All good things come to an end. After suffering and overcoming a mere lifetime in the soul reaver branded eternal pain vortex I found myself at its turnstyle exit, expected to leave. But something wouldn’t let me go. Did I feel I had unfinished business in there? Did I leave a bit of agony on the plate? “Go through the turnstyle. The ride is over.” Boomed a voice over the agony nexus intercom. But something wouldn’t let me go. I looked up pleadingly at the flaming security cam. I could see myself in the reflection, its lens narrowed on me in contempt. “No, Bonky, I read your blogpost. Think you’re too good for my eternal pain vortex? Not happy with the way I put this place together? Leave!” My mouth went slack. This is why you need an editor. My editor for my books would never have allowed this to happen. He would have seen it coming a mile away. I can see him now, “”Bonk, we can’t reference squid god directly. You need to use a pseudonym. Let’s try ‘the owner of an eternal pain vortex I’ll be referring to in this article as John or Pedro or something like that.’ Something indirect.”” I’m not sure I would have listened to him, I’m sensitive to any sort of censorship, but at least I would have been emotionally prepared for confrontation on the matter. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I actually think it’s really good.” “Don’t.” Said squid god. “Look, you just need to add, like, traffic jams and wageslavery and racial tension and human trafficking and...” “STOP,” said Squid God, and he turned away gravely, and I thought that was it, but his low murmur carried over the painful winds, “I created this place to be free of all that crap.” My jaw dropped. Of course. I was so focused on what was, I didn’t stop to think about what was absent, and more importantly, why it was absent. Squid God wasn’t some demented torturer. He just only had one color to paint with: pain. He had created a place that could bring people together to be free in white-hot burning screamy screamaliciousness. And what had I given him in return? Complaints. Complaints don’t grow in the pain nexus, they grow in the world beyond. You have to bring them with you in order for them to exist. I don’t even like complaints. We’re better off without them. I know that, and yet I am the one who had sewn them in this garden of screamin’. I saw why I had to leave. I didn’t belong here. This place.. it was special. It belonged to those who could could fall forever screaming in flames and I, well, maybe I’m just overeducated or overstimulated or oversaturated with media or oversexualized, but whatever the case may be, I knew I would always be just a tourist in the squid god’s amusement park of pain. I turned back to the squid god of eternal torment, “I just want you to know.. I’m going to always hold in you in my heart-” “Shut the fuck up,” he said. Fair enough. But just as I was leaving I got a notification on my HorsePhone that my special made-for-horses seiko willard homage had arrived from Guangzhou. “Hot-diggity-dog!” I shouted, and shoved my way through the turnstyle. But the turnstyle only made part of its cycle before locking in place. I expectantly shoved at it a few more times but it just clanged and clanged. “Squid God?” I called out. “Expecting a package, hmm?” He asked. “Yeah. It’s, like, really important. So if you could just, like, let me out like you said you would.” “It would be pretty painful if you couldn’t go get it because someone kept you in their torment nexus, wouldn’t it?” “Man. I can’t think of anything worse.” I pawed at the exit, expectantly. No response. “Squid God?” A mirthful squiddy chuckle emenated from all around. “Squid God???!?!??!” No answer. “Package?” I asked no one in particular. “Me go get me package?” And as the cruel reality dawned on me, the pain flooded in all at once. And I was falling. And I was on fire. And I was gnashing my teeth. And I was beseaching. But what prayers I sent out, if they were heard, were only ever lapped up by a certain sea-themed deity whose soul method of stimming was watching people go all screamy.