Kit
. . .
Four Years Ago
“Welcome, everyone. Please take your seats,” said a pig at the front of the room.
Yes, an actual pot-bellied pig. They stood on their back two hooves, wearing brown slacks and a white button-down with the top two buttons undone.
Their voice was deeper and less squealy than one would expect—and contained an alarming lack of heavy snorting.
The room we were guided to was lined with dark stone walls and dark stone floors, lit dimly by burning lanterns adorning the walls. A few rows of plastic folding chairs were set up, facing where the pig stood.
The other souls took their seats as I did, the chairs squeaking in response.
As I attempted to make a chair designed to be uncomfortable comfortable, I caught my reflection in the large black video screen at the front of the room, raven-dark hair and blue eyes staring back at me.
I wasn’t sure why I expected to recognize this man in my reflection. He was not me.
Everyone around me appeared human, except for the pig, though I knew that was not true.
We hadn’t been brought to this room as damned human souls—we’d been brought here as demons.
New recruits. Everyone around me was excreting anxiety, shifting in their seats and twiddling their thumbs.
It wasn’t helping me to keep my own cool.
The pig continued, “Now, this is a fairly large batch of you we have here today. I have to be honest, not all of you will make it. You’ll either continue the rest of your existence as a demon, or fade away into nothingness by the end of this orientation. Understood?”
Most of the others nodded, me included, but a timid one near the front raised her hand. “I’d rather not fade away into nothingness. Can I go back to being a tortured soul?”
The pig snorted through their large nose. “Most would argue that nothingness is the better option. And no. You may not. Your soul has been forever corrupted. There is no way to reverse the demonification process. Now, please sit back and enjoy this three-hour orientation video.”
The TV switched on, displaying in Comic Sans, so, you want to be a demon?
I grumbled to myself, crossing my arms and sliding down in my chair, back twinging in response. Just like the nether region to throw in a last-minute bit of torture.
When the video ended, the lights grew brighter as the pig stepped back up front. They cleared their throat. “Now, first things first. Names. This is your chance to choose a new one. I suggest you think carefully about this. No one takes a demon named Peter seriously.”
There were collective light chuckles around the room.
One by one, the others stated their names (Halificious, Gronkite, Leonard), as I waited for my turn.
I’d had my name picked out for a while—something I thought of soon after I received the offer to become a demon. The offer to never be tortured again.
When the pig’s focus landed on me, I confidently said, “Tonkitgrol.” With that name, I could still go by Kit.
The pig wrote my name on a clipboard they held and moved on to the next person. When everyone had gone, the pig said, “All right. Next item on the agenda: the tour.”
The group stood and let the pig lead the way out large double doors and down a hallway lined with flaming torches and tapestry.
This section of Hell had the air of a haunted medieval castle, though I was unsure of whether or not that was the goal.
I was always expecting suits of armor to line the hallways.
As we walked, the pig talked. “Now today, we’re going to be exploring all of the sections of Hell to give you an idea of what kind of career you can strive for.
You will start on the surface level, causing general grievances to humans—anything you want to do to them is fair game.
However, if you show promise, we may recruit you to another department.
It could be Deals, Torture, or even as a guard to Hell’s leaders. ”
The pig, shuffling on two legs, rounded the corner and showed us into a large room that greatly resembled a modern office—if a modern office was lit by streams of fire in the floor and had desks separated by stone walls instead of cubicles.
Multiple demons of different shapes and appearances were littered around the office, drawing up paperwork, making sales calls with corded phones and cauldrons, and packing briefcases and human leather sacks for trips to the surface.
“We don’t want to interrupt the team, but the Deals department is great for bringing in business we might not have received without them.”
The mention of Deals made me flinch, but I shoved that feeling away. It’d been centuries since I’d interacted with a Deals demon. Since I ruined my life.
The pig led us away from Deals and walked us through what they dubbed as Section A of A through Z.
The pig explained that this was where they kept most of the “newly acquired souls” before they determined where they’d spend eternity.
General torture, advanced torture, psychological torture, etcetera.
We walked past prison cells, small rooms barred from the hallway with black iron posts, rusting and appearing nearly acidic.
We passed several empty cells before we came to an occupied one.
A man was shoved into the corner of the cell, his knees up to his chest and arms wrapped around them, rocking back and forth, banging his head violently against the back wall with each rock.
I jerked away, even though this was not a new kind of scene for me.
It may have been common, but it never got easier.
We walked past another taken cell. This new arrival was just sitting there, and he looked thoroughly tortured. I pitied his soul for when he found out what true torture was.
My vision went blurry as my breathing became shallow, buzzing thoughts taking control.
Wait. Not mine. Lacy’s.