It is the year 1802.  Philip LeMarchand is lost somewhere amongst the world, possibly still selling his infamous puzzle box.  Many suspicions have fallen on the once proud and heralded architect, who designed many buildings in quite exquisite detail.  But with his disappearance, the world is baffled.  He leaves his estate unsold.  The police find remnants of human bones and fragments of skin and blood.  The designs of the wooden puzzle boxes adorn the main room, where a circular altar is center stage.  Many are puzzled by the almost satanic rituals hinted at in this room.  What was the purpose of the murder and death? 
     Though many will still not know the answer to LeMarchand's mysteries, a handful of curious spectators who hunger for sins of flesh will find a sick paradise within the confines of the box. 

     Alice D'Arcy was still in bed, waking to the warm sun that shone through her bedroom window.  She was taken from the arms of sleep, brushed away from the dreamland that filled her nights and washed away her days.  Though she does not remember the embrace of the dream over her body, she does feel its lasting effects on her mild skin the next morning.  She knows whether it was a good or a bad dream.  Last nights was one of the sane and luxurious dreams.  
     Alice was up and about, shaking the sleep from her body.  She felt refreshed and somewhat dulled by the morning light.  The window she peered out of showed a vista of the French countryside she had grownup staring at every morning.  It was ritual that she look out and see the peasants helplessly wandering about with their business.  She knew of their hardships and labors, but there was nothing she could do to help ease their suffering.  She knew they had suffered for a long time, since they were born unto a class with no future. 
     It is sad to note such ironies in life, she thought to herself.  Being born into a class with no hope and only knowing despair and suffering.  She is glad that she was not raised in such a class, for she did not know what she would do with her life were she poor.  She has always had everything she wanted...except for the puzzle.  The grandest of all the treasures she desired.  But her family had warned her that the puzzle box from Philip LeMarchand was deadly, that it contained pure evil itself.  They had heard stories of the toy maker that would make a grown man weep in tears of pain, just from the descriptions.  But Alice was not afraid of the dark, sinister plot that LeMarchand might and might not have.  She wanted the box.  She did not care for the stories of missing people and blood pools where the boxes were found.  She prayed to God Himself that she would be entitled to the possession of such a unique and intriguing box.  But it was not God that answered...nor was it the virgin Mary.

     Alice was in the downstairs chamber of the castle, looking through the library for references to the box.  There were clippings from other source books and scrolls that denoted the latest news from the other side of France.  But nothing about the box.  There was one scroll that detailed the ornamental face design of the box.  It said that LeMarchand called it the Lament Configuration.  It went on about his disappearance and the discovery of the Elysium Configuration plans, but the paper upon which it was written was discarded.  She filed away the thought of the box in her memory and walked up the stairs to the main foyer, overlooking the first floor. 
     There came a knock–so gentle was it that she did not at first hear it.  But a knock it was.  She called for Felicia to answer the door, summoning the woman to perform her duties.  Alice thought that perhaps she did not hear the knock, slight as it was.  Whatever the case, the door was answered in due time. 
     A haggard man appeared at the open door.  Alice looked down, a look of question on her face. 
     "Might I help you, sir?" Felicia asked the man as gentle as possible, not knowing who he was.  His attire was not entirely forthcoming.  He was dressed in ragged clothes that had no doubt been through a war all by itself.  Though who's war and when, she had no idea. 
     "My name, madam, is Philip LeMarchand.  I am a toy maker..." 
     Oh my God!  Could it be true?  Alice was in astonishment.  Could this really be LeMarchand, the toy maker who built that illustrious puzzle box she had been wanting? 
     "You are Philip LeMarchand?"  She asked with a tone of conviction.  She could not be sure, but it seemed likely.  He held a bag in his right hand, opening it with his left he pulled out a small cube with a lattice of shiny gold-like metal.  It was fashioned into a design, several actually. 
     "Madam.  I assure you I am LeMarchand.  I am here to see if anyone is interested in buying one of my puzzle boxes.  I have several for sale in different configurations."  He held out the box toward Alice.  She looked on in amazement, running down the foyer stairs to meet this man. 
     "You do not know how long I have wanted a box like that!  You really are LeMarchand." 
     "Indeed my lady.  I have crafted many such boxes as puzzles for people to solve.  The one I hold is a special one.  I call it...the Tantalus Configuration.  It is one of my most magnificent pieces to date.  It currently is the only one in existence.  Perhaps you would like to purchase it?" 
     "I must!  How much?"  They hammered out the prices, LeMarchand selling the box for one-third of his normal price. 
     "I thank you much for your patronage."  With that, LeMarchand disappeared as quickly as he came. 
     Alice was holding onto the puzzle box with great enthusiasm.  She would solve the puzzle tonight over dinner.  Perhaps she would invite her friends to come over as well.  Alice finally had one of LeMarchand's puzzle boxes.  She was ecstatic..running to her room to solve the elusive puzzle. 

