The Harrowing

“‘But truly, if I well discern, a little / Before His coming who the mighty spoil / Bore off from Dis, in the supernal circle, / Upon all sides the deep and loathsome valley / Trembled so, that I thought the Universe / Was thrilled with love…’” –Inferno, Canto XII, lines 37-42

Beatrice sat on her knees in perpetual filth and shadow, drawing a picture of a man on the wall. As she drew, she narrowed her eyes, for the small space of her cell was distorted in watery darkness. She sketched the man’s strong face and bright eyes. She made him what she felt she could never be.

Free.

He was rising above the ground with his arms outstretched like he was flying. She had no idea what had prompted creativity in this desolate place. The walls of her cell were smattered with drawings, sketches, paintings. Each one depicted false hopes and empty promises.

Hollow hopes were better than no hopes, she supposed.

If you have no hope, then you’re dead.

All Beatrice knew was that it fostered release, escape. As she sketched, she did not think about the Malebranche Army, or that she was hundreds of feet underground in the belly of the Ditch, one of the most infamous prisons to ever stain the world. Her mind only recognized the fact that the black lines meant something more than just dust on a cold wall.

A sudden spark of inspiration—or madness—bloomed within her and she pulled out a makeshift blade that had been concealed in her dress pocket. She slit her thumb and painted streaks of blood across her mighty man’s wrists. She knew now what her drawing had become. She stared into the face of her only hope, ascending from the ground, blood flowing from his hands.

She wanted to rise like the man with the bleeding wrists. She wanted to be lifted up, to live again, to be far away from this place. She wanted to fly away, like a bird from its cage. A part of her thought that maybe if she painted her beliefs on this wall, they would depart from her body and the Malebranche would let her leave. Maybe she could fly away if she only gave up her faith.

Maybe their persecution would finally end.

And, maybe her suffering would cease.

Just maybe.

She had never been ashamed of her faith, but she was certainly afraid of it, afraid that it would poison her chances of living.

Her agony became plain, and it drained her of her imaginative spirit. The charcoal fell from her trembling hand. Her rations of porridge and water had not come in three days. Beatrice had cried out in anguish the first night without food; the hunger had ripped through her like thorns. But the pain of starvation had subsided the last two days and had left her gutted and empty.

Her mind, however, was filled to the brim. Especially now that it had been wrenched away from the artful illusions that distracted her.

Perverted images of a reoccurring nightmare whirred within the dark places of her skull. She dreamt that the soldiers’ foul seed grew inside of her. As she screamed in the dark, her womb burst and filth spilled out. It gave way to dozens of abominations—demon children. Their black hands reached for her breasts, but their shrieking mouths with needle-teeth craved blood instead of milk. The dream was stitched to her eyes, was tar upon her heart. She could not pull it away from her. She could not escape it.

Beatrice was bewildered that she had not conceived a single child, considering the number of times she had been raped. She had heard stories of what the guardsmen did to infants. There were rumors that they tore children from mothers’ bellies and drowned them in buckets of water, or hurled newborns against concrete walls.

Perhaps God had closed her womb, not wishing for her to bear an innocent child in this infernal place. This oblivion.

Beatrice felt as if she had been born in hell herself—she could not remember anything of her previous life, except bits and pieces of love for people who had been devoured by the monstrosity the world had become.

There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of happy times in misery.

She, being eighteen, was not the youngest of those defiled. The Malebranche reserved extreme torture for younger inmates; they believed breaking them was more of a challenge. Youthful spirits were always the last to shatter, but when they did, irreparable devastation was the result. The guardsmen raped the pretty ones—both women and men. She had seen a nine-year-old boy with his right arm cleaved entirely from its socket. The youngest girl she had seen pregnant was eleven years old.

The fear she felt for their lives was inexpressible. How could an innocent child become so unclean?

So, dreadfully, irrevocably unclean.

Beatrice’s thoughts were scattered with terror and starvation. She clung to any fragment of light to keep her sane. It was why she welcomed creativity. It was a refuge for her, even if it was only a spiteful fantasy, dead optimism. Was it possible that she could lose her mind, like hundreds of other prisoners of war—or had she already lost it? Though in her core she knew the oppressive nightmare could not be real, in the small dark place of her cell, it abruptly came to life.

The hinges of the cell door screeched, as if her womb had borne a litter of screaming infants. She felt seeking, eager hands fumbling with her dress and grasping her breasts. She felt fingers in her hair, like the children reaching for her in the shadows. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming and clawed at the snatching hands with her fingernails.

It was the foul breath of a soldier that dragged her from her hysterical state of mind. A guardsman by the name of Ciriatto was upon her, not a brood of fiends. She could hear his teeth snapping at her ear and she whimpered.

