By Adan Flores

It was a night where the stars didn't shine, the moon was blood red. and the world was quiet. That was the day that Ark Zetsubo was born. when the church saw him they cried out "THAT BABY IS PURE EVIL"! as his parents were running away from the village they heard arrows being shot at them. one of the arrows hit the legs of his father and he fell down as he yelled at Ark mother "LEAVE GO WITHOUT ME!''. as they were running off the newborn baby looked back and saw his father killed, as more arrows came down Arks mother looked at him and smiled. Then she tells Ark "you would have been a prodigy child if they were to let you live", just then a flaming arrow hit his mother dead in the head. as the newborn Ark was there crying having no idea of what happened. As the church approached the dead body they saw that the baby Ark was alive, the church decided to throw the baby off the bridge. as Ark was falling to his death, he was caught by a mysterious man who had a faint green glow.

*22 years later* Ark is now grown and sitting alone in the woods. the people deemed him minacious, the church crusaders and soldiers are after him. ever since he was a kid he had to learn how to fend for himself and live outside of any big kingdoms and moving around everywhere. Ark is living on the outskirts of small villages. Ark is walking around when he suddenly hears a tree branch snap in half. Ark looks around and tries to figure out where the noise came from. as he looks around he hears running and turns around to find some crusaders trying to kill him. After many years of combat,this isn't Arks first time being ambushed. quickly Ark grabs his sword! as one crusader swings his sword at Ark, Ark manages to barely avoid the attack and slashes the crusader straight in the face. Next thing ark knew he was being charged at by two more crusaders, as ark battles the two crusaders he realizes that they can't take both of them on at the same time. Ark back-flips back away and charges at one of the crusaders and shoves him to the ground, Ark proceeds to slice his neck and let it bleed out! Ark then centered his attention to the last crusader remaining. Ark sees the color of his uniform and says to the man " do your higher ups really want me dead that badly '' with a smirk on his face. The crusader then says to Ark ' i don't know what you speak of . with a smile on his face too. Ark then tells him " you're one of the higher trained crusaders who has a lot of experience, but besides that i just have one question". "What is it foul human, if I can even call you human." says the crusader. "Why does the church and army want me dead? What have I done?"Ark says. The crusader takes off his helmet and looks at the ark and says " because you're one of the damned and doomed and you shouldn't be left alive". Both ark and the crusader hold up their swords and get ready to battle. 

Suddenly within a blink of an eye, the crusader dashes towards Ark with his sword aimed at Ark. Ark barely managed to evade the attack, gripping his sword tightly Ark turns around for a counter attack on the crusader. As soon as Arks lifts up his sword to slash the crusader, he sees that the crusader has fire in his hand ready to shoot at ark. Ark gets caught off guard by the fireball in the crusader's hand, ¨what the hell!”said ark as he dashed back away to avoid the attack. The crusader puts out the fire ball and says to Ark with a smirk on his face ¨scared of a little fire, are we.¨ surprised and concerned ark says ¨how the hell do you know how to use magic.¨ ¨only the higher up soldiers and the royal bloodline can use magic ark and for you that means trouble, it takes years of training to learn how to even use a elemental magic power and not everyone learns.¨ as the crusader starts charging an fire attack, ark looks at the crusader with a cocky smile and says¨ is that so huh¨. As the crusader fired the attack at ark, the fire suddenly vanished.

 As if it had hit something in the way, as the smoke cleared up the crusader screamed at Ark angrily  ¨ What the hell! That fire was supposed to burn you to an ash?! ¨ Ark looks at the crusader with the same cocky smile and says ¨ha ha guess the higher ups and the royal blood aren't the only one with magical abilities, the reason your pathetic fire didn't hit me is because of my magical shield, i call it N.I.B!¨. Just as arks finishes saying that, the crusader quickly sprints towards Ark lifting up his sword ready to kill Ark on the spot. He swings his sword right at Arks head when suddenly he gets knocked back, as if he had hit something, Ark says ¨ my ability N.I.B i can block all magical and physical attacks.¨. Then Ark swings his sword at the crusader instantly chopping off his head, blood squirting and oozing out everywhere. Ark sits down in the winter forest and says ¨oh man cant i ever just have a break, i need to go to the main kingdom where i was exiled from when i was just so small to ask the church why the hell everyone wants to kill me, ill ask even if by force i won't hesitate i just need an answer.¨ 

2 weeks later Ark arrives at the bridge to the kingdom, not to his surprise he sees that the front is really heavily guarded. Ark does a bit of scouting and sneaks into the castle though a passage under the bridge which has never been found. After Ark found the end of the passage, he saw that it led to a house. Inside the house he felt at peace, like he could relax and could never be in danger. The house was abandoned long ago from what Ark can see, in the distance Ark sees a very familiar blanket as he goes to pick it up he hears people talking in the distance, he quickly picks up the blanket and ducks under a pile of wood. As the two people pass by,Ark gets up and says to himself ¨the church isn't far away if i can get to it then i can get the answers which i seek¨. Before long Ark makes it about half way when he sees a man and a lady standing looking at him. Ark sees a guard standing nearby, without a moment's hesitation he lunged at the man and the woman and silently slit their throats. With N.I.B Ark caught the bodies and threw them into the lake over the wall.

