Writing Prompt: Oh Heck

A prompt from Writer's Digest. In turn, this might have been taken from other sources around the Internet. It's been way too long since I did prompts, and I need to get back into shape writing-wise.

So the prompt for today is:

Finding the underworld rather crowded, Satan has instructed his incompetent younger brother Stan to open a milder version of Hell, known as Heck, for low-grade sinners. How does one end up there, and what sort of punishments does Stan devise?

I came up with this. It's pretty rough and I winged the whole thing without a specific plan, so it might come off as choppy, tonally inconsistent, and undercooked. Won't be fleshing this out into anything greater, it's just for the fun of it (and the exercise).

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Cory tumbled out of the black tunnel and landed face-first in a shallow pool of tepid water. His nose scraped against the crusty white lakebed. When he lifted his head up to breathe, droplets of salty water coated his lips and trickled down his throat. Seeing the white and blue expanse around him, he realized he landed on a water-covered salt plain.

The sky above him was blank. No clouds, no stars, just an empty void. It wasn’t so much dark as it was bland. In fact, that was the word that defined the place and how Cory felt about it—bland. This couldn’t have been heaven—it wasn’t nearly pretty enough, and he should have been joyous about it. But hell should have been much more oppressive than this. Purgatory? Even that middle-ground would have elicited some feeling.

He wanted answers, and he knew there had to have been an angel or demon around to make him welcome in whatever afterlife this was. Right when he considered shouting out for help, something splashed behind him. Cory saw a pink-skinned figure flailing in the foot-deep lake, acting as though he as drowning in the Atlantic.

Cory took a few steps and extended his hand. The other fellow’s palm met his, with long fingernails gently pressing into his wrist. They were claws, but their tips were filed down. Surely a demon, but did they like pedicures?

The creature pulled himself up, spitting quarts of water from his purple lips. Black hair clung to his shoulders, thick enough to form a curtain over his face. When he parted his hair, Cory beheld boyish pink cheeks and a pair of dull yellow eyes.

“Oh man,” the creature stammered. “Oh sh*t, I’m sorry dude. I f*cked that up so bad. Don’t tell me bro about this, okay? He thinks I have this teleportation thing nailed, but I totally don’t. This is so hard!”

 The best response Cory was able to give was to squint his eyes and blurt, “What?”

“Oh sh*t, I forgot about the intro. I was supposed to have meteors behind me and this really awesome dragon, and then I would come out of this tesseract thing like some kind of a bad@ss—”

“Just tell me where I am. Is this hell?”

“Um, yeah…no, sorry, this is heck.”

“Are you serious?”

“This isn’t, like, the real hell. Hell’s been full for a while, so we needed more space and my bro set up this dimension for you guys.”

“What? Hell is full? How is that even possible?”

“You know how many sinners there are, man? I mean, sh*t, ever since they invented video games everybody became a murderer.”

“What?” Cory blinked. “Killing an NPC is murder now?”

“It’s not, like, real murder, but it is murder. You used to play that car theft game, right. You killed like a hundred cops. That’s so evil!”

“But they weren’t real, and it’s not like I enjoyed it…”

“Hey, it’s okay. We got dudes here who killed more people than Hitler did, because f*cking games man. You ever play that one where you can make a virus and kill the whole world? That’s like seven trillion murders in one playthrough. We got people here who’ve murdered whole galaxies, man!”

“This can’t be happening,” Cory rubbed his head. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Oh, sorry dude. Totally forgot my manners. I’m Stan, nice to meet you.”

When Stan extended his hand, Cory shook it, then withdrew his arm with the exasperated realization that he just welcomed the being that would torment him for untold eons for reasons he didn’t even know.

“Wait a minute,” Cory said. “You’re some kind of demon, right? And you’re here to torture me? For what again?”

“First of all dude, I’m a prince, not just ‘some kind of demon.’ I mean, do I even look like an imp to you? Sh*t man. Second, um…it’s not so much torture, because I don’t like torturing people that much. Lucifer wanted all this to be like lava and sh*t, but I’m like naw man, let’s just make it a nice gentle lake. Not a pretty lake or anything, but something a little more welcoming than boiling magma.”