    The puzzle box was inviting, cool to the touch.  Alice could not wait until night came to solve the mystery before her.  She looked over the box carefully before proceeding.  LeMarchand had called it the Tantalus Configuration.  What could that mean for the design?  She disregarded the name and proceeded finally to move the pieces, spinning a circle here, twisting a square there.  After a moment, the box moved almost by itself.  She set the box down, looking at the design change and transmutate into something else.  It was wooden and did not appear to have any gears.  How could it move with such elegance? 
     A wind blew softly at first, then wildly in the room.  The walls began to bend and wave, feeling the power that was invisible to Alice.  The walls looked like they had disappeared, falling away from the floor and revealing a maze of vast proportion.  She was curious and without fear.  She walked into the maze and began to search through the walls.  She turned back to find only another corridor reaching into blackness.  Her room was gone, the familiarity of her existence was gone.  She was only in the maze. 
     She explored for almost three hours, finally coming upon the what appeared to be the center of the great labyrinth.  A shape like an elongated diamond hovered above the labyrinth, sweeping a black light throughout the corridors and halls and rooms contained in the maze.  She saw walls moving with unseen purpose, recalibrating the maze and reconfiguring it.  The maze looked like a continuously transforming hell. 
     "...a continuously transforming hell," she spoke aloud. 
     "It is the depths of hell that you reached, my child."  A voice from behind her, echoing in the corridors of the maze.  She turned in fright, looking at the man who stood before her.  Perhaps it was not a man at all.  His face was light blue, discoloured no doubt by the darkness.  He wore a leather dress, stitched into his skin by some sort of leather thread.  His head was bald, a grid of lines highlighting his face.  Nails that must have gone through to the bone were sticking out of the intersections of the grid, protruding at least an inch and a half each.  Alice backed away slowly. 
     "What kind of daemon are you?" 
     "I am known as the Lord of the Cenobites.  My name is unkownst to me.  Do not fear me child.  I am here to guide you through the passages of hell.  You are to be reconfigured in the light of the shadows, but first you must learn of hell and how it affects your soul.  Forget your flesh and come with me."  Pinhead reaches out with his hand, but she does not take it.  "Come child, this is what you asked for.  Leviathan has seen to it that you arrive here on your own accord.  What did you think the puzzle box was?  You are lucky little one.  You have been chosen to be a protector of hell.  Very few have that privilege.  Most are taken by their own desires and lusts.  I am the guardian of the Lament Configuration as well as the Tantalus Configuration.  Come with me child.  Come join the few.  Let me taste your flesh." 
     "Taste my flesh?  What kind of animal are you?" 
     "Rest assured, I am no animal.  I am guardian of this place.  Come child.  Let me lead the way.  Let me show you the pleasures of being a cenobite.  Let me guide you through your passage, help you release your...inner child."  Pinhead began a subtle laugh, droning on about the joy of hell.  "You see child.  You cannot escape the depths of hell.  You cannot go home.  You are chosen because of your dedication.  Have you not looked upon the peasants and see only wretched souls lost in thought...mundane live that is not worth living?  I am the way.  Je suis morte.  Yet I am alive in every sense of the word.  I become death and so shall you.  Join me.  What choice do you have?" 
     Alice ran...she ran from the daemon.  She wanted this to be a dream, waking up any second now to a cold sweat. 
     "You cannot run from me child!  The reconfiguration will take place...in the shadows." 

