[CW: images of death and hell, gore]

His stomach turned upon hearing the man's story about the last man he had killed. He closed his eyes in the dark. He was in agony at the thought of the poor child who had seen her father killed before her eyes. He wished desperately he could do something to take away her pain, but he couldn't. He recoiled at notion that someone could be unaffected by it. Here was hell, opening itself before him in all its wretchedness, for him to see inside and shudder. It looked nothing like hell he had thought he battled during long lonely thoughts in his bedroom.

Here was a man several steps down into that world that seemed to Gabriel not fiery, but cold, filled with putrid flesh deprived of soul, grotesque carcasses without humanity. Here was a soul about to be lost forever, unless he could make him see and smell and feel the hell he was committing himself to. Gabriel wanted to flee from it as fast as he could. He did not want to hear what the man had to say.

"Tell me about Jack..." he said quietly, eyes still shut.