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And so I go off in search of him.
He’s not at the window, observing the hellscape.
He’s not at the pit.
Wandering through the long, empty halls.
When I step back into the same room from a darkened alcove after walking in a straight line for so long I thought the hall would never end… I accept that this place defies physics.
But it’s not the thing that confuses me. There are hundreds of rooms, all of them empty.
The space for a whole court of sycophants, and yet…. It’s deserted.
“The angelic hosts abandon their own easily when one questions God’s word. She inspires devotion in ways I was never able.” The Devil looks from me, up to the darkness that hides the rooms I’ve passed. “When I fell, she made sure this place fell with me…. A reminder of how many chose to forsake me in her favour.”
Studying his face, I try to find any clue of regret, but there is only peace.
“I am perfectly happy to be alone,” he says, curling a finger in my hair. “It was one of her many miscalculations.”
“Are you truly alone? What of the sinners you keep each year?”
“Do you see any of them here?”
I don’t look around me. I know that we’re alone.
“The living sinners tend the dead, not me.”
“I didn’t realise the dead needed much tending.”
He holds out his arm, offering it to me like a gentleman in a period drama and I manage to stop myself before I roll my eyes.
When I take it, he leads the way to those tall windows that bleed orange with fire.
They fold away like an accordion when we near, and a balcony seems to grow out over the pit.
I have half a mind to ask what he has against railings, but a hot burst of air caresses me as we step past those folded windows, and the shrieks that fill the air make my ears ring.
Shadowy creatures swoop over the writhing masses, tearing them to pieces and letting the constituent parts fall to the ground… flopping and crawling back to each other through the burning soil.
The number would shock me if I didn’t know this place held every sinner from the time of my Devil’s fall until now. Their punishment might turn my stomach if I didn’t know the things that broke the Devil’s rules. The dying souls who found themselves here deserved everything they got.
But dispersed among them, living people walk with pitchforks. Their blocky routes remind me of the sharp lines of a prison cell.
“Could they escape?”
“No. But letting them think they could is part of the torment. There’s nothing quite so defeating as hope.”
He sighs and looks out over the dead and their keepers. “The living, however… will always try. Especially in these first few days.” His hands brush over my arm and he steps away. “I will return shortly.”
And when he leaps from the ledge, my heart catches in my throat. Even though I know it’s ridiculous, I don’t feel easy until his massive black wings carry him back into my sight.
I watch him until he disappears over the bright horizon. And then turn back to this palatial tomb. It’s time I find out just how vast his dominion is.
Candles flicker to life when I enter any room and die as soon as I step back out of it.
After hours wandering his abandoned cathedral, he finds me… in a room whose walls are painted with a scene of a party where everyone is in white… and a single figure is burned from the festivities.
It’s not hard to guess why this place that was meant to be a punishment would have another reminder of what he’s lost.