“Get up, you whore.” He spat and yanked Beatrice’s hair, snapping back her neck. A sharp discomfort prickled along her scalp. Ciriatto was very large—brutish—with a broad chest and wide waist. His head was shaved, but he had a long beard. The only thing she knew about him was his name and that he was a glutton when it came to women. He was always twitching, as if he could never find rest in the black air of the underground prison. A flashlight cut into the dark and assaulted her eyes as she was hauled to her feet. She was suddenly aware of the second soldier in the entry of her cell.

How humiliating—she would be raped. And there would be an audience.

The second guardsman, Cagnazzo, shifted his helmet and pointed at the back wall of the chamber, his gaunt face looking skeletal from the dim light bulbs in the hallway. He barked, “Wait. Don’t touch her. What the hell is this?”

Ciriatto pulled his fingers from her hair to examine what Cagnazzo was illuminating with his flashlight. Horror coursed like venom through her skin. Beatrice knew immediately what they saw.

The picture she had just drawn. Of the flying man.

Beatrice stammered, “It’s a… I…” Before she could spit out a single plea, Ciriatto’s hands came down upon her. She lifted her arms to shield her face. Time was not charted in seconds, but in heartbeats. She clenched her teeth so hard that she felt her molars would crack. She locked her jaw and sealed her lips, for screaming only tempted him.

Ciriatto took her wrists in his vicious grip and threw her to the ground. Beatrice landed on her backside and crumpled across the cement floor. She had only seconds to brace herself. She watched behind the curtain of her hair as he brought back his foot and kicked her in the gut with his steel-toed boot. The air was forced out of her, until she was gasping for scraps of breath. She rolled over and a groan escaped from her as she wrapped her arms around her torso.

His sharp, meaty fingers snatched fistfuls of her hair as he yanked her off the ground. With a strong hand, he struck her face. The bitter metallic taste of blood bubbled over her tongue. She was dazed, and in a split-second her face met the cold floor with a sickening thud. Yet, by the throbbing that swallowed her whole body, she knew she wasn’t dead.

She tried to speak, but her lips remained still. She strived to pull herself from the darkness, the dizzying pain, but she could not gather herself. Blood rushed through her ears. She could not see—her long, matted hair had fallen over her green eyes. Her arms and legs were as heavy as lead. Beatrice was paralyzed with shock and could only shudder.

In the blotted and bruised haze of her consciousness, Beatrice could hear one of them radioing the Warden of the Ditch to come immediately. She had only met the Warden once.

When he arrived, she could see the blur of his gray coat and his black eyes. He was taller than the other men, so much so that he could swallow both soldiers whole. Cagnazzo spat in her direction as she trembled on the floor. “The bitch has turned her cell into an altar.”

She saw the Warden’s badge, but could only make out the first letter of his name—M.

Though the scorching welts on her face left her senses twisted, she heard the Warden snarling at them, his voice sounded like a snake. She half-expected to see a monstrous tail slithering around his legs.

“She’s not the only one—there have been three hundred others this month sent to the furnace. Dis will not be pleased. Such a waste of beauty.”

The furnace?

Fear gripped Beatrice, paralyzing her with a jolt that coursed through her veins. The Warden took a nail and engraved the number 6 into the palm of her hand—the number of the wing she was being condemned to. 6 was the crematorium. She wept shamelessly.

It was her damnation. Her final sentencing.

“Please, don’t do this…” she whimpered. She clutched her chest as desperation eclipsed her heart. She felt as if she had fallen down into a pit, a well, each side one hundred feet high. The fire of dread ravaged her. As the shadows around her gathered themselves, she realized the devil had finally come for her. Darkness had descended to claim her.

To claim her soul.

She looked up into the Warden’s hollow face and pleaded. He hissed, “Burn in hell,” and then stalked into the dark.

Her thin ankles were unexpectedly seized in Cagnazzo’s viselike grip. Impulsively, she attempted to kick the guardsman away. He ripped her from her cell. “No! Don’t take me!” She sputtered and tears carved trails in her face. She clawed at the floor with her nails and screamed as they dragged her into the darkness of the hallway.

Beatrice was going to burn.

The Malebranche soldiers pulled on her arms viciously, leaving buds of bruises on her white skin. They wrenched her from the ground and yanked on the front of her dress until it tore, exposing her breasts. She cried wordless pleas. She felt as if her bones were going to shatter under their iron grip. They didn’t heed her protests, and only tightened their frozen hands.

