Sulfur & Tealights

Side With a Devil

The snarky reprobate had to be joking. Mel was a lot of things; magical was not one of them. She took a deep, calming breath.

"I cannot have this conversation with a disembodied voice," she decided.

When she thought about it, Thursday's memories remained too intact to be a dream. Despite his familiar, sickening odor, doubt lingered and nearly convinced her to ask Laura to drive her to the hospital. Granted, she could hallucinate his appearance, but if she perceived him with all her five senses, she would be more certain he existed.

"I did not think you were eager to postpone this conversation."

"I'm not, but I can't talk seriously with something I'm still not sure exists. Seeing you would help," she insisted.

"You know the truth, Lilliputian. All the proof you need is in your head, and you are intelligent enough to recognize it."

"You know me," she threw his earlier claim back sarcastically. "I don't care what you look like."

He sighed heavily. "I'll admit, I may be rather self-conscious. If you are certain this is what you want..."

Mel nodded, and suddenly she could see him. Except, what she saw was so different from what she expected it took her a moment to process it.

With the internet at one's disposal, one was sure to come across images they did not intend to see. Mel never had reason to look at third degree burns, or worse, but the pictures still came up in image search results sometimes, or on websites covering a broad topic. Those brief exposures barely prepared her to witness first-hand the results of Hell.

The Ba'al that stood before her was, predictably, not the same Ba'al she last saw. Where one would expect angry, red flesh, there was only dark ashiness, proof his cardiovascular system was still mostly undeveloped, despite his less dull tone the previous day, which she guessed may have been an illusion.

Dead, white skin and broken, black tissue distorted and pulled over his bones in some places, and peeled back, rugged skin partially exposed yellow tinted bone – the tibias – in his shins. Lower down, his charred feet and ankles exposed more bone, as opposed to his hands, whose digits fused together. The more superior parts of his body suffered decreasingly severe burns. Skin on his neck and face undulated while his nose twisted at an odd angle, stretching the nostrils, and his left cheek sagged slightly. What was left of his once flowing, light brown hair frizzed close to his scalp.

And yet, even while she compared him to how he appeared yesterday, his burns were better than what she thought they should be.

"You still can't feel?" she asked hesitantly.

He gave a breathy laugh. "No."

"Thank goodness." She drew closer to him, until a foul odor, unlike the sulfur she had grown somewhat used to, accosted her.

Her pale, unblemished hand rested on the vibrant, red material of his fancy dress as her eyes began to sting. His chest felt solid under her light touch. The burns were horrifying, but not enough to induce her overt reaction. It was the indescribable smell that broke her down, made her realize that this – the incomprehensible suffering the man before her went through – was real. Her life was just a small fraction of the amount of time he burned.

Someday, she would understand this. This was her future. Even as a dawning sense of hopelessness came over her, she could not bring herself to blame the Canaanite god. By her parents' faith, she was damned for rejecting their beliefs. When Ba'al appeared, she had to believe her parents were correct, so she dealt with the creature to improve her own outcome. After all, she could not condone such extreme torture on the guiltiest of souls. Under all her praise for God would be an enduring hatred for the Being who let His followers profess His love and mercy while He inflicted more suffering than Hitler and his Nazis caused during the Holocaust.