It was dark. Dark as the skies that followed the scent. The smell of flesh was present in every corner of his mouth, watering down the sides in hunger and lust. The moon was black–a decrepit shape crooked in the night.  Again, the flesh was present.  A soul was in ecstasy somewhere over the hillside, chanting a song of praise and joy…suffering the long wait and anxiety.  Leviathan beat pulses of black rays throughout the labyrinth of pain, Hell’s personal hell.  Lamentation was setting within the walls and hills of the Configuration, twisting and turning, ebbing with the undulation of the sea of blood that flows freely down the corridors of hell.  The Configuration changed again, morphing into something that is unrecognizable to blind eyes.  But to those that are blessed with the eyes of a Cenobite, the curves and angles formed within the walls are beauty itself, magnified ten-fold within the span of seconds.
     A dark figure ventures into the labyrinth, hands following the walls…a scraping sound emanating from his nails.  Sharp they are, formed from insertions of nails used to hammer in wood and bones.  Nails that are deadly to the touch, like spikes digging out flesh.  He walks forward, looking rather gazed and empty.  He sees Leviathan, Lord of Hell.  “The shadows speak to me, my Lord.”  Leviathan does not answer.  Not because of incapability, but wraith and hatred.  The Cenobite comes closer, edging slowly forward to the center of the labyrinth.  Leviathan’s sweeping pulse does not stop, overshadowing areas of hell that need the touch of a tormented soul that exists to provide pain.
     “Leviathan.  Hear me!  I have come for the shadows.  I have come for you.  You torment me long enough.  It is time that you learn the word suffering.”
     “Suffering is but a word that few know.”  The voice came from behind him.  It was familiar, almost raspy.  “Suffering, child, is something that you have not known.”
     “You dare to defy our Lord?”  Another voice, female, called forth from the shadow’s depths.  “You, who the Lord created, would defy His word?  You would come to steal the shadows?”
     The dark figure turns around, looking at the faces of hell’s other guardians.  Cenobites, creatures that are distastefully crude, yet efficient.  Cenobites like Pinhead and Orpheus.  Cupid looks on at the two who stand behind him, ready to strike when the need arose to protect Leviathan–foul machination of pain that he is.
     “I have come for the shadows, not you.  Steal is perhaps not a strong enough word for what I do.  Freedom.  Do you not want freedom from this hell?  Have you not been here long enough?”  Cupid looked for a response.  He saw nothing.
     “You are born only three weeks, correct?”  Pinhead asked.  Cupid nodded, looking for his point.
     “You have not known pain or suffering.  Only pleasure.  Your birth from the reconfiguration machine is not complete.  You have the body and strength of a Cenobite, but you lack the knowledge and pain that we must endure.”
     “We are one with Leviathan.  You must see that.  In time, you too will see the dark light that hollows our lives.”
     Cupid looks back at Leviathan, sensing an urgency to complete his quest.  His lamentation into the shadows.  “I hunger for the shadows of freedom.  They used to surround me…”
     “When you were flesh.”  Pinhead interjected, causing Cupid to look back.  “You are now hell’s version of love…hate.  You no longer know the flesh or feel its caress on your skin.  There is nothing left of you…only soon to be pain and suffering, if you so choose.”
     “I do not choose pain and suffering.  I want only my freedom to the world I know.”
     “You can never be flesh again.  You rot–the stench of a thousands years of being absorbed by Leviathan.  You know no love for the flesh.”
     “But I do.  My flesh is out there…”  Cupid points to the Leviathan.  “My flesh lies within those walls of that configuration.  I know only boundaries of the flesh.”
     “Leviathan was wrong to turn you into a Cenobite.”  Orpheus said, stepping around Cupid.  She was encircling him, easily talking and soothing.  “You are not ready nor deserving.  You may have opened the box, but you do not have the key.”
     “The key lies within your soul, Cupid.  Look around you.”  Pinhead sweeps his arms around the walls, stretching his hands to show the many rooms that hell contains.  “There are seven levels of pain here.  Seven levels of dreaming flesh.  Everyone here dreams of flesh.  We all dream of the flesh that we once were.  Lest we forget what joy is.  But joy in hell is pain and suffering.  That you must see.”
     “I see only wretched beings lost in confusion.  You do not know or remember the flesh.  I hunger for it.  Look at the rooms and see my desire.”
     The rooms in hell are small cubicles, each a prison or paradise for their respective inhabitants.  The rooms are the perfect example of joy.  Dark shadows rubbing against each other, moans of ecstasy reverberate throughout the halls.  Yet the rooms are empty except for the lone soul who sits in the middle and lusts after the images.  All the senses are aroused minus the sense of touch.  In hell, the ironies are quite clear.
     “Then go.  Go to the flesh.  See if the world will accept you as you are.”  Pinhead turns around, walking in the opposite direction.  Orpheus backs slowly away, following in tow.
     “I will see the flesh.  Whether with or without Leviathan’s help.  The flesh is mine!”

     The box fits snuggly in the hands of the young boy, working the box with his eyes.  He looks over the configuration, the design, the style of the box.  It is like a Chinese riddle, holding fascinating mysteries within.  The Lament Configuration is almost complete.  The boy touches the small and larger arches, circling his finger around the odd shapes.  The box begins to open, the sides splitting and turning and twisting into something else.  It becomes the shape that Leviathan embraces.  The boys holds the shape in this small hands, caressing it slowly.  The room begins to shake and rumble, the walls bending to invisible waves.  A doorway opens to the other side.  The boy, curious but afraid, steps through the passageway to a promised paradise…only to find hell.

     The configuration was complete, the change astonishing.  The boy looks at his body as he steps from the chamber.  The nails in his hands are long and sharp, the wires in his head are flushed against the skin, transporting fluids and plasma throughout his body.  He was known now as Cupid, Cenobite and a guardian of hell.

     The world outside is cold and damp, not worth the price we pay for our lives.  Torment is the key to happiness, to the pain and the suffering.  Paradise is reached only by seeking hell, and within hell is where you are.  Leviathan spoke in his dream, in a nightmare that was too real.

     Cupid awoke from his cubicle, looking around at the room.  He saw that it contained skin stapled to the wall.  He had come for the flesh and had received it.  He could feel the flesh again, caress it and hold it.  Yet there was something terribly amok with the pleasure that he was not aware.  The skin, the shadows, the feel…all were from his flesh.  Flesh was brought to him…in hell.  Cupid would lament at the thought of such irony...but he was wrapped in pleasure.  He was in ecstasy.

THE END