As Beatrice passed other cells, inmates howled and banged on the metal bars. They were gray, thin, with black mouths and eyes. The chambers reeked of urine and the tang of feces. Her skin crawled with their laughter and cries. Though demented, this was the sound of thankfulness—in this hour, another was dying in their place. They had been spared for the time being.

She was sickened by the smell of blood on the soldiers’ uniforms as they forced her in the direction of the crematorium. In this part of the Ditch, the fetid stench of burning flesh lingered in the walls. Smoke stained the concrete. Bile stung the back of her throat.

Beatrice tried to swallow her overpowering fear. She knew the death would be painful. Yet, she wasn’t unfamiliar with the furnace. It was rumored that most prisoners suffocated before their skin burned. She could not imagine either being a better option.

How many others have walked down this same hall?

The sight of the black iron door at the end of the hallway forced her to abandon all hope. It overwhelmed her—the smell, the black dust on the walls, the hundred iron bolts in the face of the entrance to the furnace. She nearly fell over, her knees buckling under her.

How many others have entered that door and never returned?

Her bare feet left prints in the soot on the floor. She wasn’t ready for this. For the longest time, she had tried to compel herself to let go, to release her grip on herself and her life.

Her mother and father. Her brother, whom she had not seen in years. Her passions and dreams.

Virgil.

Glorious Virgil. She had not forgotten him, but the fading memory of his face had become broken, withered. She knew letting go would save her from being destroyed, save her from the bane of cruel despair. Yet, she couldn’t. She would take him to her grave.

Beatrice prayed to her religion, to her God. Heat swelled from the furnaces and it felt like a weight was upon her chest. Hell was breathing upon her, breathing into her. A piercing shriek fell from her lips, but it was one of many, drowned out by the screams of a thousand mouths.

Beatrice’s toes were black with ashes.

She could feel the hopelessness, the vile darkness writhing within her like a great worm. Hell was alive inside of her and its razors filled her skull. Its hands and teeth gripped her, and she felt that she could never be free from it.

Hell was far too strong.

They opened the screeching door of the furnace, its contents entirely dark. Before she was forced through the entry, roaring sirens burst from crackling speakers. Beatrice clutched her ears at the sound.

Ciriatto’s radio began to talk. He held it up to his mouth, his eye twitching, “Rubicante, what’s going on?”

The other soldier’s voice gurgled up from the radio, “There’s been a breach! The entrance to the penitentiary yard has just been blown in!”

Beatrice was captivated by the news as she listened silently. Frustration tinged his words as Ciriatto tightened his grip on the radio, “Rubicante, what the hell are you talking about?”

The transmission began to break between breaths, static filling the voids, “Someone has broken into the prison—used explosives to destroy one of the walls—will start feeling tremors soon—entire passageways are collapsing—”

Then nothing but hissing static.

Cagnazzo’s face twisted with agitation. “What are we going to do? Dis will not be happy about a breach.”

Ciriatto shrugged, “Nothing’s changed. Others will handle it. We’re going to burn this witch.”

The news of the break-in completely vanished from Beatrice’s mind. Ciriatto grabbed her hair and she clawed at his hands, slicing his skin with her nails. He threw her violently into the hot, dark void of the incinerator.

“No!” Beatrice fell on her side and rolled, feeling the concrete slab beneath her. She staggered to her feet and tried to lunge for the door. “Please! No!” She saw a final glimpse of the soldier’s shadows and then the iron door was bolted shut. It left the small space ringing. She could still sense the faint blare of sirens beyond the black iron door.

The Malebranche had swallowed the key to her cage.

She knew how the furnaces worked—there was a tile of concrete in the center of the chamber. If she kept to the middle of it, she could avoid the grids and not be…

The iron vents that covered the floor, walls, and ceiling began to glow red. They illuminated the furnace and she was able to find the center of the cement pad, where she dropped to her knees and held herself. Beatrice felt that she might fall apart, that the faint stitches holding her together were beginning to unravel. Streams of fire began to curl up from the grids. The bloody light exposed the black ash that covered the room.

The smell of burning bodies—it discolored her skin, her hands and feet. It clung to her hair and invaded her nostrils. The distorted, dizzying hands of the stench clutched her mind as well. She clawed at her face in an attempt to rip away the veil of filth. She was so unclean.

So irredeemably, nauseatingly unclean.

The heat in the incinerator had already become excruciating. Fire was everywhere. It swept over the ceiling, it crawled up the walls. She tried to gather her hair and dress to keep them away from the blazing vents. She was surrounded by a blistering wall of hell, and there was nothing that could put it out. It would consume her.

Wasn’t the lowermost circle of hell said to be frozen?

