Hazbin Hotel: Sins and Second Chances

Chapter 7

Growing up in a strict Baptist family, Zack remembered his early years of being dragged to church every Sunday, learning about God, Jesus, Heaven and Hell. Heaven was for the good, Hell for the bad. Simple, black and white morality that even a child himself could understand. As he got older, he grew skeptical. Faith, religion, God, it all started to unravel for him. When he began to make the choices he made that took him down the road to self-destruction, faith felt like something distant, a hollow comfort for the delusional and the ignorant.

But six years ago, when he finally reached his lowest point, he had prayed.

Desperation does that to a person when they have nothing left to their name. He hadn't been specific. God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah. He wasn't even sure who he was reaching out to. But he had prayed, pleaded for help from anyone or anything that might be listening.

He didn't know if it was divine intervention or coincidence, but the day after he prayed, there was a knock at his door. One of his co-workers, one of the other therapist at his work, someone he barely knew, had come by. Zack had been holed up in his apartment for weeks after losing his job—fired for stumbling into work drunk one too many times. His marriage had already fallen apart, his life was in shambles, and he had pushed everyone away, hiding from the world and drowning in alcohol. The emptiness consumed him, the whiskey, beer, anything he could get his hands on only deepening the void.

The first initial days were horrible. Detox blurred his memory, making everything feel foggy and distant like a bad dream. But that knock had been a lifeline. His co-worker didn't stage some grand intervention, didn't try to fix him or lecture him. They just took him to the hospital, and Zack spent a day or two getting the alcohol out of his system. It wasn't a dramatic rescue and he didn't even remember being taken there. But after he was released, the small gestures began to pile up. A text here, a coffee invitation there. His co-worker became a friend. Someone he only knew by name or brief association now someone he trusted and could depend on. And slowly, Zack was pulled out of isolation.

He was resistant at first. He didn't make it easy, and the guy must have had the patience of a saint to deal with him. Zack didn't want to be saved, because he felt like there was nothing to save. But his friends' persistence wore him down, eventually nudging him toward an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He went, not because he was ready, but because he didn't know what else to do. He sat in the back, silent and detached, buried into his phone, unsure if he even belonged there.

He wasn't like them, right?

But the more he attended, the more he would begin to listen. And the more he would listen, the more he realized he wasn't alone. Slowly, he found himself opening up. Nothing too personal, but the more he spoke, the better he felt. And the more he found that others related to his struggles. Little by little, he began to claw his way back from the brink.

It wasn't easy. Zack stumbled, fell hard, but every time, someone was there to help him up. His friend, the people of AA, they were all fighting their own battles, but they supported each other.

They understood in a way no one else could.

Zack never knew if that knock on his door had been a coincidence, or if there was some divine being that heard his pleas and sent his co-worker to his door that day. But either way, he was grateful. That knock saved his life.

Now, here he was again. At another crossroad, uncertain and afraid. If he refused, he could be back in his body. Perhaps he would forget everything. The memory of this brief encounter in Hell just another fleeing memory to push off into the void.

It would be easy to walk away, to forget this ever happened.

But if he said yes...

Zack closed his eyes, breathing slowly, trying to calm the storm in his mind. Could he really make a difference here? Could he handle the temptation, the weight of a damned souls darkness pressing down on him again and again?

And what if he failed?

The thought terrified him. He knew what failure felt like. He had failed before, himself, his loved ones. The consequences here, though, felt even more severe. The literal daughter of the Devil was putting her faith in him. That was terrifying to think someone like that placed their hope onto someone like him.

If he was 8 years younger, he would have quickly grabbed the nearest bottle. Yet, there was no bottle within reach, no familiar ritual of drowning out the anxiety with a drink. But the urge was there, whispering in the back of his mind.

God, he wanted a drink. Something. He was almost willing to sell his soul just for bottle of Jack.

The thought caused him to slap himself in the face. He was in Hell now. Even thinking of that made him assume a Bottle of Jack was coming his away along with a side of eternal damnation on a silver platter.

The pressure tightened in his chest, and before he could stop himself, the same words he had whispered all those years ago spilled out of his mouth.

"If anyone is there... please tell me what to do," Zack muttered, his voice raw, shaky. "I don't know what to do."

The words hung in the air, disappearing into the stillness of the room. Hell didn't feel like the place where prayers were heard, but the memory of that desperate moment from years ago clung to him.

And then his head went quiet.

Only the sound of his breathing was heard as he opened his eyes. The tightness in his chest that was constricting him began to relax, his body now feeling less tense. It flowed through him like a wave, his muscles relaxing and the heightened anxiety and alcohol craving dulled into a strange sense of euphoric calm.

He just had a panic attack, and his body was apologizing for it by flooding him with endorphins. A sigh of relief would pass his lips as he sank into the couch, eyes staring blankly at Charlie's office door. The sound of muffled conversations could still be heard between her and Vaggie behind the door. About him most likely, that much he was sure of.

"Should I really do this?" The question lingered in the air, unanswered except by the stillness around him. His mind would weigh in on what he found himself falling into, the uncertainty still prevalent in his mind. He wasn't anyone special. Just a man who had barely gotten his life together. Was he really capable of helping anyone down here? In Hell, of all places?

But the memory of that day, the knock on his door, pulled him back. Back then, he had felt just as lost, just as hopeless, convinced there was no way out of the pit he dug himself into. Yet, there had been someone on the other side. Someone who didn't have all the answer, but who had helped him get through it anyway. That small act had been enough to change everything.

Maybe now, it was different. This time, the knock wasn't for him, it was for someone else. And if someone in this place needed help, maybe Zack could be the one to give. Not because he had all the answers or some divine clarity, but because he understood what it meant to crawl out from the darkness and into the light.

Zack would sit up a little straighter, hands gripping his knees as the shaky feeling of resolve began to shape inside him. He didn't have control over everything, he never would. And change didn't come from certainty. It came from the willingness to keep going, to keep trying, even when everything seemed impossible. That was the truth he had learned from his own journey to sobriety, and maybe that was the same truth Charlie saw in him.

Standing up, he turned his attention to the door once again. The weight of the decision still heavy in his mind, but it was not overpowering like it was moments before. If there was even the slightest chance he could help someone here, even in this place, he'd take it. He wasn't a hero or a Saint, but he knew how to fight against the odds.

And maybe that was enough.