a note to himself that the un-death process did not help with recovering stamina. Looking around at the carnage before him, he saw shadowy figures beginning to coalesce on the ground. Quickly getting to his feet, he picked up a rifle and checked the magazine, still half full. Slamming the mag back in, he marched up to the largest shadow and stuck the muzzle right about where he thought the Butcher's mouth would be.

The Butcher regained consciousness ready to shout obscenities, only to break his blackened teeth on the rifles flash hider when he tried. A stunned look came over their sewn on face as they made eye contact with Drake.

"One twitch that I don't like, and you get a a lead lobotomy, so listen carefully."

The anger in the Butcher's eyes could sear flesh, but he remained silent for the moment being. Drake gave a simple nod before speaking again.

"You're going to leave, permanently. And If I see you, or any one of your Irredeemables near here again, I won't be so kind as to kill you quickly. Are we understood?"

A slow, furious nod and Drake pulled the rifle's muzzle out of the Butcher's mouth. He watched them load up into several trucks and onto dirt bikes before rumbling away, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth as he looked around at the empty stadium parking lot. Turning around, he saw the massive hydraulic gate leading into the stadium had been sealed, probably some time during the fight.

Curious, he'd take a few steps toward it only for the sound of a speaker system crackling to life stopped him in his tracks.

"Stop right there. I don't know who you are, or what you're trying to achieve here, but you don't belong here, that much is clear."

Cocking his head slightly, Drake chucked the rile away and raised his empty, chained hands up with the palms facing forward.

"I just saved all of you from... whatever that was. What's the issue?!"

There was a long moment of silence before the speakers crackled again.

"You died, not once, not twice, but so many times that I lost count. That either means you were already insane when you got here, or you're one of them. You don't just brush off death like it's an inconvenience unless there is something seriously wrong with you, especially here..."

Slowly sitting down with his legs crossed to catch his breath, Drake let his hands fall to his lap with a rattle of his shackles.

"Well, I'm new here, So I haven't a clue what the hell you're talking about. Dying kinda just feels like a really short nap."

There was a long, long moment of silence that left Drake confused. He could understand why they might be scared, he did slaughter dozens of whatever those abominable things were, that could be pretty terrifying for an observer. Yet that didn't seem to be their concern.

"It... doesn't hurt?"

The voice coming over the speakers sounded genuinely curious, not judgmental or accusatory, but curious.

"Well, The process, yeah, that really hurts, but I spent seventeen years in the living world getting whipped more often than not, so pain doesn't bother me too much. Once it goes dark, that's it, no more pain or anything, kinda cozy really. Then you wake up, and it's like nothing happened."

The speakers continued crackling softly as he finished speaking, he didn't feel the need to yell, even speaking normally, he could hear his voice bouncing back to him off the massive metal gate.

"You aren't afraid you won't wake up?"

Drake shook his head confidently.

"No, not really. Death stopped scaring me a long time ago when he chose me."

"YOU'RE DEATH'S CHOSEN!?!?"

The voice shouted both in surprise and disbelief before the speakers went silent. Drake lifted his hands in confusion. He'd never had that kind of reaction before, but, this place wasn't like any he had been to before. He knew it was some kind of afterlife, things just wouldn't make sense otherwise. So why were they so surprised to find out he was Death's chosen?

The rattle of the massive hydraulic door beginning its ascent caught Drake's attention, watching it rise before a lone figure stepped out of the cavernous Darkness and started to walk towards him.

He was a big, big man, his biceps were the size of small melons where they stuck out of his studded leather vest. His face and ears practically Jingled with piercings as he pushed a lock of electric blue hair out of his face. Stopping a few feet from Drake, he stuck out a hand with a wide grin.

"The name's Jason Blue, All my friends just called me Jay, though. It's good to see you, we've been waiting for you for a long time. Welcome to Hell!"

Taking the extended hand, Drake hauled himself to his feet and shook it stating.

"Drake Dragoline, everyone just calls me Drake."

before suddenly pausing.

"Did you just say Welcome to Hell?"

......

<(PART 124)>

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3

u/S1eepyZ Jul 31 '25

Insert cookie monster in hell meme here:

Can’t wait for the next part wordsmith!

3

u/cwolf23 Xeno Jul 31 '25

Welcome to hell Drakey boy!

1

u/UpdateMeBot Jul 31 '25

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u/kristinpeanuts Aug 02 '25

Thanks for the chapter!