He was in Hell, and not just “a state or place of extreme pain or misery”, but the actual Hell of fire and brimstone. At least it sure looked like Hell, what with demon henchmen brandishing their pitchforks at what he could only assume were people. It was rather difficult to tell if they were in fact human, as the only light shone from the red hot pools of molten lava. No, they were obviously human, he could see that now, or rather, he could hear it from their blood curdling cries for mercy.
What could these God forsaken people have done to incur such wrath? More importantly, he wondered, what had he done? He quickly went over the Ten Commandments in his head, much as he had done when he had been an altar boy. “Concentrate!” he whispered to himself and then looked around to see if he had attracted any attention, as if his voice could rise above the din that filled the monolithic cavern. He tried to calm himself by remembering the familiar smells of his old church, Our Lady of Perpetual Help. “Man, I could use some of that help right now” he thought to himself. He tried to clear his mind and imagined that he was back arranging hymn books and smelling the newly waxed wood of the pews, the colored prayer candles and the incense still lingering in the air from the earlier mass.
“Okay, okay, I have no false gods, I never really swore falsely by the name of the Lord. It’s true that I hardly ever kept the Sabbath day holy, but who does? It’s even harder now with Sunday shopping.” He sighed, but a jolt of pain through his head spurred him on. “I guess I honored my parents, more or less, but who knows what that means. At least I never murdered anyone.” Andy started to wonder if this trip down memory lane was getting him anywhere. “I can’t be here because I swiped that pack of gum after my graduation party, I meant to pay…but I was drunk”.
An idea slowly started to fight its way past the pain and fear, to the surface of his brain. Andy realized that he wasn’t so much seeing what was happening; it was more like he was watching what was happening, like on TV. “It’s all in my mind” he hissed to himself. “This is how I imagined Hell would be, at least when I was young.” Andy was simultaneously comforted and scared out of his wits at his realization. “Where am I…really?” worried Andy “and what’s happening to my mind?”