Beatrice sobbed and her face fell into her hands. She only wished that the intruder, the one who had breached the walls of the Ditch, would destroy the Malebranche. She put every last devastated splinter of faith in this one person, this faceless invader, who might now avenge the blood of all those who had fallen.

The fire was growing hotter; the heat crowded the small furnace and crushed her, forcing breath from her lungs. The air was thinner, and it went into her and did nothing to soothe the suffocation corroding her chest. Sweat poured down her face. Her tongue was dry, her lips cracked.

With all the breath she could gather, she began to sing. It was an old wedding song from her life before the Ditch:

“Tomorrow shall be my dancing day; / I would my true love did so chance / To see the legend of my play, / To call my true love to my dance—”

 The fire, the blazing heat that scalded her feet and hands, would turn her black.

“Then down to hell I took my way / For my true love’s deliverance, / And rose again on the third day, / Up to my true love and the dance.”

The hellfire she beheld would only ruin her, as a flower withers before flames.

“Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love, / This have I done for my true love !”

She heard the sound of thunder beyond the roaring mouth of the inferno, behind her voice that pealed in the furnace. She lifted her head, the sweltering air pouring from the blackened grids whipped the bronze waves of her hair around her face. The iron door. The entrance to the furnace.

It was being forced open.

Beatrice slowly raised herself to stand, cautious that she did not touch the steady, white-hot shrouds of flames. Ash was falling from the door, the thunder was getting louder. A great weight was being forced against it, and the lock was beginning to give way. With wide eyes, she saw the iron hinges buckle under the force as the door toppled into the furnace with a crash, smothering some of the vents.

Beyond the tongues of fire, she saw the silhouette of a man. The exposed portions of his skin gleamed with sweat, grime, and smoldered like gold. Veins threaded his fierce arms, hands, and neck. The hellfire scattered the shadows and illuminated his face as Beatrice began to weep. She couldn’t breathe, but it was no longer the fire that was stealing breath from her chest. She was looking upon a ghost, surely. It couldn’t be him. It was impossible.

Virgil.

“Beatrice, can you get out?” The words of a dead man. It couldn’t be him. She was deluded, she had lost her mind. How could it be him? She could barely hear him amid the groan of the furnace and the screech of the security alarms. His voice was deeper than she remembered.

She studied the vents as they vomited torturous heat. She would have to jump. “I don’t know if I can make it.” She gazed at Virgil, not sure if she could even believe it was him, in the flesh.

Virgil pleaded with her. He shuddered in the entrance, helplessness clouding his eyes. “You have to try, beautiful. You can make it, I know you can.”

Beatrice didn’t want to ponder impossibilities. She had no time to think about the consequences of not crossing the distance. This was her chance at living. This was her chance to be saved from hell. She took a breath, took a step back and leapt. She pulled up her legs sharply as she flew over the fire. She sensed the flames licking at her feet, grasping at the hem of her dress.

Her foot met the cold cement floor of the dark hallway and she tumbled into Virgil.

He kissed her, gathered her in his arms, and she clung to him, because she knew her life depended on it. Beatrice could not get close enough to him as he held her. She wanted to go into him, to be away from this place. They cried and trembled, her tears made her eyes raw and stained her cheeks. She reached for his mangled hands, but they did not fit in hers—Virgil was missing four fingers, two from each hand. A part of her had accepted that nothing could be whole in the new world, but grief clenched her throat.

Virgil whispered to her, evidently sensing her dismay, “I’ve done so much to bring you back to me.” She shook her head, still in disbelief. Could God really be this good?

Behind the cry of the sirens, she could still hear people screaming. She almost forgot where she was. Just for a moment. “Tris, we need to figure out how to escape.” The sweat and dirt that darkened his skin could not hide his eagerness.

She narrowed her eyes as he began to pull her along the hallway, “Are you insane? No one has left this place.”

“How do you think I got in? There are ways out.” Virgil eyed her, and she held up the front of her dress to keep her breasts concealed.

Beatrice could hardly comprehend what he was saying, astonishment ringing in her ears, “You’re the intruder?” Virgil shrugged and quickly slipped off his pack to pull off his blue sweater and handed it to her. She hesitantly took it and fitted it over her head. It was nearly too big on her. How much had he grown?

“It was my father’s.” His eyes were bright as he turned to confront the heart of the Ditch. A string of light bulbs overhead cast a flickering silver glow down the distance of the hall. The artificial light kept the worst of the shadows at bay.

She was apprehensive and her skin prickled with anticipation. Despite the frigid air, she wiped away sweat from her face—she could still smell the ashes of the furnace on her fingers.

They became silent as they progressed down the passage.

