Michael Crawley: King of Hell

Michael is a freshly coronated King of Hell. It's business as usual until a peculiar gate is found opened one day.

The torches on the balcony burned with a silent beauty. No crackles were heard, but the menacing flames were enough to light the pedestal on which Michael Crawley, the new King of Hell stood. His father, Gabriel, placed the obsidian crown upon Michael’s head. It was freshly soaked in mortal blood. The crown’s spikes were clearly used to impale a human, for some bits of flesh still lingered upon them.

The human blood dripped into his dark hair and over his bony cheeks, making it look like he had cried tears of blood only moments ago. He gazed blankly at the downworlders that had come to view his coronation. They clapped politely, indifferent. They had no say in who was king, and Michael had been doing most of his fathers job for the last 200 years, anyway. Nothing would change, and they knew this.

“You are dismissed!” The king announced as he gestured to his son to return to their fortress. The downworlders filed out of the ceremonial grounds and silently returned to their stations in Hell.

“Now, you understand your duties, Michael Crawley?”
            “Indeed, Father.”

“Then I will take my leave.”

Michael nodded and his father exited. The hall had a large, high ceiling which made it feel much more grand than it really was. In the center of an intricate pentagram engraved on the floor, there was a single throne. The throne now belonged to Michael and he would sit in it and judge the souls that were damned. He would assign them their position and realm where they would spend the rest of eternity unless there was some sort of exception.

            Staring at the throne, Michael pondered if he should sit in it. The soul assignment was the only task he had gained with his new title. It wasn’t something he had been looking forward to. It was just another responsibility. Sitting in the throne would indicate that he accepted his responsibility. He decided his indecision was stupid after peering at the throne for a moment too long. He knew that tonight he wouldn’t sit in the throne. He’d save it for tomorrow. Right now was the time to make his rounds through the Realms. He had to make sure everything was running properly.

            He started his route by heading to The Pit. The Pit was running properly. The ice was still freezing and impaling those who betrayed others in their lifetime and the jaws of demons continued to tear apart what was left of the worst souls that ever walked the mortal earth. Michael was satisfied, but he confronted the demon who was running the ice and told him to jab the ice shards a little deeper. The demon obeyed and the souls cried out. Michael smirked took his leave.

            The next realm was Michael’s least favourite. Malebolge. It was covered in oozing fluids that supposedly originated from mortals. It even grossed out Michael. He kept his observant expression, but picked up his pace and quickly found his way to the following realm, The Fire Plain. Michael gave extra special attention to this realm, because the Harpies were in it. They were excellent at what they did. Every time they got a new soul that was cast into a tree, they ripped it to shreds energetically, but often Michael would catch them off-guard digging holes in the dry sandy ground, searching for something to eat other than the usual dead leaves from the soul-trees. Michael was in luck today, though. He did not have to snap at the Harpies. They were tearing away at the bark of a fresh soul-tree.

            The City of Dis, was next on his route. It was the most boring. Muffled screams echoed through the city of flaming stone coffins. The attendant contently watched over the coffins, making sure the flames continued and no souls were escaping. Michael nodded at the attendant. The attendant tipped his hat, and soon Michael was on his way along the river of Styx, where some souls fought and others drowned. He took a moment to watch two mortal souls duel. They furiously went for each other’s eyes, trying to claw them out, but it seemed they were equally matched because neither of them were finding much success.

            Along the edge of the river was a large circle filled with souls pushing boulders back and forth. Michael always thought this was a lame realm, so occasionally he spiced it up by having a demon make one of the boulder’s burn the anything it touched. He would smile as he watched the soul suddenly jump back from the boulder, only to be lashed by the attendant demon for ceasing its activity.

            Following the river a little further, ash began to fall from the orange sky, followed by chunks of ice and acid. Michael caught a piece of ash on his tongue. A crunch and a swallow later he muttered “delicious”. He followed the river a little further, out of the storm and into a skin-tearing tornado. He watched the soul’s wail in horror as they were whipped around by the wind and torn into pieces. It was like watching your laundry tumble at the laundromat. You’d think it’d get boring after a while, but it never does. In any case, he marched to the quietest place in all of the realms of Hell, Purgatory.

