The Frozen Hell

As the flash of light disappeared, I was able to see what I did. Nothing. I did nothing. The place I was practicing magic was still the same.

"Woah bro, you have some cool power, a literal flash bang" he said in a consoling manner. I could see Deeno chuckling under hi breath and Elysa glaring at him. This was not what I expected. Out of thousands kind of magic, a fucking flash bang is what I got. I was contemplating my life choices when suddenly something caught Deeno's eye.

It was a small bug which, at the time of the flash was present there. Deeno examined it and was shocked to see that the bug was alive but his movements were sealed. It could breathe but could not move as if it's been paralyzed. At that time Deeno realise what my abilities actually were. A few minutes later he brought a wild slime and a few objects.

"Try your power at this slime" he ordered me.

"What? You want me to use my cool flashbang power on a slime which is already blind?" I asked him.

Making an annoyed face he said "I have my doubts, so you just do what I say."

I reluctantly agreed and used my power on that slime. Along with 'whirrr' a flash occured and after it I saw the slime alive. "See, it doesn't affect this thing" that was when Deeno suddenly kicked that slime. His feet and slime collided, sudden shockwaves erupted, the shockwaves sent me several feets back and all the trees in the vicinity were now bent. Elysa somehow managed to stay still and Luke grabbed me before I could fly away.

"That bitch has gone mad" Luke whispered and when the shockwaves from the impact cleared he rushed to Deeno to give him an earful. As he approached Deeno, he noticed something was off. Deeno looked astonished.

"What the hell happened to you, musclehead, why are you looking like you just realised that suitcase wheels were invented after the moon landing." Luke asked Deeno.

"I have no idea what you are talking about but look at this slime." Deeno told him.

"What about this slime?" Luke stood besides the slime.

"Kick it, with your full power"

"Why?"

"Just do it"

Reluctantly, Luke agreed and charged up his, flashes of light gathered around his leg, it was so bright that it was blinding. He then raised his leg back and swung it towards the slime. At the moment of impact, the light scattered as the impact again caused shockwaves far greater than that of Deeno and caused a small hurricane and this time Elysa held onto me so I wouldn't just fly away. A the hurricane subsided, Luke looked at Deeno and asked him "what now? You told me to kick this poor slime and obviously this Lil thing is probably disintegrated into du..."

He looked at the slime while speaking only to see slime unharmed and still in its place like it was before.

Elysa could tell something was off with the slime. She quickly approached it and tried to pick it. But she failed. It was surprising to see her struggle to pickup a damn slime. Deeno tried it too but it didn't work. Annoyed he destroyed the ground below the slime. But to everyones shock, the slime remained in its place floating above a pit. Everyone including me, were shocked. I now understand my true powers.

Over the next few days, I was trained by Deeno to increase my stamina, strength and endurance while Luke helped me to increase my speed and teach me more about my abilities and magic flow in general and Elyse teched me magic control and and some general facts about Frozen Hell. It is interesting to note that in Frozen Hell, people of all three alternate realities arrive here. If I wanted to explain this, it would be something like the light that people see when approaching death is just a gateway through Frozen Hell. When a someone die, thier souls travels from their reality to Frozen Hell, from where they than either go to afterlife or cycle of rebirth depending on thier destiny.

"Wait, then what about humans here? Are here no humans?" I asked Elysa while meditating.

"Humans do come here, though not commonly but there are some humans whose soul still have the remnants of their original world. Everyone who comes here has a connection to this place." Elysa explained calmly.

"I don't understand what you meant by that."

Elysa sighed and started

"Well, for starters, when something dies, it's soul still remains. Now, what that thing did in its life has an impact on its soul. Fir the sake of simplicity, let's assume good or bad. If a person was good his soul would be pure but if he was bad he would have a corrupted soul. After either one dies, memories, experiences, incidents, body etc. may be forgotten but there is still an impact on the soul. If for example let's say, the corrupted soul gets a chance to reincarnate it may not remember his last lives but theres a chance that even in his new life he would do some bad things but if he instead choose to lead a life of good deeds, he may cancel out the negative impact on his soul thus remain neutral. That's how most souls are, neutral."

"It is a flawed logic" I complained. "I mean what if someone commits a murder only for them to save someone in their next live. Would his sin of taking a life and hurting the lives innocent be cancelled? This is such a bad logic, even a 3 year old would make a better system that this."

"It is the law of this world, Zai" Elysa gave a small smile and sat by the window. Breeze making her hair flow in an elegant manner while the orange light of setting sun reflects on her face face and gives her emrald eyes a distinct hue. Looking from this angle, she really looks like an angel.

"By the way, Elysa, what's your connection to this place? I think you've been here for a long time."

My question suddenly made Elysa's eyes tremble and she made a saddend face before instantly smiling and saying,

"I am still finding it, Zai." Elysa smiled sweetly. Looking at her now, she really is a beauty.

"Now then.." Elysa walked upto me.