The hall was littered with bodies, crumpled, broken, their skin stained with patches of black bruises. Beatrice passed murky cells; gray bloodied forms were huddled in the small spaces, unaware and unmoving. It took her a second glance to realize that these bodies had once been people, now starving and rotting in their cages, broken by torture. It sickened her—it was only their breath that separated them from the corpses in the hall.

Was their only hope death? Or had death abandoned them as well?

Why was Virgil so much stronger than these people? What did he have in him that the others did not? What kept him separate from the wretched, empty people of the fallen world? Virgil strode next to her, his bare feet hardly making a sound.

“Why aren’t you wearing shoes?” Beatrice asked when he took her hand. She had so many questions—so many things fluttering in her mind. Yet, her voice carried uneasily in the dark passageway among the dead, the suffering, and the in-between.

“I gave my boots to one of the kids down here,” he said.

Walking so close to him, she could see just how much he had changed—his once wavy blond hair had been shaved, his round face had become angular, his belly and chest were now rock-hard, his hands were calloused. In her dreams, he had looked so different, so much younger.

She remembered how they used to sit together, and he braided violets into her hair. How they held onto each other and watched the sunrise. Was he really the same person? His dark blue eyes, however, looked no different from when he was five years old. She tightened his sweater around her as she trembled. “Are you just going to give all of yourself away?”

Virgil didn’t answer.

Beatrice held his hand. Tears began to smolder in her eyes. She hoped he didn’t see them, hoped that the darkness covered her face. “You don’t know how hard it’s been. You don’t know what I’ve endured, how much I’ve suffered.” He caressed the welt on her face left by Ciritatto. The skin was still tender.

She wanted to say it, she wanted to tell him. You don’t know how unclean I feel. But she did not speak those words. They were too painful to say out loud.

“I know.” Virgil tightened his grip around her. She felt like wax under the light of a flame—like melting. His presence was bright and it cast away the shadows of her thoughts. His touch was irresistibly warm.

“How long have you been looking for me?” She whispered as she stepped over a body and tried to keep herself together. The smell of rot twisted her guts, the dead men strewn along the halls seemed to stare up at her, making it hard to breathe.

Virgil spoke softly, “After the Malebranche’s destruction of our city, and thousands of people were killed and imprisoned, the entire world shut down.” She could see the years of despair rushing behind his eyes. She wanted to take them away from him, to put them in her own eyes, to relieve him of his burden. “I had to leave the city for a few weeks and wait for things to die down. Afterward, I searched the entire city for you, Tris, but I… I couldn’t find you. Your family—”

Beatrice cringed, but nodded. She knew. She had always known. At least they were far away, far from this wretched world. How much more could the Malebranche take away from her?

“I joined a small revolution, but they didn’t have a lot of supplies. But that’s how I cracked open this place, and that’s why I have these.” For the first time, Beatrice saw the pistols and rifle on his belt.

“What do you have in the bag?” She questioned. He opened his pack to reveal knives, another pistol, which he gave to her, a map, and a pocket Bible. She wasn’t sure what she felt about him using weapons like these. She had never fired a gun before.

“You realize the Malebranche won’t stop ‘til they find you. You’ll die down here.”

“If I can get you out, though, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.” Virgil looked at her for a fleeting moment, his eyes searching her. Beatrice didn’t want to hear him say that. She didn’t want to think about living without him any longer.

As they progressed down the corridor half-blind, Beatrice noticed floating lights creeping toward them up ahead. She blinked a few times, mistaking them for light bulbs at first. Dread tore through her chest when she realized that they were flashlights. Soldiers.

She tightened her grip on his arm, hysteria beginning to crawl back into her mind. “We have to hide. They’ll be looking for you—and if Dis gets his hands on you—”

“I’m not afraid of Dis—he just sits below all this, watching the world he’s destroyed. He’s a thief, a murderer, a liar, and he thought he could keep me out. He didn’t anticipate I would tear down the walls to his kingdom.”

Virgil gritted his teeth and sprinted ahead toward the soldiers, a pistol held firmly in his hand.

“Virgil!” She hissed and clawed her fingers through her hair. She hurried after him, the gun he had given her held tightly in her quaking hands. Panic seized her tongue and became a knot in her throat.

The Malebranche soldiers emerged from the dark, their helmets streaking shadows over their eyes. They were faceless. Before any one of them could lift their rifles, Virgil shot a guardsman in the hollow of his face.

Beatrice shrieked and covered her mouth. She felt nauseated—she had never seen Virgil kill anyone before. Adrenaline coursed through her, and she instinctively lunged beneath the snatching hands of a guardsman as he bounded for her. As she slid across the floor, she struck a heel of a soldier with the butt of her pistol. He fell to his knees, growling.