“Yeah, thanks, it’s a nice lake.”

“Oh no, don’t say that man! You’re supposed to suffer a little.”

“Why though?”

“Well, obviously the games made you a mass murderer.”

“Not for real though!”

“Tell that to all the dead pixels, man. Uh, let’s see…you’ve watched about a thousand R-rated movies.”

“What? That’s a sin too?”

“It’s not good for you, man. Same for all the porn you’ve seen, all the comics and pulp novels, listening to all that Mozart, eating pork, calling in sick when you weren’t, turning down Girl Scout cookies when they came around…”

“Okay, this is bullsh*t, seriously!” Cory shouted. “I haven’t sinned any worse than anybody else on Earth, so why am I really here?”

“Whoa dude, chillax. You think that just because everybody else does this sh*t you can get away with it too? No man. You’re here because of one thing. And because of that one thing, it all comes back in your face.”

“What one thing?”

“That’s the thing—it’s more like the thing you didn’t do, you know?”

“I don’t know, that’s the thing!” Cory paced in a circle, salty water splashing around his calves. There were thousands of things he didn’t do, and it wasn’t fair to judge him for any one of them. He couldn’t have earned his damnation for not giving up a seat on the bus, or not donating to charity when he should have. He never endangered a life or hurt anybody through inaction.

Then he realized he hurt himself through inaction.

“Of course,” Cory brought his palm to his face. “I didn’t go to church enough. Didn’t pray enough.”

“Yeah, that’s sort of it.”

“Sort of? Is it or isn’t it?”

“Chill dude. I didn’t take you for the angry type. You keep this up and my bro will knock you to Ring Five. You don’t want to go there, it’s nasty.”

“Just tell it to me straight—what didn’t I do in life?”

“You didn’t follow the path. You know, THE path.”

“The path…of Jesus?”

Stan suddenly brought his hands to his ears. “Oh, sh*t man, don’t even say that name!”

“What does that even mean though?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Cory knew the answer. He had heard it all his life—follow in Jesus and he’d be saved. Except he never bothered to understand the meaning of it. If he had reached an understanding about it, he could have devoted his life to selflessness, generosity, and love.

What had he really done with the life he was gifted with? Senseless games, beer, and Internet trolling to filled his time. He spent most of it alone, ashamed, and depressed. Years of it ground against his heart, until it finally failed. He only had himself to blame.

“So what happens now?” Cory asked. “What’s the next level of…heck?”

“Oh, no, this isn’t like that man. This is it. What you see is what you get.”

“Really?” Cory regarded the flat expanse of salt and water with a scowl. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s a big dimension man, just keep wandering that way and you’ll find that group of backpackers who fell off of—”

“Wait a minute, is this really it? I’m just supposed to wander around here for eternity?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there no way out? No hope for salvation? I know what I should have done!”

“Do you though?” Stan’s yellow eyes glimmered briefly, and Cory took a step back. With a wide grin, Stan pointed behind him. “Here’s a secret for you. Head that way. Then maybe you’ll have a chance.”

It could have been a trick, but this was Stan and Cory didn’t take him seriously enough to think him capable of treachery. There was earnestness in Stan’s voice, and the glimmer in his eye was a challenge. Maybe there was a second chance, if he had the conviction to go through with it.

Stomping past Stan, Cory headed towards the boring white horizon. Nothing changed as he continued, step by step. Entire miles must have fell behind him, but he couldn’t tell. Time slithered with agonizing slowness, as the salt water stung against his ankles and calves.

Then, the water came to his knees. It wasn’t that the pool became deeper—he was shorter. Reaching down, Cory couldn’t feel his feet. They weren’t there—they had dissolved in the lake, and he was walking on the stubs of his legs. He wasn’t alarmed though. It didn’t even hurt. If anything, it was gratifying, because he knew this was the path. He’d become nothing, and by doing so, he’d rise into a new, better form.

He continued walking until his legs vanished. Then his stomach and hands. When his chest vanished, his head floated towards the infinite horizon, gradually sinking into oblivion.

On Earth, a newborn baby entered the world without crying. Too young to understand or know what soul now inhabited its pure body, but he would live a fresh new life full of chances to walk the path of love.