I won't bore you with the entirety of the next 32 or so hours in a minute by minute report. As any good storyteller, I will give you the highlights. There is also something I'd like to clarify. These asides are not "fourth wall breaks." This is me, Dave's, account of my time spent as Hell's administrator and beyond, if I ever get there.

I'm recording this for the next administrator—if there ever is one—so they can learn from my experiences and mistakes and hopefully escape like I hope I will. No one prepared me for this job. I simply took it over one day and somehow managed not to drown.

This is my attempt to prepare and train my replacement, and give them some hope they won't be stuck here forever. You may be thinking to yourself, "But Dave, your account is so entertaining and expertly written. How can I be certain this really happened and isn't some trick meant to trap me further into the machinations of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory?"

I've left hints in this record that you are free to go and verify. Visit the Mole People. Or better yet, visit Mephistopheles. He'll tell you I was real. But he may try to trap you into a deal in exchange. Don't let him.

Tell him Dave left you with powerful tools to punish him if he tries to trick you. And don't worry, this won't be a bluff. I will leave behind whatever I can to help you out of the predicament you find yourself in.

Especially if it turns out the way I got out is by tricking you to take my place. You can skip to the end to find out what happened, but I implore you not to.

Context is everything, and without the context of my entire journey, the end may not help you. Also, I'm designing this record to burn itself to ashes when the last page is read. We don't want the powers that be to find this under your bed or in your desk drawer because you were careless. Don't worry. I got you, friend.

Now, let's get back to what you're here for. What happened next. I forced myself not to spend my time with Margaret working. I gave everyone in the control room three days off so I could be with Margaret and not feel bad that they were just sitting there waiting for me to show up.

Officer Drew tried to call me several times, but I just texted him back explaining I'm waiting for the birth of my child, and he completely understood and stopped bothering me. Psyche! Contacting him through text just made him bother me through text messages instead.

The man wrote an essay in text message format about what was going on and why he needed me to come back, but I explained to him there was nothing I could do. I sent the locations of every single demon deal that I had uploaded digitally when I entered office as administrator.

There were some demon deals that I didn't want to touch, because they looked so old that the paper might fall apart if I tried to put them through a copier.

They were also on scrolls so wide and long that they couldn't even be properly scanned without folding it several times and scanning it multiple times to get the whole image. I could theoretically read them by looking at them, but they were in demonic. The newer ones were at least in various Earth languages.

I finally sent one last message telling him that the world could deal with its own problems for the next forty-eight hours. I had my own family to worry about. I was not about to lose my family over Earth's problems.

After I sent it, I saw that he was typing a message back, so I shut off my phone. I know I was being selfish, but I loved Margaret too much to lose her and our son. I wasn't a martyr. I was the administrator of Hell.

Oh, and I almost forgot. He was constantly reminding me he wasn't "Officer Drew" anymore. He was Agent Drew, Head Liason to Hell. I still called him Officer Drew because I knew it annoyed him.

I wasn't dumb. I remembered his job had significantly expanded since we started working together. I was just a stinky butthole sometimes that liked to get on people's nerves when they were bothering me.

I played games with Margaret that didn't require her to use her hands. Games we could play where I could move her pieces for her. We played a lot of 'Candy Kingdom', and 'Stairs and Stripper Poles'.

We also played 'The Game of Death'. It was all about building the best obituary you could in order to try to get into Heaven. There were different levels of success.

It started at the Ninth Circle of Hell and went up from there. Purgatory and Heaven had their own layers, too. We only played a couple rounds, though. You could only play so much 'Death' before it got old.

She couldn't use her hands because she was constantly using them to eat. I know it may seem like she was eating too much, but she really wasn't. She had to grow a child that normally took nine months in two days.

If anything, she was losing weight. Aside from the weight added by the child growing in her womb. She had put on a few pounds in the last few years, and she was slowly losing that.

After we had gotten bored with games, we transitioned to discussing topics related to our coming son. We discussed names again. This took quite some time, as it should. If you come up with a name immediately, you probably haven't thought long enough about it.