One of the Malebranche pulled up his rifle and scattered bullets after her as she darted to her left in desperation. “Virgil!” She screamed as she fell to the ground. She watched Virgil whirl around, smash his handgun into the side of the soldier’s head and then fire a round into his eye. She could feel the spray of blood on her legs.

“What did you just do?” She felt blood draining from her face, turning her skin pale.

He turned back to her after closing the eyes on the bodies. “My mercy has run dry, Tris. They’ve taken everything from me. Particularly you.” He grabbed her arm, helping her to her feet, and began to pull her swiftly down the hall.

The walls of the pathway began to tremble. Dust spewed from the ceiling and the string of lights became wild, throwing shadows in every direction. She remembered what the soldier had said on Ciriatto’s radio—entire sections of the Ditch were crumpling because of Virgil’s entry. “The tunnel is collapsing, we have to move!”

Virgil gave her a vicious yank and they were sprinting down the hall; death, filth, and darkness flashed by. Her hair flew behind her, her dress whispered around her knees. She refused to look back, but she could hear the roar of the passage toppling behind her, the thunder of the hellmouth falling down upon her to devour her.

Virgil’s long arms and legs carried him further, and she was being dragged behind him, forced to run faster than was possible. The massive door at the end of the corridor was beginning to close, to keep the rest of the prison from being damaged. That was their only way to escape, and it was fleeting.

Virgil let go of her and ran ahead, throwing himself at the door. He braced his back against it, trying to keep it open long enough for Beatrice to climb through. The massive gate groaned against him. Gears behind the walls began to pop and rumble in protest, struggling against Virgil’s weight. Muscles bulged in his arms and back and she thought his skin would burst.

“Move faster!” He gritted his teeth, his face was red with strain. In the back of her mind she imagined the hands of the inferno snatching her hair or her skirt, saw them dragging her to her demise. The sound of the passageway crumbling at her heels was deafening—if the falling ceiling didn’t kill her, she felt the noise would.

Beatrice finally fell through the entryway, and Virgil tumbled with her as the door slammed shut and the security locks activated. Her lungs were raw as she wheezed, gasping for air. She could hear the beating of Virgil’s heart. Sweat dripped down her arms, soaked her face.

She looked up at map fixed to the wall close by.

They had ascended into wing 5 of the Ditch.

She was suddenly disturbed with the clamor of yelling—mostly men. Virgil helped her up and they held each other as they continued on. When they turned the corner, they faced their next hindrance.

Long pale arms clawed blindly from their stalls. Virgil put himself in front of Beatrice. He swatted in vain at the ravenous hands that left stripes of dirt and blood on his back, shoulders, and head. He led Beatrice amid the entanglement of limbs as she shielded her face from their nails.

Terror seared through her as the thrashing, violent hands tore at her dress. Gray fingers pulled at Beatrice’s hair and the dark spaces behind the cell bars resonated with tireless moaning and gnashing teeth. A scream bubbled up in the back of her throat, threatening to crawl out of her mouth. Trying to smother her fear, she whimpered “Virgil.” Yet, her voice was devoured by the hundred mouths at her ears. Virgil tugged her arm, trying to pull her through the lashing arms. They strived to steal his pack. Fingers scraped over Virgil’s mouth and Beatrice watched him snap at them with his teeth. It appeared he wasn’t afraid to take a few fingers back.

The hands and jaws brought her back to her atrocious nightmare.

All the hungry demon children.

The prisoners attacked themselves as well, smiting each other with their fists and feet. Tearing each other with their teeth and nails. The men left crisscrossed scars across Virgil’s brow and scalp.

At the opposite end of the crowded passage, the pale figures of Malebranche soldiers began to grow from the shadows, their black eyes burning.

“Tris, down here!” He fought back the clawing hands to expose a wide covered drain in the cement floor. He wedged his fingers into the grating and pulled it off the sewer. A foul odor offended her, but she knew she had no other option. Virgil glanced fleetingly in her direction and then plunged into the hole. Fingers pulled her hair and dress. The soldiers were upon her, radioing the rest of the Malebranche about the fugitives.

Beatrice stomached her horror and followed him.

Into the blind world.

She plummeted into shattering, oppressive darkness. The drain spat her out into a wide pit. The moment she landed, mud soiled her dress, painted her legs, and splashed across her face. She spat and gagged, trying to keep the putrid sewage from her mouth.

Virgil found her, sightlessly reached for her in the dreary place. Sludge dripped from his chest and pants. Beatrice looked out and beheld a thousand faces made purple with cold. She could not keep herself from shuddering as she observed the bodies submerged in the mire. All numbers from 2 to 9 were etched into every single right hand. Somber-hued water fell from drainage pipes from the walls, drowning the bloated corpses.

