1. My curiosity.
They had preached vile and cruel things about the devil. From the past, stories of good and evil on a distinct lens of black and white. Reproving him, rebuking his ways, censuring his words. The depictions of his façade, his menacing voice, and his frightening horns.
He was sinful and awful, incapable of love and detached from purity. They claimed his diabolical lies had split the world in two, it had birthed hellfire and we were all cursed for it. In every scripture, he was the beginning of evil and the demise of righteousness. The beginning of sin, and the end of eternal life.
Yet, none of them had met him. No one wanted to, after all, he was fear. The monster that haunted us in our dreams.
Many imagined him, in horror, that one day he would show up and snatch their souls, they carved their dreams into nightmares, and created stories that kept them up at night. The Devil was wicked, and he was banished to live in hell, and everyone who glimpsed into his ways would join him in the afterlife.
While I wasn’t the most righteous, I conceptualized the world in a way that disturbed so many. A troubling manner, even for me. My mind sifted through reality with so many questions, a thirst that needed to be quenched through finding out the truth.
It was the curse of being, trying to find essence beyond existence.
While I knew the story, one night, under a pale moonshine, I decided to visit him...the devil.
2. Death.
I wouldn’t be able to describe it as clearly as I can remember.
How it felt…to die.
But I recall the hopelessness, the overwhelming gush of anguish, and then it was gone. I became nothing. Yet, by my nothingness, it was everything I had ever wanted to feel. The ecstasy of odd, a beckoning that this was my heaven.
My body floated in the tab, the water cleansing the impurity of what was left. It was a sinful act, the farthest my curiosity had driven me. The searching of more than my soul was made to handle and the despair that had fueled me to meet my end. Surely, it was the end, it had to be.
Loud fervent screams burst through the door and there I was, standing by the bloody water staring forlornly at my lifeless body. The dolor had branched through my veins, and now with all the life gone, I became the nothing I so feared.
Pain condensed through the walls of the house, the wallpapers chipped. The birds outside went quiet, and the news reached our neighbors gradually, the shock knocking through door after door. In my selfishness, I had hurt so many people. Their agony ate at what was left of me and momentarily, I became consciously aware of everything.
I was there, standing next to my old English teacher when she got the news. She sobbed and went about with her work with the sadness plummeting her shoulders.
I was there, at my father’s workshop when the phone rang. He went pale, his body slumping like a dead man. He was a tailor, never letting go of his scissors, but that day, he did. I felt every emotion coming from him, and he suppressed it until he couldn’t and fell to the floor in a disheveled heap as his grief poured out in.
Lying beside my best friend under her starry ceiling. She froze with horror, losing hold of the phone, our eyes instantly locking like she could see me there physically. Unlike everyone else, she knew, she knew one day it was coming and so her cries were muffled sobs as she gathered all that was left of me.
And there I was, with my mother. She cradled my dead body in her hands as she cried to the highest heavens to bring me back. She begged, that I was too young, I had not lived, yet in a sense, I had. It was the most painful feeling ever, it gnawed at my guts. It reminded me of my selfishness, it haunted me. All I could do was watch, as the world took in the news, as the weight of my sin sunk in.
Staring down at my flimsy hands. I knew what happened after death…nothing.
The screams lulled in and out until I could no longer see my mother's face. It was too heavy to bear, I mused. Realizing that at last, I had gotten what I wanted.
Moments later, my being began to feel heavy, as though I was materializing again. I felt something pull at my consciousness, drawing me in.
Do you know that darkness makes a sound?
If you listen close enough then you can hear it. It is a mellifluous melancholic sound, the kind of melody that conjures an awakening. It called you into the abyss, it sang to you the bulk of your misery. I heard it, the most magnificent sound, unlike anything I had heard before.
My soul floated in the air. It was a dreamlike feeling, the kind only attainable through dosing. I felt nothing but everything all at once. Like the missing gap in space and the mother of the stars. The recoil in the ether, and the earth all together. Like the streams of emotions overpouring, and the tears draining all that was left.
Far off my humanness, in a state that no one, not a single soul had ever managed to envision.
Was it beautiful?
I wasn’t so certain myself, but it surely was something. The darkness paved for me and I felt a kinship with the stars, as if I, too, belonged among them. And so, I danced as though one of their long-lost friends.
Then all of a sudden, I was sucked into the abyss of my own creation. I watched my life play out in front of me, in bits, from the first giggle to my very last cry. The memories flickered like movie scenes in a camera roll, a nagging conception in the back of my mind begging me to account for all of it. It taunted, had I lived my life’s worth, or had I wasted away?
I didn’t have an answer.
Before I could sink into the thought, it was gone.
A silhouette of a man stood before me, his face obscured by the darkness. He stood, like the father of the universe, like a mighty god. Without further contemplation, I was strangely familiar with the darkness that he carted. The gloom that had followed me from birth, standing in the shadows and waiting for its turn.