About 5 minutes later Ark got to the church, he knew when the hours and days the church was in session so Ark knew that only the pope was there, Ark silently cut the glass and hoped though. As Ark was landing he could hear the pope say from a distance ¨i sensed evil but i never imagined it was you damned one¨. As the pope turns around to look at Ark ,Ark already has his sword up to his neck. 

The pope asks ¨what do you seek with me hmm¨ Ark looks at him and says ¨i want answers, and if you give them to me i might just let you live old man¨. ¨very well ¨ says the pope Ark says to the pope ¨ why did you exile me and kill my mother and father when I was a young infant¨. The pope says to Ark “in due time you will find out damned one”.

as the pope says that Ark slices the head of the pope off and walks outside and looks up. Ark lifts up the head and says up to the sky “look what i have god ,if your even f***ing real i'm going to kill all your holy men one by on do you hear me!¨. As Ark throws the head and walks away he hears lighting from the sky strike down next to him and sees something emerge from the lightning, the ominous voice says to Ark ¨ you...who dares kill my holy men,why do you seek to kill them¨. Ark responds with ¨ because they deserve it they have done nothing NOTHING better for anyone and have made s**t worse people are dying, women are getting raped, kids are being killed and for what! All in the name of god! f**k that i'll go kill god myself if i have too¨. Ark noticed that the light was still there even though the lighting isn't there Ark says to the light ¨let me know something are you god huh¨. The light remains silent. Ark noticed and even felt that he was being examined and judged by the mysterious light.

Then the light spoke ¨your true nature it cannot be¨. Ark, already being mad and frustrated, swung his sword at the light! But the sword went right though. Ark knew there was no beating him so he started to run away, that was until a wall of light blocked his path from every way. Ark saw the light approaching him and the light said to ark ¨no no no you don't belong here you should have never been born it can't be.you should have never been born into the mortal world you don't belong here¨. As the light keeps rambling on Ark tries to find an escape. Ark uses N.I.B as a surface and jumps on it and tries to jump over the light wall, but it was barely out of Ark's reach. 

When the light sees that Ark is trying to escape the light says to Ark ¨i am going to have to erase you completely nothing of you can remain, your soul will be destroyed and there will be nothing of you left¨ as the light says that a even more brighter light shines in front of it, Ark sees his life flash though his eyes. But there is a memory Ark remembers right as the light is going to fire that ball of light at him. Ark is in a house; he does not recognize the house or even know where it is. But Ark sees a man with a faint green glow and he says to Ark in a almost whisper of a voice ¨ repeat after me boy oume ishime aoma nokota, only say this when your really about to die and your soul will perish along with you¨ Ark sees this and screams right as the light bass is being fired at him ¨ OUME ISHIME AOMA NOKOTA!¨ right as Ark screams the phrase the light with a terrified tone in its voice says ¨ oh no i have to stop before the light ball actually hits him¨ but the light was too late. The light ball had hit Ark and started disintegrating him. As the light looked on in what can only be assumed is horror, Ark's final words were ¨wherever I go I will one day come back for all of you¨. 

Suddenly Ark feels an intense heat go over his back and Ark starts to sweat. Ark slowly opens his eyes and sits up.  ¨Where the hell even am I?” Ark stands up and looks around “Wait a minute…” Ark walks forward a bit. He feels the air is as hot as it could be and the ground is bombarded with corpses bleeding but not dead, small but yet horrible screams can be heard, the air was pitch black like the night sky but no stars were to be found anywhere. This is a place where all hope is lost and screams and sorrow can be heard from the sky and beyond. “Wait...I'm in hell!”

Ark walks around a bit and sees damned souls who couldn't make it into the first gate of hell, those are trapped outside of the gates to be spirits with no rest and are forced to haunt the people of the living. “Why am i here! Out of all the places why in hell!” Arks says desperately as he walks around to see his surroundings. After a bit of walking around Ark sees something unusual, a ferry and someone standing on top of it. Ark goes to take a closer look and instantly feels his back go cold, the figure was barely even human, a crooked nose and in his hand, and his eyes glow a slight blue shine.