It wasn’t a sewer. It was a mass grave.

Beatrice vomited. It was the first time she had seen Virgil turn pale with revulsion and astonishment. “It’s all right,” Virgil whispered and wrapped a secure arm around her as they waded through the noisome, icy filth.

She was so unclean.

So wretchedly unclean.

Above her, she could hear something rumbling down the vents. Another body, she assumed. Multiple shadowy forms fell from several drains and landed in the mud and water. Yet, they did not remain still. They slithered up from the filth and the darkness began to chatter.

“I’ve come for you, whore.” The voice touched the darkest part of her ravaged mind. It was the voice of the man who had defiled her countless times, the voice of her tormentor. She imagined him twitching with restlessness, as he always was, but she could only see the shade of his hulking form.

Ciriatto.

He had brought a unit of Malebranche guardsmen into the grave.

“Tris, go!” Virgil shoved her back, and fired bullets at the walking shadows with his pistol. Ciriatto shot at Virgil with his rifle, grazing his side. He grimaced and clutched the wound. Beatrice saw blood pouring through his fingers.

She lurched through the waist-deep swamp, Virgil covering her. The pit was agonizingly cold. Her toes were numb, her legs felt as if she was wading in a pool of broken glass. She didn’t look at the bodies—she kept her eyes up, as she knew she would black out if she looked at the carnage for too long.

The cavern around them began to quake, stirring the black waters of the grave. Another tremor. Beatrice found she could not wholly comprehend how much Virgil had truly ravaged the Ditch.

Ahead of her, across the trench, she saw a gated exit that led into an elevated passage. Water spewed out, but for the most part, it looked clear. “Virgil,” she cried and whirled around to grab his shoulder, “This way!”

“You can’t escape, pretty girl.” Ciriatto bellowed, his deep voice echoing in the dark and hollow places. “And when I get to you, I’ll skin you and your boyfriend alive!”

She could not comprehend how a person’s heart could be so desolate, so lost.

He was filthier than she was.

Beatrice screamed, bitter tears of hatred streaming down her face, “You can’t have me anymore, you bastard! You can’t steal anything else from me!” She pulled the trigger on her handgun and a bullet glanced Ciriatto’s face, but it took off his ear. He howled and cursed, pressing his hand against the garbled flesh, black blood spilling down his neck.

Virgil tore at the fence and began pulling it back to make a small entrance into the passage. Beatrice took over, her frozen fingers clawing at the chain links as Virgil scattered bullets to keep the soldiers at bay. The frigid water flowed over her from the tunnel, and it washed away some of the mire, cleaning her hands and dress.

She grabbed Virgil’s arm, and hastily crawled through the gap of the fence she had made, the metal links slicing her arms. They pulled themselves to their feet and sprinted down the passageway. Water splashed at their heels. She could smell the extraordinary sweet air of snowfall. They were so close.

“We’re almost there, baby.” Virgil gasped, cringing as he held the gash on his ribs. Beatrice could hear the Malebranche working on the fence at the back of the tunnel, struggling to tear it away. She knew she hadn’t ripped herself free yet. Her feet were still dangling in the hellfire.

The darkness of the path began to turn blue, and frost gripped the walls. She could see a wide clearing at the end of the tunnel. As they approached, she noticed flurries of snow falling with the dim light that glittered like sapphire.

“Virgil! We made it!” She shrieked and he lifted her off her feet and carried her to their escape. Tears tumbled down their faces. Snow fell onto Virgil’s head as he lifted his gaze to the sky. To her confusion, his blue eyes paled with unspeakable sorrow.

She looked up.

Hideous devastation struck her in the heart with a thousand arrows. She clutched her chest, feeling the true ache of hope entirely lost. The opening to the world was more than eleven feet high, and was obstructed by a dreadful web of barbed wire. It was too steep to climb, and there was seemingly no way they could get through it without being mutilated.

Beatrice fell from his arms and began to shiver, “No, no!” She pulled at her hair. She wanted to die, wanted to end her despair. The pistol was still in her hand. One bullet, just above the ear. It would be so easy to end it all.

Virgil pushed her over to the wall, where the razor wire mesh wasn’t so thick. “We can still get through it.”

She looked at him, as if he was mad. “Are you sure?” At this point, she didn’t think she could bear to be optimistic. She had nothing more to lose but Virgil and her own life.

“It’s going to be difficult, but I think we can make it.” He turned back to the tunnel when they began to hear the sound of the soldiers' approach.

They have gotten past the fence.

“If we don’t survive this, Virgil, I have one last question.” Beatrice held his face, brushing her fingers over his tears. She wanted to be with him forever. But if she had to die, she would die in his arms.

