Demons.

They were definitely demons.

They were demons, my mind was muddled, and I felt that maybe I was in Hell. Thoughts came to me disjointed and without logic or context. For some reason, that didn't seem to be important at all. Appropriately, I was horny as hell.

I had been here for eternity, if not longer, and I'd seen enough of them slavering about to know that they were demons. My aroused, addled brain may have been depleted of logic and intellect, but my sarcastic side seemed to be fully stocked and noted the irony of wandering aimlessly for eternity and only coming up with "demon." They lumbered about, as demons do, lurching from side to side with their bodies expanding and contracting to some unheard but unholy rhythm.

I tried not to stare, definitely attempting to refrain from laughing, but the constant shambling and bloating, coupled with their oozing faces, was just too comical for me to not burst out with mirth. If you think people can give looks that kill, wait until you have a melting-faced demon staring daggers at you. Their faces melted and dripped like some waxwork under heat lamps. That might sound terrifying, but I had been here forever; it was actually kind of entertaining. Aside from the demons cavorting about, I was also having a difficult time walking, what with the floor rocking and heaving at random every time I tried to take a step. At least I wasn't alone in that. The demons seemed to be having a difficult go of it as well.

Some of them stared at me; some of them screeched out some unintelligible gibberish, and some called me by name, Gail. Even though the hazy fog enshrouded my mind, I knew that my name was Gail. They avoided me, looking at me more with curiosity than anything else. Perhaps I was a demon, too.

The thought hit me that perhaps these cavernous corridors I randomly stumbled through were Hell, and I was some sort of demon. I wondered if Hell had mirrors, so I could test that theory. I could take a look at myself and discern pretty quickly if I were a demon. If I pulsed bigger and smaller, had a melting face and black eyes, and cackled like a demon, then, I was probably a demon. Not a vanity mirror, wardrobe, compact, or even a reflective puddle in sight for me to test my hypothesis.

Maybe Hell has some "no vanity mirrors" policy or something. I couldn't guess why. Perhaps they were worried that they might get broken and the poor, hapless, mirror-vandalizing denizens of the abyss would get seven years of bad luck. Maybe they thought the broken glass could be used to commit suicide or some other demonic form of hara-kiri. That would be one hell of a hellish mess of red tape! A demon in Hell commits suicide, which I heard was a sin, and then has to spend eternity in Hell, but is already in Hades. What would one do? Not having mirrors would be an easy way to cut down on that sort of paperwork.

Without a looking glass handy, I did the next best thing my slovenly brain could conjure. I raised my calloused hands to my face, trying to determine if it was melting. My blurry gaze was immediately drawn to a rough and jagged scar on my forearm, looking very much like some large beast had ripped out a big chunk of my flesh ages ago. That scar seemed important, but I couldn't remember why. A part of me knew there was something very important, very personal, about that scar, but my tripping, disjointed mind didn't assign any grave importance due to my amnesiac mental state.

A thousand thoughts and ideas thundered through my head at once, and I was unable to grasp and hold any one of them. All I knew was that I appeared to be in Hell and had been for at least an eternity, perhaps I was a demon, and I was on some very important quest. I wondered why I felt the need to orgasm. If this was Hell, shouldn't pleasure be forbidden?

I pressed my fingers to my face and did, indeed, feel a warm fluid on my cheeks. It didn't have the texture I assumed the melting flesh on the other demons' faces would feel like. Maybe I was a blood-oozing demon or something. I looked at my fingertips and noted that it was not blood; the liquid was clear. I tasted the wetness and it was salty. I was crying! That settles it then, I am not a demon. Demons don't cry.

Well, at least I finally got one mystery out of the way. I am not a demon, just a horny woman in the underworld. Of course, that made me wonder why I was wandering the endless halls of Hell without any clue of where the Hell—pardon the pun—I was going or what in the Hell I was doing. I pondered my tears while I checked the steamy wetness between my thighs. Something had obviously upset me to the point of tears. I couldn't recall what that was.

My mind cleared for the briefest moment, and I had a mental glimpse of another eternity, one before this. My feeble psyche latched onto it with all the force it could muster in its handicapped condition, and I vaguely remembered parents and a spoiled sister and some tragic loss. I couldn't place exactly what that was, and it didn't seem important, but I was certain that was why I had been crying. Did I kill them in some tragic accident and that is why I'm in Hell?

I knew that wasn't right, but I also sensed that they had died tragically, and I was unable to prevent the horror. I became aware that I was idly scratching at my scar. The thought occurred to me that my loss, the eternity before, and my scar were somehow related; I couldn't fathom why, and I couldn't muster a reason to be concerned about it.