     It was hopeless.  She had run for the last ten minutes, losing breath with each movement now.  She was tiring.  Her body seemed to quickly dissolve into a mass of dead weight, faster than normal.  Her body was tired, yet she awoke from slumber not many hours before.  Could this be an effect from being in hell?  The daemon who haunts her every step, who is he?  She can hear him walking slowly behind her, always within a short distance.  Yet she was running while he seemed to calmly stride down the corridors.  Perhaps it was from the walls turning in on themselves as she had seen. 
     Whatever the case, she kept running until she came upon a small room.  She entered the cubicle and awed at the sight.  A man was in the middle of the room, chains with hooks deep in his skin were wired to him.  The chains outstretched from the walls, holding him in the center of the room.  His skin was coming loose, his face a palette of only red.  Nearby, a woman was dancing naked before him.  She was in shadow, her silhouette moving every so elegantly. 
     "Come here, dear.  Show me your flesh.  Show me your skin..."  The man was whispering in a low tone, audible only when she moved close. 
     Alice backed out of the room.  She did not look behind her–captivated by the scene–otherwise she would have noticed the chamber that seemed to spring from the floor.  The door to the chamber opened, allowing her entrance into the small space.  When she noticed the new addition and enclosure, it was too late.  The chamber doors closed, engulfing her in a green fluid that quickly filled.  She was drenched in the green fluid, yelling sounds that never escaped.  The fluid filled to her neck, then stopped.  Small wires protruded from inside and attached themselves to her face, arms, legs, torso.  They dug in deep, injecting her with a red and blue fluid.  Chains with hooks, the same as those found in the room, clawed at her face, ripping away the skin.  A large metal circle entered her mouth, the metal splitting into two halves, opening her mouth wider and wider.  The hooks began to peel away the portion of her jaw that contained the mandible.  The flesh was torn apart, the bone cracked, leaving only her upper jaw.  The lower jaw was detached. 
     Next came her eyes.  Nails were driven through the eyeballs, ripping them away and replacing them with a glass substitute.  She could almost see through them, but her sight was hampered.  Hooks descended from nowhere, tearing apart the ears and leaving only the inner ear drums intact.  Smoothly proficient and fast, the face mutilated in a matter a three to four minutes.  The arms were infused with poly carbons and leather attire stitched like sutures to the muscle.  Nails and hooks drove themselves into the bone, screwing tightly together the mix of leather and man and machine.  Alice was now a machination of pain, suffering a torment so horrid as to make her want to cry.  But the machine had taken away her tear ducts.  She was now a cenobite. 
     She walked out of the chamber horrified and afraid.  She was disgusted by what she was wearing.  A dress that flowed down to the floor, dragging a long tail like that of a wedding dress.  Only this was black and made of a tough leather hide, sewed to her skin and bones.  Alice was no more, what stood before the chamber and Leviathan was a monster that could not have what she wanted.  She had had everything in life.  No she was wanting everything...like a body that was normal, eyes that could see clearly, a sense of hearing that did not report back false sounds, a sense of touch that allowed her to feel the object and texture.  She was robbed of everything and yet everything seemed within her reach.
     "Ah, Tantalus.  I see that you have been transformed at last."  Pinhead stood, walking closer to her, reaching for her ornaments and decorations.  "You are very pretty my child.  Your beauty in hell will be legendary indeed."
     "I cannot see you...what am I?"
     "My child.  You have no idea what you have been blessed with today do you?  You are now a cenobite...a protector of hell.  And I am here to teach you the ways.  I am the way.  And we eternity to learning to catch-up on.  After all, we do have eternity."

THE END