I opened my eyes and blinked. Lucifer was standing over me. "You're alright, buddy. Come on. Let me get you up," he said. He put his left hand out and I grabbed it with my left without thinking about the fact that I had cut it off. But my left hand gripped his and he pulled me up. I looked at my left hand. It was back on my body like nothing happened. Then I looked at the cutting board. My left hand was still lying there.

"What the hell?" I said, looking at the hand on the cutting board.

"Oh, that? Yeah, when I regenerate people's limbs, their removed one stays," Lucifer said.

"Huh," I said. "I guess that makes sense. So you can regenerate limbs. What about brain injuries? Like if I were to stab myself in the brain, would you be able to prevent me from dying?"

"Yeah, I would. Brain injuries usually aren't instant kills like people assume they are. If your body was fully disintegrated by a bomb or something, sure. I wouldn't be able to bring you back from that, but a simple brain injury is no problem for me," he said.

I grabbed a bottle of wine off the rack in my kitchen. I needed a drink. I uncorked the bottle, pulled the cork off the corkscrew, and threw it in the trash, laying the corkscrew on the counter.

"Are you sure?" I said, drinking straight from the bottle.

"Do you want to test it?" He said.

"Let me get drunk first, and then we can test it," I said.

"How long is that going to take?" Lucifer said.

"About a minute," I said, chugging the wine until only half the bottle was left.

"Won't that interfere with your heart medication?" He said.

"Probably, but it hasn't yet," I said.

"Ok. Are you ready yet?" Lucifer said picking up the corkscrew.

"I'll never be ready to be stabbed in the brain, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be," I said.

"Ok, hold still," he said. He unfurled the metal spiral prong of the corkscrew and placed it in his hand so the prong stuck out of his fist. He grabbed me by the head and pulled his arm back.

"Where are you putting that?" I said a little alarmed.

"In through your eye. Where else would I put it?" He said.

"Why not go in through the temple?" I said.

"It's not as easy as everyone thinks. There's a lot of muscle tissue there to dig into. The eye is soft and easily perforated. Just hold still. It'll be over and done with faster than you can say, 'Ow, ow, ow, that's my eye.'" He said.

He plunged the metal prong into my eye. He pushed and pushed and pulled. The pain was excruciating. When he pulled his hand back, my eye and a bit of spongy tissue were attached to the prong.

"Is that?" I said, on the edge of passing out.

"Brain tissue? Yeah," he said. "Let me heal you." He waved his hand in front of my face and my vision came back in my right eye. I didn't feel like I was passing out anymore. "All better."

The devil held my eye up to my eye and said, "Now, do you see? Even pierced brain tissue can't kill you before I can heal you."

"I see," I said. "That really hurt."

"You made the bet. Now live with it," he said. He put the corkscrew down on the counter.

I thought about what he just did. He saved my life. Twice. Wait. This meant he would save my life every time. No matter what happened or what I did. Maybe I couldn't win the bet, but I could use this. I put my shoes on and grabbed my coat, my wallet, my keys, and a knife from the kitchen. I stuffed the knife in my jacket pocket.

"Where are we going?" Lucifer said.

"The Pit," I said.

We walked down several blocks in the snow and came to an alley. I walked down the alley to where there was a burly man with a long beard standing by a door with a red carpet rolled out in front of the door. The man looked me and the devil up and down and said, "State your business."

"I want to go inside," I said with a smile on my face.

"You don't belong here. Get lost," he said.

"What if I have the password? Does it matter what I look like then?" I said.

"No, but you don't have the password," he said.

"No, I don't, but you're going to give it to me," I said pulling the knife out of my jacket.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Really?" The bouncer said. He pulled out a knife of his own that he flicked open.

"Yes, really," I said. "Give me the password or this is going to get ugly."

"For you, it will," he said.

I slowly approached him with the knife at my side. When I got within a few feet, he lunged forward and stabbed me in the stomach. It hurt. A lot. But I was still alive. I dropped the knife and punched him in the face. He laughed and stabbed me again. I stuck my knuckle out and punched him in the eye. His hand went up to his eye. I punch him in the throat. He got angry and stabbed me again and again until my shirt was covered in blood, but still, I stood before him.

"Are you on something? How are you still standing?" He said.

I lifted my shirt up to show no stab wounds. "I'm fine. See?" I said.

"What the hell? How?" He experimentally stabbed me again and pulled his knife out. The wound sealed right in front of his eyes. "No way. You're not human. What are you?!?!" He slashed and stabbed at me to no effect.

I headbutted him and broke his nose. He fell backward onto his back. I grabbed him by the collar and said, "Give me the password!"

"Over my dead body!" He said. He pulled a gun and shot me several times in the chest. The bullets knocked me back a few steps. He got up and put the gun against my forehead. "Get out of here or I'll shoot you in the head. There's no way you can heal from that."

I looked at the devil. "Is he right?" I said.

"Yeah. While I can heal many types of head injuries, bullets to the brain aren't one of them. We should go back," he said.

"No. Do something to prevent him from shooting me in the head or he'll kill me and I'll win the bet. I'm not backing down. If I can't win this bet, I'm going to have a good time with my last 24 hours," I said gritting my teeth.