            Michael dreaded Purgatory on his realm route. It was gloomy, which made it boring. It also wasn’t fully under his control. It was a special case. It was not his decision to send people to purgatory -- it was the King of Heaven. For a reason unknown to Michael, it was his responsibility to check up on it every night. All it consisted of was a large field of somber looking souls constantly staring down at the ground in silence, not even bothering to make eye contact. On one edge of the field, there was a large iron gate, that was perpetually closed, and was assumed to never be opened. Ever.

            But today, it seemed to be opened ever so slightly. This threw Michael off. That gate was never open. It hadn’t ever been opened in his lifetime, and he doubted it was in his father’s because Gabriel never mentioned anything about the Purgatory gate. Michael immediately approached one of the Purgatorians. “Why is the gate open?” he asked assertively. The soul just stared at him blankly. “What’s going on?!” Michael raised his voice, causing some of the other Purgatorians to notice him. They disregarded him and continued their usual ground-staring.

            Michael composed himself and came to the conclusion that the Purgatorians were useless at giving any information, so he made his way back to the fortress. When he walked by the stones, he heard some lower demons utter something. The only word Michael actually heard was “human.” He had heard of humans before. Supposedly they live in the realm above Purgatory in the domain of the King of Heaven. He wondered what they were like. He knew the crisp dried blood on his face had come from a human, but he’d never seen a living human before. He’d only ever seen their souls. He wondered what the souls might look like if they were human, but had always dismissed the thought. There was no reason to enter the King of Heaven’s domain.

            At last, Michael arrived at the fortress and entered through the judgement hall. Again, he noticed the throne, but quickly tore his gaze away to focus on the matter at hand: the gate. He had no idea what to do, so he decided to ask Gabriel.

            “Father.” his voice echoed in the room and almost immediately Gabriel appeared behind him.

            “Yes?”

            “I have news.”

            “About your first day as king?”

            “Somewhat. The Purgatory gate is open.”

            Gabriel’s eyes widened.

            “Why is it, father?” Michael asked

            “It’s been a long time since that happened.”

            “So It’s happened before…”

            “Yes, a mortal wandered in.”

            “Like a human?”

            “Yes, a human.”

            “Why?”

            “Michael, humans are curious creatures. Given an open door, they will walk through it. It’s no surprise that on occasion one would walk into an open portal to Hell, knowingly or not.”

            “What are we supposed to do?”

            “No, what are you supposed to do?”

            “I, “ he hesitated. He always knew the policies of Hell, but a human presence had never been addressed. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

            “Nor do I, Michael.”

            They sat in silence for a beat.

            “I’ll do what I want.” Michael concluded.

            “Very well.” His father disappeared from the room, once again leaving Michael alone in with the Judgement throne.

            Michael sighed and stared at it. He knew at some point he had to address the line of souls waiting for his judgement. He also knew he had to learn more about humans than ever before if he wanted to capture them. Now was the time for him to accept his role. To do the job that only the King of Hell could do. To judge the souls.

            He lightly stepped into the circular symbol of the floor and felt power surge through him. His face twisted into a wicked grin and he sat down quickly, with no hesitation. Suddenly the first soul emerged before him. It appeared like a patch of fog, but it glistened red like blood in sunshine. Michael spoke to it.

            “Repent.” he commanded.

            The soul obeyed and suddenly all of the sins the soul committed in its mortal life flashed before Michael’s eyes. The soul had been a human once. He had cheated on his wife numerous times and after her death sold all of her things for money, including her body. He then wrote a book about the loss of his wife that became a bestseller and earned him even more money. The book was mostly sappy comments about the five stages of grief, which he did not even go through because he was too busy with other women and basking in the glory of wealth that came with her death. “Boulders.” was all that he said when a demon appeared and gathered the red fog into a capsule. He then scurried out of the hall. Suddenly, another breath of red fog appeared before Michael. He observed that particular soul’s sins and sentenced it to another area of Hell. After about twenty souls, the excitement of the experience wore off, and he began thinking of all of the sins the souls had committed back when they were human. He wondered what made them so wrong and what made them so right, and from what he could tell, humans lived a much freer existence than demons did. They also seemed to have a lot of diversity in their jobs, values and, of course, foods.