Virgil closed his eyes and kissed her hands. “What is it, beautiful?”

“How did you find me in the Ditch?”

For the first time since they had been reunited, he grinned, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her forehead, “You’re my Muse, Tris. I heard you singing the wedding song.”

Then he lifted her into his lap, and began to slowly raise her through the mess of cables. Beatrice could feel his body shaking under her. Virgil straightened himself to lift her higher and the razor wire shredded the flesh of his shoulders and back.

She did her best to weave through it. Her hair tangled with it easily. The soldiers were coming; she could hear their boots thundering in the passage. Virgil grunted when the teeth of the wire sliced his hands and wrists. His back, feet, brow, and hands glowed with bleeding, fiery stigmata. Blood flowed from his wounds.

Looking down at him, she realized he had become the flying man on her cell wall, the man to free the bird from the cage, the snow to fall upon the hellfire.

With him, she could rise above the abyss of the Ditch.

She could rise above the world.

Snowflakes floated around her as she lifted her hands to the top of the aperture. Her hair rippled behind her. The smudged stone walls were slick with ice. Her fingers searched for something to grasp. She could still hear the thousand voices within the prison, but they were not screaming. They were encouraging her. They told her to rise.

Beatrice found the edge of the wall with her aching fingers. The Malebranche was at their heels. She could hear their snarls in the tunnel and their rifles clicking against their belts. The mouth of the inferno was reaching for her, determined to eat her.

Rise.

With every remaining scrap of her strength, she tried to pull herself up. Virgil continued to lift her, his arms trembling. A new dawn of purpose burned within her.

Rise.

The dawn broke over her heart as Virgil labored to push her over the ridge into the world of freedom. Weakness deadened her limbs, but she fought back and clenched her teeth. Snow clung to her skin, but the inward morning continued to blaze. The hour of her redemption had come.

Rise.

The walls of her misery were cracking, crumbling, and turning to dust as they fell away from her. She reached the top of the hole and stood, viewing dark woods and snow. To her left, the lights of the Ditch glittered like diamonds. It looked beautiful, glorious like a fortress. But its loveliness was deceiving, was only a veil concealing the vile rot beneath it.

She whirled back around and dropped to her knees to help Virgil up. She realized he was too far away. “Virgil, I can’t reach you.”

Virgil grinned, his smile crooked on his face. “I know. The wall is too tall for both of us to get out.”

She suddenly understood the grave truth of what had just happened—he had sacrificed himself to save her. He would take her place in the Ditch. “Virgil, I won’t leave you.” She could hardly speak, her words breaking over her sobs.

He lifted his hands to her through the barbed wire, snow melting on his face. Beatrice could just scarcely touch his remaining fingers, touch the hands that were his shame. He was glowing, his gold skin the only true light in the darkness of the Ditch. “You have to. They’re coming, Tris.”

She heard Ciriatto barking. The hands of wretchedness were closing around her world, threatening to destroy all she had fought for.

It wasn’t fair that he would suffer in her place, that she couldn’t be with him. “I love you, Virgil.” Through the tall trees, she could see the frantic lights of soldiers approaching. She needed to run away.

Virgil, his hands and heart bleeding, said to her, “I love you, too, Beatrice. I’ll find you, I promise. I will always find you, love.”

Then she was gone. She was sprinting through the woods, through the nasty branches and thorns that tore her skin, away from the soldiers. She held the handgun in a tight fist. Tears blinded her eyes and dark shapes rushed past her as she ran. Every part of who she was urged her to turn back, to find a way to escape with Virgil. But it would be a death sentence; the soldiers would certainly capture her.

To abandon him like this would ever be the cruelest of all her sins.

All she knew was that she would continue to live and honor his surrender. She would fight for the promise he made to her, that they would be reunited, that they would both be strong and beat this black world to live again.

The dawn that had sparked within her had not abandoned her at the Ditch. It remained within her. It propelled her legs to move faster. Her feet were blistered from the frost, but she could hardly feel the pain. After she had expended all of her strength, there was no sight of the Ditch or the Malebranche.

She had escaped.

Beatrice wandered through the dark forest, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. She was cold, hungry, and tormented by the lingering touch of Virgil. She hugged herself, buried her face into his sweater.

When she left the brooding woods, she saw a great meadow and hills. The snowfall had ended, but it left the earth awash in a white glory. She was enraptured.

The world was pure, was finally clean.

So wondrously, splendidly clean.

Though Beatrice continued forth into the night, her resurrected hope made her feel like she was soaring. Clinging to Virgil’s promise, she walked through the snow as she at last beheld the stars.