Chapter Two Drunk Dialing Hell （Syn）
This day can suck sweaty, hairy demon balls, and choke on them.
After countless millennia of existence, one lesson I have yet to learn is that no good deed goes unpunished.
Especially in Hell.
The Department of the Dead and the Damned, home to the Infernal Registration Office, processes souls twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for all eternity.
It was my own version of Hell within the realm of Hell.
Every soul reaped by my Father’s department has to pass through registration.
The ones destined for Heaven are easy. They go straight to The Department of the Dearly Departed, their paperwork marked with softly glowing sigils.
No lines, no additional paperwork, no horrendous petitions for appeal. Just pass Go and collect your halo.
Lucky bastards.
Because that means everyone else ends up here.
Endless lines of registrants, all awaiting their fate. Most plead for an appeal; others go straight to their predetermined circle of Hell. For some, it’s just a hop, skip, and a sideways jump into Purgatory.
The paperwork alone is enough to make the most astute pencil pushers self-destruct.
Regardless of their paperwork-stated destination, the system is fairly cut-and-dried.
Which is where my problems began.
Unlike most of the other demons working the registration desk, I read beyond the destination sigils. I was curious. What determined who went where? And that’s when I discovered some of the reasons people were ending up in the Department of the Dead and the Damned were, well, fucking dumb.
Do most of these dickholes belong here? Absolutely.
But leaving aggressive notes in the office fridge to the person stealing lunches does not warrant exile to Purgatory.
Neither does lying about liking your friend's casserole to protect her from the hurtful truth: it tastes like what wet socks smell like.
And having to force those souls, who, in my opinion, committed sins so minute in the grand scheme of things, to their determined location made me feel icky. Like stomach cramping, cold sweat, skin crawling, icky.
So I made...adjustments. Changed a few sigils so that, instead of down or to the side, they went up. Really, what good is being the head of the department's daughter if you can’t pull a few cosmic strings?
Nothing huge and not all the time. Just, you know, occasionally.
Except, apparently, what I thought was occasional was, according to management—otherwise known as Dad—“An alarming number of unauthorized designation changes.” Which is how I find myself in a whole new realm of Hellish torture, known as the Summoning Switchboard.
After Dad scolded me for my antics, he temporarily reassigned me so that I would have a better appreciation for the importance of my job. Fat. Chance.
I may be a badass demoness, but I’m a badass demoness who believes in fairness, not just punishment for punishment's sake.
Except I am clearly being cosmically punished, because I picked up this call three fucking hours ago and have been trying to get the caller to answer me ever since.
“HELLO!” I scream into the phone at ear-piercing decibels.
I’ve been listening to several voices all night.
There’s been laughter, banter, and quite a bit of crunching going on for the duration of this horrific connection.
But in the last thirty minutes, the voices have gotten quieter and moved farther away.
I was hoping that, with the quiet, the caller would finally respond.
No such luck.
It’s eerily quiet now, so I fill my lungs to max capacity and scream with the force of legion, “HELLO!”
“Hello?” a husky voice replies.
Holy shit. I’m so startled, I nearly fall out of the chair I’ve been lounging in.
“Fucking finally,” I seethe, “I’ve only been screaming for the last three fucking hours!”
I’m met with silence. Did this bitch just ghost me?
“Hello? Motherfucker, did you just leave again?”
It’s quiet for a moment before I hear something shuffle around.
“Uh, no. I’m still here. And clearly drunk if I’m having a conversation with a Ouija board,” he says.
Fuck my eternal life.
This dumbass didn’t summon a demon.
He drunk-dialed Hell’s Summoning Switchboard.
I groan and run a hand down my face.
“You may, in fact, be drunk, but you are having a conversation. I’m not a drunken delusion."
Nothing.
“Hello?” I say as panic starts to rise. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m about to be ghosted.
A door opens, there's some shuffling, and then the click of a door closing.
He did not just put me in a closet!
“Hello? Hello? You have got to be fucking kidding me! Come back here, you drunk dipshit! I’m not a delusion! You summoned me! Hello!?”
I continue to shout for several more minutes before my voice finally gives out.
Great. Just great. I’m stuck on hold...for eternity.
Karma is somewhere sipping a tequila sunrise and laughing.