It was around the 25th soul that Michael decided he would try communicating with the former human beings. “What was your name?” he would ask, and in response a projection of a hand writing the soul’s name would appear. As more souls passed through, Michael began to ask more questions like “What did you do for work?” or “Did you have a family?”

Soon, he began to envy the humans. All of them lived such fulfilling lives, and all he’d done for the last 200 years was sadistically torture them. It suddenly seemed insignificant. Michael stood up abruptly and marched out of the Judgement Hall. I’m going to find that human.

Michael wasn’t sure where to start in his search. He knew he didn’t want to alert the downworlders that he was searching for the human because they might kill it. He wanted the human alive. He wanted ask the human questions about the Overworld and what it was like. Of course, Michael had no idea where to start, so he decided to return to purgatory and inspect the gate, maybe ask some of the purgatorians more questions--not that they promised much help.

After about an hour of inspecting the gate and talking the purgatory souls, Michael had gained no insight on where the human may be or what exactly the human was like, so returned home to consult Gabriel.

“Father, I want to learn more about humans”

“No you don’t, son. Those things are children of God.”

“God? What’s God?”

Gabriel sighed. He had kept Michael’s knowledge of the Overworld minimal because he feared that Michael would become curious. It was a trait that ran in the family of Hell’s monarchs because somewhere along the line, a human was involved in the family tree. And every so often that bit humanity would appear in a youthful demon. Michael gazed at his father, trying to interpret the cause of his father’s sudden distress. After a few moments of silence, Gabriel finally explained.
            “Michael, God is the King of Heaven.”

“Heaven? isn’t that part of the Overworld where the humans are?”

“It’s a long explanation, son.”

“But I need to know more, father!”

Gabriel materialized a book that featured pictures of places all around the Overworld.

“This is where the humans live. When their time is up in the Overworld, they go one of two places. Here, or to an even higher world.”

Michael looked at the pictures. There were buildings, really tall ones, made of shiny material that reminded him of his crown only more reflective. And there were humans inside capsules that had wheels. And there was exotic looking food, too.

It was in that moment that Michael knew he wanted to go to the human world.

“Father, I want to visit the Overworld, where the humans are.”

“You are King of Hell, it is not your place. Send a pawn.”

“I’m the King of Hell, I can do whatever I want.” Michael stormed out the room, half frustrated, half excited. He was going to the Overworld. He ran to the gateway of Purgatory and tried to squeeze through a gap, but upon going through the gate, he found himself still in Purgatory.

“Why isn’t it working?!” He was starting to get frustrated, particularly uncommon feeling considering his lack of interest in almost everything.

“Because you aren’t supposed to be in that world.” a voice muttered from behind Michael. At first Michael thought the figure was a lower level demon of some sort, but the skin was too pink and the eyes were too bright and that was when Michael realized he had found the human.

“Y-you’re the human!” He said

“I am human, yes.” it responded

“What is your name?” Michael asked

“Lucy.”

“Lucy, huh? Is that a normal human name?”

Lucy backed away slowly.

“Yes, it’s not really common, but other people have it.”

Michael reached his hand out to her “Hello.” he said awkwardly. She shook his hand. He was excited because he had seen people shaking hands in one of the pictures in the book and now he was experiencing it.

“Can you teach me to be like you so that I can visit your world?”

“It doesn’t work like that” she uttered.

“What do you mean?”

“Usually people have to die to come down here.”

“Why are you here? You aren’t a soul”

“I- I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Take me back with you. Maybe if we go together the gate will work.”

“I think it will” Lucy responded a little too quickly

“Then let’s go”

            The approached the gate and, sure enough, Lucy was able to open it all by herself. The two strode through, but the second Michael was in line with the gate something happened. Spikes impaled his gut. All he could see was black. The last thing he heard was Lucy whispering, “I am Queen of Hell” as she placed the crown on her head.