Inferno of God

1: In Which a New Millennium is Greeted With Uncertianty

There has been an argument raging amongst scholars for as long as civilization has existed, and it goes as such; what happens to us when we die? Some think there is a special place where all the souls in the universe travel to once our body has given out and stopped functioning. Often, people expand the idea into two different places, commonly referred to as Heaven and Hell. Others prefer to believe that we are simply moved to a different body, to experience life once again as another person, and some of the more peculiar groups will say our soul simply wanders the Earth after our deaths, untethered by the body that once came with it. Yet it seems no one has thought to entertain the correct answer, where everyone is correct.

The statement perhaps needs a bit of explanation; when we die, you see, we stay in the world until all those who remember us, even if the memory in question was only a small moment or the carrier is some sort of animal, have also died. Then we are sent to the afterlife we deserve in order to prepare for our reincarnation. God created the system in an incredibly thorough manner, or, to be more honest everything except the bit about multiple afterlives, though even that he felt turned out well. It's quite humorous actually, because if a damned soul actually spoke to him about the subject, it would be painfully obvious that he has no idea what actually happens down there.

Satan is a kindly gentleman, a bit serious, but kind nonetheless. He lived in a large house which sat proudly in the center or Hell, alongside his assistant, Baal, who although quite handsome and seemingly confident on his own, is reduced to the appearance of a shy, bumbling teenager alongside his partner.

Six thousand years before this story's start, Satan had been one of God's favorites, even though he was the second out of eight archangels to be created, and his visual appearance had been designed as such. It was ramlike in nature, as all angels had features based on some sort of animal, with large, quite beautiful, yet somehow threatening looking horns curled around his goat ears, and into a mass of incredibly short, wiry, black hair. He was tall, but not overly so, and wore almost exclusively embroidered black robes that he had sewn himself, shaped similarly to children's choir uniforms.

Despite Satan and Baal's position as the leaders of Hell, they lived modestly, and spent most of their days giving advice to damned souls and assisting on the farmland, which Satan had decided to include in Hell's process of redeeming the souls.

On the day the events of this story really started to blossom, Satan had just finished welcoming a quite snappy old Christian priestess. However, he was grateful that day, for while the heavily religious tended to make for untrusting and unaccepting conversation partners, he was used to their behavioral patterns, and the whole discussion with the woman only took a few minutes after a full afternoon of far more challenging residents.

After Baal returned from showing her the cabin she'd be staying in, he met Satan in the manor's waiting room, where he was waiting with his cape on, suggesting that they take a short walk before dinner.

It was a lovely, autumn-like day, meaning several of Hell's crops would soon be ready for harvest. Though they were both aware and happy about that fact, they didn't voice it. As always during such walks, any discussion was brief and to the point, and the majority was always spent just taking in the scenery.

In the distance, they saw three young men run about, staying close to the light of a nearby lantern, for in Hell, both day and night were dark, without even a moon or stars to provide light. Upon listening to their dialogue, it became clear that Asher, a possible narcissist, had dared his compassionate, yet compulsive roomate, Adam, to jump off the roof of their hut, an action that he was happily going through with, while the third person, a bookish and witty young man named Je'sus, watched smiling silently.

No one from either party made any attempt to stop the display, physical injury was one of the few things souls in Hell, were still immune to, unlike exhaustion, hunger, and seemingly everything else. They couldn't die from the effects, of course, but the resulting discomfort did have the power to cause possibly torturous pain if it went on long enough. Even Satan and Baal fell under the effects, in fact, when these God-given punishments were first put in place, a few humans had to spend a couple rather embarrassing days teaching them to do such manual tasks as sleeping and properly caring for themselves.

The sad explanation of the matter was that simply casting away those who defied him wasn't enough for God, he wanted the shock and pain to increase as time went on, slowly eating at them until they were hardly even immortal, so every thousand years, they slowly became more human. Places where even the souls could safely enter at will turned horribly dangerous, and they became frail and susceptible to odd bouts of physical uneasiness. Overall, things steadily became worse every millenium.

"Did you catch the year from our new resident?" Asked Baal, clearly he had been worried, possibly for months, about the oncoming punishment.

Satan looked down at him, smiling sympathetically through his nervous expressions, "I'm afraid the year Two Thousand may come any day now, but don't concern yourself with it, I'm sure we'll be able to work through whatever's in store."

"Yes my lord," said he, though he was able to make a confident usage of the word, he hardly felt any better, in fact, despite his best efforts, there was an obvious shake in his voice as he spoke.

Satan stopped walking and turned to him, "Come, I've been trying some new American Folk recently and I've learned a few songs that I think you may enjoy." So they both walked quietly home, where his handmade violin was patiently waiting, and to the secret relief of them both, there was no further mention of the subject that evening.