Corruption

People. Thousands and thousands of people were in a burning pit, all crying out, bodiless but still feeling pain. Surrounded by a never ending fire. I had to turn away in order to not be sick.
“Isn’t it a wonderful sight?” said a seductive voice, seemingly from nowhere. “All these souls getting what they deserve. Justice at it’s finest.”
“No. No, this isn’t right. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done. They don’t deserve this. No one deserves this. Just who are you anyway?”
“You answer me that question first, young one.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you obviously have no idea where you are, to whom you are speaking, or what your situation is. I have the leverage, little girl,” the husky male voice purred.
“Fine. My name is... Joana,” I said, thinking of the first name I could. I didn’t want this guy to know who I was.
“Lies. You can not lie to me, little girl. You can never lie to me. I will know immediately. I am omnipotent and I already know your stupid little name, Lilium,” he said, pronouncing my name perfectly. “I was wondering whether you’d be polite enough as to introduce yourself. Apparently not.”
“So who are you then?” I asked, feeling more scared by the minute.
“My name is Lucifer, Lilium, and I personally welcome you to Hell.”
“I am not in Hell, idiot. I don’t know who the heck you think you are, but I’m done. I’m leaving.”
“Good luck walking with two broken lower legs,” said the supposed Lucifer.
“My legs aren’t...” I looked down and saw that he was right. The bones were not aligned. At all. The bone was actually coming out of my skin. “I was walking earlier!”
“Your soul was moving, moron. You can’t walk.”
“Why doesn’t it hurt?”
“Because,” whispered a voice in my ear. “You’re not in the pit. In this realm you can feel no pain.”
I was startled at the voice so near and I turned to see the figure of a man. A man like no one I had ever seen. Hair darker than ebony, eyes the same color of a deep black, skin whiter than the snow, body toned in the extreme. But the thing that got me most was his presence. It was his pure evil presence that alerted me immediately. This truly was Lucifer.
“Get... get away from me. Send me back. Let me go back,” I pleaded.
“Whether you go back or stay is your option,” he said and smiled at me, a smile which was a horrible combination of evil and attractiveness.
“Well then send me back. Now,” I said, my voice not quite attaining the forceful sound I had hoped for.
“Hear me out, young one. I have your brother, Lilium. I have him in the ninth layer of my kingdom where the worst reside. People have these horrible misconceptions that the nine layers of hell have a certain type of sin particular to it. That’s simply not true. It once was, but now so many people sin that they wouldn’t fit into one category but many. They are placed judged on the severity of their sins. The first layer being the least severe. Your parents died are in my kingdom in the seventh layer where they rightfully belong.
“Neither you nor your brother died. And for some reason you decided to follow your parents down here. So I brought your brother along and decided I’d give you a choice. Either you may leave now and I will keep your brother for all of eternity in the ninth layer with me, or you may go on a... journey of sorts. You will make your way to the ninth layer, committing a mortal sin of my choosing at each level in order to get deeper. If you make it down, you can either stay with me and your brother or stay with me and send your brother back.”
“And if I don’t make it?”
“Then you will reside where you are and I will keep your brother with me. Your options have been made clear.”
“Can my brother and I both go back? Please?”
“A pretty little please from your pretty little lips will not sway me, fool,” said the form of evil before me in a voice so tepid it scared me more than he did to begin with.
“I... I just want to go back with Caius.”
“You both volunteered to come here, little girl. Neither of you have any right to go back. You are lucky you are given the option.”
“Why bother? Why bother with us? What did we do to deserve it?”
“Well, your brother will end up here anyways. Given your past I doubt you will end here unless you change for the worse. I like seeing the good be corrupted.”
“What... What would I have to do, exactly?”
“Well, if you choose to complete your task, you will have to commit horrible sins which you could never have imagined you would ever do. Wrath. Greed. Sloth. Lust. Envy. Pride. And gluttony. Not in that order, of course. But you will be asked to do something. And if you are simply going through the motion of the task, you will not be sent forward. Until you truly commit the sin and feel it in your heart, you will not progress. If you come to a point that you simply do not progress, you will stay there.”
“I hate you,” I said.
“Well, that’s a good start, Lilium.”
“I... I will do this for Caius. If I go back, it will be committing greed regardless for putting my existence above his. And I love Caius. I truly do. So if I have a chance to free him I will do it.”
*
I was surprised. I really was. I knew this girl was smart, I knew this girl was an innocent being, but I didn’t expect her to catch on so quickly.
Clap, clap, clap. “Brava, girl. Brava. You aren’t as dumb as most would think you are. You would have ended up back here anyways just for that very act. Alright, you get your wish, Lilium. You may start your quest. I won’t delay. Do not expect my servants to help you, little girl.”
“Why do you call me that?” she asked. She was trying to put on a bravado that I found amusing. It so thinly veiled the fear in her voice, I was surprised she was even still trying.
“Because, little girl, I am nearly as old as He above me. I am older than your planet you live on. I have been around for so long and you have existed for a mere seventeen years. To me you are still an embryo in her mother’s womb. Do not expect the respect of an equal when I am far your superior.”
“I would not go so far as to say you are my superior, Satan. I was not the one cast from Heaven.”
“I go by Lucifer, Lilium. But I was indeed cast from Heaven. Maybe eventually you will discover why. But for now, get started on your quest.”
“I can’t walk.”
I smiled. “Well, because I am so damn nice, I will help you just this once and fix your legs. And perhaps your concussion. Hell, I think I’ll even take the glass out of your face and heal the cuts. If I’m going to be stuck with your face for the rest of eternity it may as well not be more repulsive to look at than it is to begin with.”