"Fine," the devil said. He snapped his fingers. "There."

"Good," I said. I didn't know what he did, but I knew I wasn't going to die anymore. This was my real goal all along. Not going into The Pit. I was still going in, but that's not why I was here. I was here to trick the devil into making me invincible to physical harm. I grabbed the gun and held it tight against my head. "Shoot me! Or give me the password! Your choice, asshole!"

"Ok," he said. He pulled the trigger and the gun went off. My head whipped back and I was staring at the sky. I tilted my head back down to look at the man. He looked at me in shock and horror.

"No way," he said. "That's not possible." He looked at the gun and then he looked at me. He lifted the gun and emptied the rest of the clip against my head.

I reached up and peeled the flattened bullets off my forehead one by one, ominously, trying to intimidate the man in front of me. After I was done, I looked him in the eyes and said, "Give me the password, before I end you."

"It's 'apricot', ok? But I still can't let you inside," he said.

"Then I'll just let myself inside," I said. I stepped past him and grabbed the handle of the door. He pushed against the door. I headbutted him again and broke his nose a second time. He fell over holding his nose and crying. "Now, stay down." I opened the door and held it over for the devil. Lucifer walked past me.

"Thanks," he said.

"No, thank you," I said. I walked inside and closed the door behind me.

We walked down a flight of stairs into a noisy club full of flashing lights. Everyone in there was either a skinhead or a biker and they all sported some form of Nazi clothing or tattoo. The Pit. The city's fight club run exclusively by and for neo-Nazis. One of the most dangerous and terrible places in the city. They all stopped and stared at me and Lucifer. "Apricot," I said. Then they shook their heads and looked away.

I walked up to the bar. "Apricot," I said.

The bartender looked at me over his glasses and said, "I heard you the first time. What are you having?"

"Pour me the nastiest shot you have," I said.

"Ok. One Devil's Donut coming up," he said.

"Actually, make it two," I said. "One for my friend, Lucifer."

"That's not funny," the bartender said. His name tag said, Raphael.

"It's not a joke," I said. "His real name is Lucifer. His father named him that."

Lucifer pulled out his wallet and pulled a driver's license out of it. He showed it to Raphael, who said, "Lucifer Morningstar." He grabbed the ID from Lucifer and ran it under a black light and some sensors. "Are you sure this is real?" After he had run it through a few tests, he said, "I guess it is real. Weird. Ok, I guess I will pour a shot for Lucifer." He gave Lucifer a look he didn't notice. Just a brief narrowing of the eyes.

Raphael pushed up his glasses that momentarily glinted brilliantly in the low light of the bar. Then he changed the angle of his head, the brilliance went away. The light must have been reflecting off his glasses directly into my eyes. Raphael pulled out a small measuring tool and poured different liquors into it and poured them into a shaker. He shook the concoction up and poured it into three shot glasses.

"I only asked for two," I said.

"I know. This one's for me," he said grabbing the third shot glass.

"Cheers!" I said.

"Cheers!" Lucifer said.

"Cheers!" The bartender, Raphael, said.

I looked at my shot. It was filled with black liquid, but inside the black liquid, was red liquid in the shape of a donut, and the shot was steaming hot. We all threw back our shots. Man did it burn. Holy shit. That was the harshest burn I'd ever felt. That really was a nasty shot. Although, I assumed a shot named after the devil's butthole would burn.

"Damn, that's good!" I said.

"Thanks. I came up with it myself," Raphael said. "I made it to commemorate someone I never thought I'd see again."

"Huh. A friend?" I said.

"You could say that," he said looking at me and Lucifer.

"I'm looking to fight in the pit," I said. "How do I sign up?"

"With me," Raphael said. He pulled out a sign-up sheet and pointed at an empty line. "Sign here. The Pit is not responsible for any death, injury, or dismemberment that may occur in the ring."

"Is that legally enforceable?" I said signing my name.

"Legally no, but illegally, yes. Very," he said, giving me a grim look.

"Ok, fine," I said throwing my hands up. "Didn't mean to offend."

"None taken," he said pulling the sheet out of my hands. He pulled a microphone out of nowhere and spoke into it. "Will the next two fighters please make their way to the ring now? Dave, uh, Daverson, and Phil "The Fill" O'Malley." He read off the sheet.

The pit was further into the bar. I made my way over to the pit. Lucifer grabbed my shoulder. "Are you sure you want to make enemies with these people? They're Nazis."

"I appreciate your concern, but if I can't make enemies with Nazis, then who can I make enemies with?" I said.

"That's fair, I suppose," he said.

I walked down into the pit on a ramp. My challenger did the same. Then the ramp was tilted up until it became another vertical wall of the pit. My challenger was well over 6 feet tall and burly and over weight. This wasn't normally an advantage but it did mean gut shots wouldn't do as much damage.

Raphael walked up to the pit and said, "Now you both know the rules."

"No. No, I don't," I said.

"Oh. Well, the rules are that there are no rules. Fight until the other person can't or won't fight anymore," he said. "Begin!" He hit a bell with a hammer to start the fight.