Hell's Children

"''The nine skinless bodies abruptly stopped dancing and simultaneously fell to the ground in a heap as Acheri floated over to Precision. Naomi looked up to see what seemed to be a ghost and a demon looking down at her. Acheri spoke. "Its name is Acheri. It is and will be speaking for me, for though I understand your language I cannot physically produce it. It is one of my associates." "We are prisoners as you are; we want what you want, so what do you say? It's up to you, you can join us or, my associates and I will eat you while you still breathe."''"

- Hell's Children — Chapter: 20 Eati……… meeting new people.

Deep within the bowels of a mysterious and macabre place, not far removed from hell, something has gone horribly awry and in the mounting chaos the most unlikely of friendships will be formed, as the deadly trio collectively known as The Damned, fight to survive the facility and all of its nightmarish obstacles, while elsewhere in this very same facility there is a man sentenced to a fate worse then death, who struggles to keep his sanity intact, as the very fabric of reality is warped around him. Meanwhile Dr. Skiner, the master and founder of this facility diligently struggles to find a way to contain the escaping terrors while following all that transpires from the solitary of his private terminal.

Hell's Children, by Andrew Boland, is best described as a Lovecraftian descent into madness + Gorn + The Power of Friendship.


 * Appendage Assimilation: Offal’s favorite pastime.
 * Ax Crazy: Acheri, not that she can physically hold an ax.
 * Badass Boast: See the page quote above.
 * Body Horror
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: The Damned, all have the disturbing tendency to play with their food.
 * Combat Tentacles: Made from harvested human intestines.
 * Creepy Child: Acheri.
 * Cry for the Devil
 * Enfant Terrible: Partially Averted. While Acheri has the right age and mindset to be an enfant terrible, her physical appearance would give nightmares to nightmares.
 * Evil Versus Evil: A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits made up of a gray Humanoid Abomination, an Eldritch Abomination and an Ax Crazy Undead Child vs. Dr Skiner, an evil megalomaniac bent on world domination.
 * Eye Scream: From the story's beginning Acheri’s eyes are long gone. Cue the flashbacks.
 * Fire-Forged Friends
 * For the Evulz
 * I'm a Humanitarian
 * Kick the Dog: Dear god. The fate of perhaps the one and only half morally decent character, Mr. Fish, at the hands of the protagonists, and then there's Acheri’s childhood, which is Not Safe for Work by a long shot.
 * Mind Over Matter
 * Mind Rape: Precision, one of the villain protagonists, happens to possess this ability and uses it to inflict a Fate Worse Than Death on one of the mooks. Oh, and then there's the Room.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Offal, Dr. Skiner, Acheri.
 * Nightmare Fetishist
 * One-Winged Angel: A little word of advice: don’t mess with the Almighty Janitor.
 * Red Right Hand: This time it’s not a metaphor.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: The protagonists.
 * Steampunk: Chapter 13: Steam Cyborgs. What do you think?
 * Strange Bedfellows: Naomi, and The Damned.
 * The Voiceless: Offal.
 * Would Hurt a Child