I had more immediate concerns. In that eternity, I knew that I was Gail. I knew that I was in Hell, surrounded by demons. I also knew that I was on a very important quest. There was something I wanted and needed more than anyone has ever needed anything before. It felt as if the fate of the world relied upon me to complete my quest. Through the fog of my scrambled mind, I had the profound thought that I was a knight on a quest for....what was it that I wanted so badly? A drink!

Yes, I remembered. I am Gail Knight; no, that wasn't quite right, but close, somehow, and I was on a quest to quench my mighty thirst. I’d left my chambers to get a drink and had somehow become helplessly lost in the corridors of Purgatory. The oddity of that didn't strike me; in my altered mental state, it seemed to be quite logical and natural.

I did mention that my mind was cloudy.

Turning a random corner, I nearly toppled a brightly-clad, melting-faced demon. I caught him by his collar just before he tumbled onto the lurching floor. "Sorry, chap," I said as I righted him/ it. "I'm Gail Knight," I said, introducing myself to the black-eyed monster. “and I need your cock.”

Its cock seemed to be of adequate size, outlined in those baggy, color-splashed, demonic pants. In my lusty need, I dropped to my knees, clawing at the fly of the devil’s pants, and fished out that reddish, veined cock. My mouth closed over the bulbous head, and I grabbed the denizen of darkness’ tail, pulling his shaft as deep into my mouth as I could. My horny passion boiled inside my core, hotter than the fires of Hell around me, and my fingers sought my clit, thrumming it hard and fast. I stayed at it, cumming twice before the fiend’s hot spunk filled my mouth, dripping down my chin.

"Cavalier, you tripper!" it bellowed out through its misshapen maw. It laughed at me as I stood there, suddenly dumbfounded, cum all over my face and tits. I wondered why I was nude; perhaps the uniform of eternal damnation is no clothing. That would most definitely cut down on Hell’s laundry bill.

Its words ripped through me and sent my mind into free fall. Knight was close, but Cavalier was it; the meaning behind that word overtook my emotions. The demon wearing the pastel suit, the one I'd just sucked off, was correct. I was not a knight, I was a Cavalier. The fog in my head cleared for a second, and I had the revelation that I was not truly a knight, not a Cavalier. That was my name! I felt a sense of elation as if I had just discovered the cure for world hunger as I said my name to myself: Gail Cavalier.

Another mystery had been solved. Now, why was I, Gail Cavalier, roaming the subterranean antechambers of the abyss? Why had I been here for all eternity? Most importantly, where could I find something to drink? It was true; people in Hell do want ice water. Turning random corners and navigating random stairs, I sought my destination as I pondered all of this. I knew that I had the rest of forever before me, so I'd figure it out in due time.

TIME!

My entire body suddenly felt sharp and crisp, as if the numbing shroud had been suddenly pulled away from my mind. Time was the answer! Was I doing time? That would explain my being in Hell. Except, I suddenly knew that I wasn't lost in Hell. I was somehow lost in time. That didn't make any sense unless time was some underground complex with demons roaming the halls. Regardless, I suddenly knew that I was somehow linked with time.

Whatever that link was, it was important; more important than me—maybe even more important than finding something to drink. As I turned yet another corner, I finally saw what I knew was my destination. Some several paces ahead, a bright, glowing, red sign that my eyes likened to a bloody, fanged mouth blinked slowly on and off, contrasting starkly with the very dim illumination of the underground corridor. Seeing that ancient-looking neon above the open doorway caused my body and mind to snap back into place. My mental stupor was ebbing away after what seemed like an eternity. My horniness didn’t abate with the mental fog.

The sign was not a giant pair of fangs immortalized in neon. It was merely an oval with the words "Doc's Holiday" glowing off and on. The "D" and the "y" were distended beneath the rest of the text. My hallucinating vision saw the general shape and created the illusion for me. Even the demons were no longer looking, well, demonic. They began to resemble humans once more, my friends and colleagues to be exact.

The layers of oozing and pulsating melting began to ebb away into the stuff of memories. I had been hallucinating, I knew. The sign was not a warning of some demon god's lair; it was the commissary. I was not some errant knight questing through hell for a tasty beverage; although I was parched. I was—am—Gail Cavalier, a Time Orphan with an insatiable sex drive, wandering through our subterranean compound, and I had been drugged...again. It wasn't the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last. It comes with the job.

My head still a bit groggy, but clearing quickly, I found my way over to the drink dispenser and chose a Blue Tonic for the stimulant effects. I grabbed myself a seaweed and turkey sandwich, with lots of algae spread for the extra protein, to help quell the churning of my stomach. That always seems to help the nausea that comes on the heels of taking the White Rabbits.