BANG! she smashed my back with a thick wooden stick. "I think I told you to not lose concentration while meditating" while smiling angrily. Yeah I was wrong, she's a devil, a fucking devil.

**

The days went by quickly and now only 4 days remain till the execution date. I completed my regular training and was laying on the bed while looking at the poorly patched up ceiling that was destroyed by Luke. Even though he didn't pay for the damage he somehow restored the ceiling. Although not perfect but I guess It works. I calmly tried to recollect my thoughts. First is my abilities.

According to Luke, I have the power of locking or fixing animate or inanimate objects at a place. Instead of locking, I decided to call it sealing cause it sounds cool. While testing out my powers the other day, I found out that I can seal upto 10 objects at a place number depending on their size though. When I seal an object, it remains stationery and could not be moved unless I undo the seal myself. Even if great strength is applied it will not move.

The other day when I undid the seal on that slime, it instantly died meaning the damage done by Deeno and Luke's attack actually stockpiled somehow and only occured when undid the seal. I tried it on Luke too but it did not work so my guess is my power does not work on living matter. But again a question arise, why did it work on a slime and the bug Deeno previously saw. My guess is that it was due to their or nature of the material at their surface. Since slime here are almost just a lump of mineral solution and are only alive due to magical nature of this world.

And most importantly my powers are contact type. Meaning in order to seal an object I need to touch it. Also if I ever want to seal an object at a distance, there is a blinding flash of light. The intensity of light is proportional to the distance between me and the object. Undoing a seal is an easy job, all I have to do is just press my finger, with which I sealed the object against my palm. That's how I realise that my current limit is 10 medium sized objects and 2 huge ones.

That is a good rundown of the abilities I currently have. But it still not strong enough against those powerhouses like Deeno or heck even a ghoul. I have to put more effort into it and work hard to make sure at the very least, I would not be a burden to Luke. Thinking about what future holds for me, I calmly fell asleep.

***

As the sirens of nearby firefighter trucks rang, the firefighters and police made their way into now charred forest. As they cautiously navigated thier way into the forest, the smell of burnt woods and plants caused irritation in thier noses. It was dead silent, no sound expect the siren at distant which was also seemed to be fading as they went deeper into the woods and the sound of a helicopter scouting nearby area.

"Did you find anything suspicious" an elderly policeman asked the helicopter scouting the area through the phone.

"Nothing yet, si-" when suddenly the signal was cut and next second a loud boom sound was heard on the phone. Policemen were shocked at the sudden sound through the phone but more scared of the fact that there was no sound heard by any one of them at the scene even though helicopter was only 20-30 m away from the main group.

The squad was now cautious and they got into a defensive formation. As they tried to navigate through the forest, they soon realise they were lost already. They tried to track down a trail laid by a senior firefighter, they followed this trail to get out of the forest.

But it was of no use, as they were already caught in a trap.

The squad did not break the formation, and tried to move as cautiously as possible. Counting members at a regular interval so no one gets lost when suddenly a thunder roared. Even though it was a clear night sky, the sound of thunder caused them to panic and broke thier formation for a second. The chief officer-in-charge quickly calmed and gathered everyone and started counting all the members. "1, 2, 3 ..... 10, 11, 12, and 13." Everyone was there. The chief was relieved when

"B- Bu- But sir..." A young officer said in a scared voice

"What? What's wrong?"

"T- the- there were only 12 members! " as he said that, his mouth began foaming and he coughed up blood. His body started twisting and his hand on their own held his throat, trying to resist he mawled his neck and screamed in pain. Other officers withdrew suddenly and moved back a few feets. His distorted body now made cracking noices as he twisted his arms,legs and let out an horrid screech again just before his head burst open and his blood splattered everywhere. The other officers went pale and shivered. They were too scared to even scream. The incharge gathered courage to calm down and started counting, this time it was 12.

He regrouped everyone and went deep into the forest with only purpose of survival. Then again unexpectedl, there was a sound of thunder and again chief counted but this time it was 10. One officer disappeared. The squad was in panic. Chief again calmed them down and they went deeper. Again the sound of thunder struck and another one disappeared as they went deeper into the forest half of the squad disappeared. Only 4 officers and 2 firefighters were left including chief. They lost hopes to escape so they went deeper.

Thunder stopped and the team found itself near a ruined shelter. They were relieved to be able to find food or water or maybe contact authorities. They opened gates of the shelter and went inside. Upon entering the dark and eerie shelter they were greeted with a foul smell. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning and they saw the glimpse of source of foul smell. Several disfigured corpses of men, women, children and elderly. Some with head cracked open, some with body twisted beyond imagination. Atleast a thousand of dead bodies disfigured beyond recognition. Arms, legs everywhere decaying while rodents and worms feeding on them. The officers could not hold back and vomitted at this sight. As they tried to open the door once again to escape from the shelter they soon realised the gates had been locked.

***