It followed me, for most of my life, the bits I could recall. On the fateful night I had been saved from a car crash, it hid behind the trees. The first night, I thought about dying, it hid behind my curtains. The day my sickness put me to bed, it held my hand until it was time to let go. The day I fell off the balcony, it stared through the garage. It was always there, like a forgotten part of me that promised to return.
Now, I stood before it and I knew that he was Death, the collector of souls from the living world. He greeted me like a friend, dropping the cape of his cloak to reveal his beautiful face. It was horrifyingly divine, I understood why many called for him and dreamed about him.
Death was a golden-haired man with velvety eyes that mimicked the stars; his face was of everyone I had ever loved. His skin was as dark as the heavens and he glowed with a wraithlike glamor. A hollow smile sat on the edges of his tired lips. His sunken eyes told me that he was drained of seeing souls like mine wander about, but implicitly, he understood. He knew why I was there, and the judgment wasn’t for him to make.
He held out his hand, urging me that it was time to know my fate.
I knew what was ahead, but my gnawing curiosity wanted proof.
3. Hell.
My imagination of hell could barely catch up to the reality of it. It was a place entirely different from the tales of man.
Of course, the torturous dwelling for damned souls, but if only I knew that hell was my hometown. It was my high school, my first apartment, the little town I had grown up in. The path to hell was the road that led me home, the one I had trodden consecutively for over twelve years and promised not to return to someday. It was the road that led to my high school gate, the three-storey ugly building whose halls I had wished to escape.
It was the cobblestone street down to my first apartment, glowing under the soft city street lamps. It was our front porch, where I had sat for years sulking about and wishing I was somebody else.
The grass was a green inconspicuous to the living, the sky was a canvas of beauty, and the clouds hung low, almost kissing the ground. An indistinct noise drummed over my subtle perception like music, the melody too warm, tangible in a way. It was soft that if one paid close attention, it turned eerie.
These were places, from memory, from the fragments pieced up by my fragile mind. They chewed at the least resurrected bits of my consciousness. These were places that defined me with astute measure, so lucid that standing there felt like mocking myself.
A bitter grin swallowed my face and I felt a sudden wind tousle the tips of my hair. It was different here, the breeze. It was too poignant, too melancholic, I feared it would carry me away.
The path was paved in five ways, each one leading to a different place. There was home, my high school, the street where I once lived, my hometown, and the last path was shrouded by darkness. It was up to me to pick where to start, and which door to nudge open. It was entirely up to me to choose which demons I wanted to confront first. From the ones I knew to the ones I knew nothing about.
My hesitation held me ground, and my soul staggered, knowing very well that the longer I stood there, the higher the chances of being trapped there forever.
I took the first step, to the one place I thought I knew better than any other. My home.
4. My Home.
Everything was I could last recall, the air, the poignance, the warmth. I could almost hear my mother’s voice lingering in the air, moving just down the hallway. The living room was neatly arranged but the television was strangely off, something that never happened in our house. Because of that, a permeating silence had made the darkness eerie. The were only two dim bracket lights on. The corners of the room were bounded by the gloom apart from the portraits on the wall. The rest of the house was dark, even the hallway looked imagined, like I would blink and all of it would fade away. It felt too tangible, like the house was more alive than I was, or like it was just another evening walking through the doors and waiting for my mother to burst out of the kitchen.
The house smelt like lilies because Mother would collect them from the garden and vase them by the door. There were three portraits on the wall, always had been, one of my mother, my father, and a very little me. But they all looked empty now that I remembered I was dead. There was something about being there that made my guilt visceral. There was something about standing in that room again that reminded me of my sin. The feeling made me weighty, like again, I was flesh and bones.
I walked slowly, my bare feet against the soft carpets. My hands trailing on the wall, my skin tingling with dread. I watched the shadows morph on the walls, my mother’s voice playing in the background. I moved slowly to the hallway and turned to face the room. I wondered when the torture would begin, but as I looked around, I knew. I knew why this was hell for me. I felt a longing, a yearning for home, a place I could no longer return to. The feeling simmered inside me, like a glowing ball, illuminating all the corners of the room.
I turned, glancing at the empty, open kitchen. My mother would have been singing while preparing dinner, but now I wondered if she would be crying instead, or if she even had the energy to be there. My hand reached out to touch the marble countertop, the coldness stealing the warmth from my skin. That's when I noticed a shadow at the other end of the room—the dining room. A silhouette of a man sitting in the same spot I used to sit every night for dinner.
At first, he was nothing but darkness, but as I became aware of his presence, it felt like my fear was bringing him into the light. His hands rested on the sides of the chair, his legs crossed. His face was the last thing I noticed. He had perfectly symmetrical features. His jawline was sharply defined, and the color of his eyes shifted between the most ethereal brown and a soft amber. His gaze locked onto mine, unblinking, unwavering. He was beautiful, so much so that for a moment, I wasn’t terrified but in awe. He moved slightly, sitting back and tilting his head to the side, but his fiery eyes remained fixed on me.