After thinking for a bit, Arks finally knows who this is, its Charon the ferryman of the dead. For the small price of an obelisk coin Charon will ferry the undead to the gates of hell. Ark had carried an obelisk coin in his pocket just in case he died, since he knew hell was the place he was going to end up for murdering innocent and damned people. Arks approaches the ferry and right as Ark is going to enter he hears a voice call to him from above the ferry “HEY YOU MORTAL” Ark looks up and sees Charon jumping from the ferry and says to in a old raspy voice “you’ve got no business here mortal i don't know how you got here but scram, only the dead get on my ferry.” “But I am dead, some kind of light from heaven came down and killed me. I chanted a spell and well now i'm in hell”. Charon had a long beard that was uncleaned and not combed, he wore robes like any town man would wear and was pretty hideous. Ark pulls out a few obelisk coins and says to Charon with determination “you tell me what i need to know and take me there i will give you these coins”.

Charon agrees and lets Ark on to the ferry and guides him through a bit of the underworld. Mid-way through the trip Ark asks Charon something rather unusual “Charon, how do I get out of the underworld and be free to the world of the living”. Charon looks at Ark surprised and confused, after a bit of silence Charon finally answers “well for god, Jesus, and the angles its very easy to get in and out of hell. Demons aren't allowed to leave, not even Satan himself. As for mortals there is virtually no escape as far as i know”. “I see…” said Ark, “is there anyway i could go and talk to Satan himself”. Charon looked at Ark and said “not unless you want to die or suffer endless pain, but be my guest to try” “where does Satan reside” says Ark with a serious tone. “Hmph smug mortal , well if you want to go to him you need to pass all nine gates and there Satan sits. But be warned that will not be easy as no one has even come close to even making it, but i could care less if you try”. With his face full of determination and a little excitement Arks while smiling “guess i'll go and have a little chat with good ol Satan”, “stupid mortal your the first person I've even see happy to see the devil himself you know”. Ark nods and screams “I'M COMING FOR YOU SATAN” and laughs as he thinks the passage through hell will be easy. Charon hits Ark in the head and says “be quite mortal they can kill you here with no hesitation at all”. 

Suddenly Ark sees someone in front of him who he did not expect to see. Ark saw the death and death speaks in a very angry 

Ark and Charon stay quiet for the ride there. Once they get there Ark takes one look and nothing but horror fills his face as he sees what lies beyond the ferry and onto the gates he is going to pass though. As they get there Charon says to Ark “ so mortal are you  really going to attempt to get past all nine gates of hell just to get a second chance to be living again?” “You bet I will and I'm not going to give up on my task no matter how long it takes” Ark says cocky with a smile. “Well mortal take drink” Charon says as he pulls out a potion and tosses it at Ark, without a second thought Ark drinks it and says to Charon “what was the potion for old man”, “its for protection from the fires of the underworld, consider yourself lucky I've only given out two of these before but it should help you quite a bit”. Ark smiles and tosses Charon an extra obelisk coin and says “thanks for the ride old man” Charon lets out a small smirk and rides back to the entrance of hell. Ark takes just one look at the entrance to the first gate and sniffs and looks up and pukes. “What the f**k why is this even here. t,,,They...alive.” Ark sees a giant wall made of people and a sign that just says “first gate: limbo” spelled out with the bodies of people. Bones can be seen coming out of the people, blood pouring out of their mouth while they scream, screams that only sounded like the a million damned souls dying simultaneously but being revived as they have been down here to suffer for an eternity. Ark looks at this with visible disgust in his face and pukes again. After finishing puking for a bit, Ark looks for a way into the first gate when all of a sudden Ark is stopped by a very curious looking man with a hood on. The man says “turn back now” Ark says with a confident and cocky tone “oh yeah or else what huh ha ha ha”. The man then pulls out a scythe and says to Ark “ or I will destroy you”. Within a blink of an eye Ark dashes towards the man with his sword drawn and ready to kill. As Ark slices the mysterious man he realizes something and says to himself “why isn't he dying!” and keeps trying to kill him but nothing works. Just as Ark is going to put his sword up the man starts moving and slices Arks chest before Ark notices. Ark immediately lets out a grunt of pain and screams at the man “ WHO ARE YOU AND WHY THE F**K CAN’T I KILL YOU” the man takes off his hood revealing who he is and his face is a light red with long black hair tied into a ponytail. The man says to Ark “ I am Thanatos