Her violet eyes fell to the floor and she just replied quietly, “alright.”
The grin on my face would have scared her even further had she been looking up to see it. “Excellent. I’ll leave you to begin. Good luck.”
I brushed my hand over her head, then her legs and left. Within my realm I was fully capable of what humans would call “teleportation”.
Back in my dwelling, I found Caius sitting down in the chair I’d left him in.
“What did she say?” he asked, voice nervous.
“She said she would try. Hah. You truly are a selfish creature. And foolish if you believe that she will succeed.”
I pushed his existence from the room we had shared to the room I had delegated him and sat back to relax.
Though I was mildly irritated that the girl had not chosen to just go back and stop being a pain in my ass, I was also amused. I had gained another soul to call my own no matter how this panned out, and while I would have sent Caius back regardless, due to his pain in the ass nature, I would be at least temporarily amused by the triviality of a stupid little girl struggling to do the wrong thing in order to do the right thing. Damn I was good at getting what I wanted.
“I have work to do,” I told myself, and went back to my daily duties of corrupting and destroying souls one by one.
*
“Ugh,” I said angrily. How had we gotten into this situation? How had I gotten stuck as the playtoy of the devil?
What was I supposed to do first? He hadn’t even felt it appropriate to tell me what to do first? No, of course not. He hoped I would fail and be stuck here.
I looked around and saw nothing except the pit off to my right. Nothing except the pit full of burning souls, the pit full of agonized people burning forever for no good reason. It made me sick to my stomach.
I stood up and started walking around, finding that Lucifer had indeed healed the worst of my injuries and I looked myself over. Nothing was amiss except a small smudge of black on my left wrist. I looked at it closer and saw it was a word rather than just a smudge.
“Jump”. All it said was the one little word. It was written in a fancy script. What did that mean? I was supposed to... jump? Jump where? I looked up, trying to find somewhere I was supposed to jump up to. Nothing but a light grey mist could be seen above me. All around me was nothing but the cold, light grey mist. Jump... Maybe up wasn’t the right direction... Down?
I looked over to the pit and tuned into the screams. The agony down there made my nausea get worse. Made me unable to breathe. No, that wasn’t just the nausea. It was.. the mist. The mise was getting thicker around me, encompassing me, suffocating me. I could hardly breathe and I knew I had very little time left before I died from lack of oxygen.
Was it even possible to die in Hell?
I was out of time. My body was screaming for oxygen. It was now or never.
I jumped. Into the pit, into the sure agony, I leapt, hoping it would not end for me here, but unsure if it really mattered. I was in Hell now, no matter what I did.
The souls surrounded me, tearing at my me, leaving my naked and with gashes deep in my skin. They attacked me, pushing me deeper and deeper down amongst them until finally, just barely, I made it to the very bottom. I hit the barrier at the bottom and the souls pushing me down were unable to cross through it, but yet my body did. I went through the barrier, though still unable to see where I was.
I found myself falling, falling, falling. It was like a bad dream where you fall off of a cliff without the part where you wake.
Without warning, I landed. Not at the bottom, but I was suddenly sitting on a stone floor.
“Congratulations, Lilium. You managed to follow instructions. Now for your real test to begin. You are going to have to follow the instructions you are given and do what the writing tells you. I will be joining you some of the time. Sometimes I will be with you, other times I will not. For now, I will stay. Do as the writing says, Lilium.”
I didn’t see him, but I couldn’t see anything at all. In an attempt to stand, I fell back over, and felt myself slipping around in something wet. Something warm. Something that smelled strongly of iron. Blood. Oh god, I was bleeding. I was bleeding badly.
I needed help. I was going to die. I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. The souls had torn open my skin and boy did it hurt. I couldn’t see Lucifer but I knew he was there somewhere.
It was dark enough that making out the writing on my wrist was difficult, but I could if I looked closely.
“No hints this time. You get one chance at this. Good luck, little girl.”
I sighed in frustration.
“Do you need help?”
“I want nothing from you, Lucifer.”
“But I can help you, little girl. I can make it brighter in here, I can heal you. I can make things much easier for you if you just say the words.”
“Just leave. I do not want your help.”
“You’re dying. Let me show you,” he said, and the lighting in the room grew brighter until I was able to see where I was. I was on a stone floor in a large room, appearing to be like a cave. The floor around me was coated in sticky, red blood which continued to pour from the deep gashes in my body. My legs, my face, my arms, my abdomen, but the worst one was on my back, hurting so bad I was about to pass out. Of perhaps that was the lack of blood. Either way, I was about to die.
“Do you see it, Lilium? Do you see your blood? Do you see your own life pouring from you?”
“Where do I go when I die?” I asked sadly.
He materialized before me and smirked down at me. “You will become nothing. Is that what you wish to be? You wish to be nothing at all? You want to die?”
“I do not want to die.”
“Then let me help you,” he said, his lips curled into a knowing smile.
“Doesn’t it hurt? Doesn’t it hurt to die?”
I just smiled sadly. “I would rather die in Hell and become nothingness than accept help from the likes of you, Lucifer.”
He smiled. “We’ll see. Well, I will see. If your vision blurring out yet? Can you see anything other than the grey filling your vision? Is my voice fading yet? Are you gone yet?”
“I am sorry to have failed you, Caius,” I mumbled.
Once again, my world faded to black and I no longer cared either way what happened to me.