They had slipped me some White Rabbits; that was why my brain was muddled, and it felt like I had been entombed in hell forever. Our docs, the scientists that run the place, say that if one can handle the effects of the mind and time-warping hallucinogens, they are much more likely to be able to shoot through time with minimal psychological injury. I honestly think they slip us the pills because they're sadists.

Seating myself at a lone table, I waved across the room at my bunk-mate, Michelle, who seemed to be enjoying a meal with one of her coworkers from the wardrobe and props department; aptly named the SEB, the special effects bureau. She looked a bit haggard as if she'd been without sleep for some time. Her shaggy, brown hair seemed a bit disheveled and those usually bright and vibrant eyes seemed a bit dull and sunken. I wondered if she had been partying with her girlfriend, ironically also named Michelle, or was strung out from rushing through yet another eleventh-hour project. Michelle smiled, flipped me a friendly, obscene gesture, and nodded, then went back to her conversation.

I nursed my drink, smiling in reverie over the timeless, disjointed trip, and I wondered if I were the only one who they'd slipped the White Rabbits or if I'd have company on my next shoot. Perhaps it was just another training exercise to prepare my mind for shooting through time. Typically, though, they give a group of us the pills, but only those selected for shooting through time get the real ones; the others get a placebo. At least I had a vacant chair in front of me that somebody had been thoughtful enough to place in the perfect spot for me to prop up my feet.

Not wanting such chivalry to go unappreciated, I plopped down on my chair and then hiked up my feet. Some Time Orphans in training go mad after they're fed the pills. The mind splinters into jagged fragments as one confronts the experience of eternity and uncertainty, or so I'm told. Thus far, the only thing they've done to me is to make me thirsty and horny.

The Vid-Screen on the far wall was showing some newscast; whether it was local, or even current, I couldn't tell, but it seemed to be in the now. Of course, “in the now” is a relative term around here. I laughed aloud at the thought that here we have more than four centuries worth of entertainment to choose from and still cannot find anything decent to watch on the Vid-screen. The newscast trudged on. Political factions battling it out, crime, disasters, violence, and yet another vampire attack.

I loathed the Biters, myself. I caressed my scar as I thought about the mutants called vampires and what they had taken from me. I was once a typical, happy teenager with loving parents and a spoiled sister. All of that was gone, now, violently ripped from me in a night of blood and terror. In its place, I had only that scar to remind me of that night; that scar and a dark, black hatred for the Biters. I ate, I sipped, and I stewed in my hatred for the Vamps as I viewed the pictures of the carnage on the Vid-Screen. In a way, the Biters were responsible for my current predicament.

The anguish of remembrance consumed me for a moment, but I quickly regained control of my emotions. I recalled that dreadful night and my quest for vengeance that led me here. Baptized in the fires of loss and hate, I had begun tracking them with vengeance consuming my soul. I accidentally discovered the not-so-secret lair of those that call themselves the Time Bureau. That was how I had been recruited, pure happenstance. I was one of the few that made it through training with my life and sanity intact.

Most recruits don't make it. They go insane, all fugazi over the mental stress of shooting up and down the time stream. Out of the six I began training with, only two of us made it through all the stages without blitzing fugazi or meeting our final fate. The other, a lady named Nera, hailed from the early twenty-second century and is stationed at some waypoint, downstream.

Me, I have shot three times in the last linear year or so. As much as I wanted to right the wrongs of history and make this era, my time, a better place for all, I was merely used as an errand girl. Two of my three shoots through time involved the prestigious and honored quest of bringing back Chinese food and pizza.

"Gail," a too-soft, feminine voice queried. "How are you feeling?"

I knew that voice. I didn't even really need to take my eyes away from the vampire-induced carnage on the V-screen. It was Doctor Emma Purley, our resident psychologist and constant counselor for those of us that get to grapple with the insanity of fracturing time. I liked her; not everyone did.

She was neither beautiful nor ugly, with mouse-brown hair and an unimposing posture. Dr. Purely had been recruited by a recruiter named Darwin Murphy, both of them from the late twentieth century. Even if one didn't know this, it would be easy to tell that Ms. Purely hailed from that era, because she still preferred to garb herself in the worst of ancient fashion. However, her wit, humor, and empathy had talked more than one of us away from the brink of insanity. She also has an amazing collection of fiction literature from the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

"Hello, Doctor," I said, taking my feet off the opposite chair. "I feel just fine. I guess I go through the Infernal again. What is it this time? Do they want more fried rice? Perhaps some booze? You'd think they could just zap it here to Time Central Station from Wayback rather than push one of us through infinity for some Crab Rangoon."

