The cinders crunched under his boots as he walked. The stench was vivid, but nondescript, the indeterminate nature being yet another one of Hell's manifold irritations. The smell seemed to soak right into your skin and sit there, never quite the same, always vile, and completely impossible to pin down. Today it was something like burning mold crossed with week-old vomit. Waking up to the stink tomorrow would be an unpleasant surprise, as it always was. In your dreams you could wish yourself to a more pleasant place, like a Cambodian prison, or the river Somme, circa 1916. But you'd wake up, as always, and the, ah ha ha, damned smell would be there to greet you.