Optimistically Cynical: A Short Story Compilation- 1

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

It invades my head each night and I am never free of it. The flames. The screams. The terror. Each night I am bombarded with it and a voice calling my name. I know it to be the pit and a demon could only be the one who calls to me from such a place.

I have looked to the lord to strengthen me, as he is my only strength, but still, it comes at me and I know it must be some form of penance I am to atone for.

The voice gets louder each time and I feel myself compelled to answer it, but I resist. Still it calls louder and louder, it nears to splitting my head. I can take no more, the words come and I am ashamed. I shut my eyes, I have beckoned to the demon it knows where I am, it knows now how to find me.

The flames dissipate and there is only darkness. A light builds revealing part of the chamber I am in. It's a wide open space with a height even the flame cannot tell. Still the light grows and I see before me a great being shackled to the wall.

The fire increases still yet further and I gaze upon a beautiful giant, who's been nailed to the wall made of rock. Such a being as this, I nearly forget I'm in the pit.

"Son of Adam," he speaks with a tremendous force and I cower at its power.

I force my frightened eyes open and stare at the being.

"Who are you?" I ask timidly but with these words I find myself somehow emboldened.

The being stares down. "I am called Lucifer," he answers.

My heart skips a beat. It is he! The prince of lies! The father of all sin! And I stand beneath him, alone. A simple creature given birth by the beckoning of the lord and here I stand in the shadow of his greatest and most fearsome creation. The first fallen, the most glorious and beautiful angel.

I am now more afraid than I had been and I am left with little recourse, I have no defense especially against one such as he.

"God save me!" I scream the words and they shoot from the pit and part the skies above.

I awake breathing hard covered in sweat. My room seems so dark. I wish I had a light to turn on, but I am a religious man and so have confined myself to the stark poverty of the cloistered life. I need solace and I know I won't find it in my cell. I need a higher strength.

I go to the chapel. It's quiet and I can see no one else. I kneel before the altar and pray. But I am not given the solace I am looking for. No, the horror finds me even in this most sacred place.

The scene starts to fall away piece by piece, as though it were a giant jigsaw puzzle and the pieces are being removed randomly, revealing the image behind it.

It is the pit and the fiend looks down at me. It would seem that I'm not meant to leave this confrontation. So, given the lack of options, I am not made afraid but emboldened.

I point my finger and speak with words strong and powerful. Indeed it must be the spirit speaking through me. "Fiend of the pit, what would you have me!?" my words do not form an actual question but rather an accusation. At least that's how it seems to me.

He stares down at me, his eyes full of resolve. "It is not I who have summoned you," his words are curt and quite to the point.

I am awash now with doubt. If he did not summon me then who? I am ashamed, I should have seen this coming. He is, after all, the father of lies. This is just one of his tricks and it is so obvious that I should have seen it. Now I can fight back.

"Fallen angel," I address him. "You who are truly cursed and shall reside here in the pit until the last days."

"The day of judgment," his words shake me as it's the very thing I was going to say. "Indeed I shall go beneath that purifying light as will we all, but my conscience will be clear. What of yours?"