The ins and outs of the time machine, what we call the Infernal because it is exactly like a trip through Hell, are not the purview of Dr. Purley. The Docs are the ones that handle all the science, and the good, lady Doctor with her mouse-brown coif handles our gray matter. We Time Orphans are given constant background on the workings, but I must confess that quite a bit of the theory is simply lost on me.

I figured that knowing that time, space, and reality are illusions and just the byproducts of higher dimensions are enough. It isn't like I'm going to build one in my bunk or anything, so why should I know all the equations? I didn't understand the logic of needing to know all of that. Then again, I don't understand the logic of the scientists slipping us hallucinogens designed to make us lose our sanity to see if we can handle time travel without going insane.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but," the doctor said to me, once again proving that anything anyone says before the word “but” can be ignored. "You were requested, by name, to report to the monks at Wayback."

I was immediately excited. This meant that whatever was in store for me was no simple food run. "Really? They want me at the beginning of the singularity arc? Do you know why they're sending me to the twentieth?"

"Once I evaluate your mental state and deem you fit for duty, Doc wants you to report immediately to the Time Chamber. You are to give a future-status report to the monks at Wayback. That's all I know."

Not as exciting as going back in time to manipulate the course of the past to save the present, but it was better than being a time-traveling delivery girl. "So, they want me to give an exposition on our present in the immutable past, so they can compare notes, eh?"

Purley chuckled. "Better than sitting through another class about how space-time is a dimension contained within another dimension..."

"The Matrix," I interrupted.

"Whatever you boys call it.” She collectively referred to us as “boys,” even though I possessed breasts and a vagina. “Besides, you have shown pretty much zero ill mental effects from shooting. You're lucky, most go insane."

"I wondered about that. What is it about me that makes me able to handle eternity in the void?"

She smiled briefly. "For Dar, it is his inability to take anything seriously coupled with extreme narcissism. Some others have similar traits that allow them to pass the time by sheer self-absorption." She noted my humorous expression as she brought up her boyfriend. "I believe that those that can best cope with the mental torture of being trapped in a disembodied state for eons on end all have some sort of totem that allows them to maintain a grip on their sense of self," she said quite matter-of-factually. She was staring at my scar as she said that. "So long as one does not lose their sense of self, they can recover...some quicker than others. I believe your impassioned state somehow helps you."

She paused and dropped into shrink mode. "So, you were in class discussing how time is fluid and space-time is actually contained in the space-time-Matrix. You all had to take the pills and you were the lucky winner. Tell me about it."

"Let me get another drink and sandwich first. I'll fugazi-well show up at the infernal when I'm ready. Besides, it's a goddess-forsaken time machine; who cares when I show up?"

With my psych evaluation completed, some decent food in my stomach, and my thirst finally sated, I headed to the showers. My trip had been a doozy, and I was covered with dirt and dried cum. My clothing was lost somewhere along the way; I vaguely recalled stripping because the fires of Hell were making my garments smolder.

In the showers, I stumbled across two of my coworkers, a veteran shooter named Garth and a blond woman that calls herself Marissa. She had him backed against the shower wall, her legs around him, and he’d impaled her on his large, stiff cock. They were enjoying themselves and were very vocal.

The warm water soothed my skin as I watched, one of my hands tugging on my nipples, the other stimulating my throbbing clit. As she cursed and swore in twenty-second-century vernacular, her body undulated in the throes of arousal. His turgid cock thrust into her cunt, their moans echoing off the tile. Locking eyes with me, her hand shot between her legs, fingering her clit as she got hammered.

I fingered myself as I watched. A screaming orgasm erupted from within me, causing them to cum as well. Garth’s muscular body tensed and relaxed, his face a pleasured grimace as he shot spurting geysers of cum into her cunt. Recovering quickly from my orgasm, I crawled over to them and pressed my mouth against Marissa’s still-throbbing pussy and licked all his seed from her juicy pussy.

My tongue swirled over her clit as my lips enshrouded her labia. As I licked, tongued, and sucked, the jizz, mixed wither her nectar, oozed from her freshly-fucked hole and into my mouth. My fingers penetrated her volcanic hole, eliciting moans of lust, and scooped the rest of the cum out of her. Since she seemed to be enjoying my mouth on her clit and fingers fucking her, I continued lapping away until Marissa grabbed my head, her wet cunt humping my face, and she came all over my face while Garth watched.

“Mmm, Gail. You’re so good,” she sighed, rewarding me with a cascade of hot, tasty cum.

With my arousal somewhat sated, I dried myself off, headed to my apartment, and got dressed, then made my way toward the bowels of the compound, where the Infernal lay in wait.