“You took your time,” he spoke, and the sound of his voice made me jump. It was gruff and ghostly, like hearing the voices in my head, yet almost melodic, as if only the strings of a guitar were missing.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. My legs refused to move, and I knew it wasn’t entirely my own will holding me back.
He let out a cold, menacing laugh, tilting his head sideways in a dramatic way. “You know,” came his response, and instantly, I did.
“You... you...”
“What were you expecting?” he asked cynically, gesturing for me to sit at the other end of the table.
I hesitated, wanting to run, but he smiled, reading my mind. He glowered and growled, “Sit!”
I did, and our eyes met briefly, but in that one glance, he saw through everything. “We meet again,” he said, his eyes lingering over me.
The weight of his words sank in slowly. I didn’t know what he meant, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “Again…?”
“Do you know why you are here?” he brushed off my question and leaned forward slightly.
“Yes,” I said, lowering my head in shame.
“Don’t look away, Ria,” he was now next to me. “You and I have so much in common, I have no idea where to begin.”
I knew I should have been scared—wasn’t that what people felt in hell? But I was frightened only momentarily, and not because I was sitting next to the devil, but because he knew me. He knew things about me I had tried so hard to hide for so long. I stood in front of him with my sins written plainly on my skin, exposed. Somehow, this felt worse than the world ever finding out.
“Your mother hasn’t said a word since she found you. She punishes herself for being a terrible mother, something we both know she wasn’t. Or was she?” He pried, knowing full well my mother had given me everything she could. I was selfish. I should have been happy, but I always felt out of place, like I didn’t belong with them or with anyone.
But now I felt her love, not just in fragments, but the overwhelming entirety of it that she had poured on me. Yet, I couldn’t revel in the feeling. Instead, it tormented me.
“I was wrong,” I finally spoke. “I was selfish, mean, and cruel to everyone who ever loved me.”
“But not just that,” he corrected, “You were much more than that. You were conceited, vicious, and too narcissistic to see anything beyond your own world. You were irascible, pretentious, maniacal, and vain. You were ignorant, greedy, ostentatious, and impatient.”
With every word he hurled at me, I felt its weight, like a rock pressing down on my body until I was pinned to the ground. But ironically, I wanted him to continue, to keep piling on the insults so that I could fully reproach myself, so that my guilt could swallow me completely until I was nothing. I wished I could die again, but that was no longer a way out.
“You bear the guilt,” he said harshly, and then my heart turned to stone. It weighed me down, crushing me under its unbearable heaviness.
“But you had a choice. You could have chosen a more righteous life. You wanted to come here, didn’t you, Ria? You wanted to meet me, in the flesh.” He laughed, a sound filled with derision, as if the notion was the most absurd thing he had ever heard. “I've met many, but none as ambitious as you.” He turned, his cloak flowing theatrically behind him as he fixed his gaze on me. “Many aspire to go to heaven, but you dreamed about hell, didn’t you? And are you disappointed?” he asked rhetorically. “No, you are not,” he answered himself. “You are waiting for the punishment to start. But it already has.”
He studied me, his eyes now smoldering red.
"I am sorry," I fell to my knees, the bones of my spirit feeling brittle.
He found amusement in my despair. His lips tilted slightly, and his eyes glowed a deeper red than before. He stared at me, his gaze piercing through my soul. I felt it—the torment of accepting that I was a terrible person, the grueling realization that I should have done things differently. He circled me, his footsteps heavy on the cold ground. My head sank in shame, unable to meet his eyes.
“It is too late for that now, don’t you think?” he scowled, stopping in front of me. He revealed his hand from beneath his cloak and brushed my ghostly skin, forcing me to look up by lifting my chin with a finger. His touch was almost comforting, but when I met his gaze, his eyes darkened.
“I know where to start,” he said with sudden realization, his eyes glowing in the darkness as he pulled back. He towered over me.
Instantly, the darkness began to fade. Light poured into the house, and the window shutters opened on their own. I heard my mother's laughter coming from upstairs. I looked around and realized it all looked eerily familiar. I had greeted the sun that day. I had lived this moment before.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?” I heard my father's voice coming from the stairs and jumped. There he was, in the flesh. He smiled at me with uncertainty before walking into the kitchen.
A tear flowed freely down my cheek and he looked at me concerned, “Kiddo, are you okay?”
I followed him behind the counter and jumped into his arms, sniffling and the tears pouring out heavily. “Dad, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, hey,” he ran his hands up and down my back. “What’s going on?”
Then I saw him, the devil standing at the other end of the room with a cunning smile. His eyes lingered on me for a moment before following something behind me. I turned to look and saw my mother standing by the staircase.
“Is everything okay, sweetie?” she asked.
“Mom,” I cried, pulling away from my father. My eyes darted between the dark figure and my mother.
“I am sorry.”
'This is a continuous novel that I will update chapters weekly. Thank you for reading and check out my other stories.'
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