We eventually settled on the most ridiculous name we could come up with. We were practically egging bullies on to mess with our son so they would have to reap the whirlwind.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Chaos McDoom." Just kidding. That would be too ridiculous and probably accurate. We went with Fitzwilliam Elijah "Eli" Daverson. In this moment, I wished my last name was Daveson, so it could sound like his name was saying he was Dave's son, which was true. But unfortunately it was not to be.

We followed the pattern of my name like Margaret wanted. A fancy first name that would never be used unless we were angry at him, followed by a more normal middle name that could be shortened.

Once we had finished choosing a name, we moved on to parenting styles. We wanted to be on the same page. Otherwise, you can confuse the child and have arguments that can end in divorce.

Speaking of divorce, I didn't really understand how things worked down here as far as that goes. They didn't have marriage, but they had "lifelong partners."

Was there a process to dissolve that or was that indeed lifelong? Never would I ever consider choosing a different lifelong partner than Margaret, but no one who ever got divorced knew it was coming before they even got married.

We discussed a vast number of different parenting style decisions, which I won't list here in their entirety for the sake of brevity. A few notable ones were spanking, yelling, punishments, rewards, positive and negative reinforcement, and who should say the parental decision out loud to the child first and then who should back them up.

We decided no spanking, but slapping was fine. You weren't allowed to yell unless you were dancing at the same time. Punishments always had to be whimsical. Rewards always had to be mildly disappointing. Positive and negative reinforcement were only allowed if they were confusing and contradictory. And the parent who got to make the decision first would be decided by whoever shouted something semi-coherent and actionable, first.

And yes, we were aware these were all jokes, and we hadn't actually decided anything about our parental decisions. We weren't emotionally ready to make any real decisions yet. It was all too big and scary at the moment.

We told ourselves we would just do what came naturally and discuss everything afterwards with open and honest communication, and without judgment. That all sounded well and good, but only time would tell if that was a good decision or not.

After what felt like just a few hours, the doctors and nurses came in, getting ready to deliver the baby. They told me and Margaret a bunch of things about the process that went in one of my ears and out the other. Margaret seemed to listen diligently though, so I felt confident everything would be alright.

Margaret's water broke suddenly. It surprised and scared me. I was not a man who was scared by much. At least not anymore, but this did scare me. The beginning of the process of becoming a parent was terrifying.

There was a lot of movement, screaming, talking, and a little bit of peeing. The head started to come out first, which was really good news, but the wings got caught on the way out. Wings being present was a surprise. Margaret didn't have wings. I didn't have wings. Where did the wings come from?

They were able to correct the problem quickly, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, I had been holding my breath. It explained why I felt lightheaded. I sat down on a semi-comfortable chair while my girlfriend was going through hell.

It bothered me that I couldn't shoulder any of the burden for her. I was so used to solving other people's problems that it killed me not being able to do it for the person I loved most in the world.

I knew that the best I could do for her was to be here. If she asked me to hold her hand, I would. If she asked me to leave, I would. If she asked me to switch places with her, I would try, but there were no guarantees I'd succeed.

After several hours, the labor was over, and the child was born. They smacked Fitzwilliam Elijah on the bum and he screamed, taking his first breath. He was cute, despite being covered in blood and fluids.

They quickly cleaned him and wrapped him in a towel. Then they let Margaret hold him. I put my finger out and he grabbed onto it. Margaret was overjoyed seeing that. She said, "He knows his daddy."

I said, "I sure hope he doesn't call me that."

"Why?" Margaret asked.

"Because you call me 'daddy' during, you know. Every time he called me it I would get a flash of that in my brain," I said.

"Ah, I see," Margaret said, realizing what I meant. "I can see how that would be uncomfortable for you. I'll make sure to call you dad around him."

"Sounds like a plan," I said. I tried to pull my finger back, but his grip was too strong. He definitely was his father's son. He had my super strength and my emotional clinginess too.

A nurse eventually took Eli away. "Good job, baby. I love you, and now I love our son."

"Thanks. You better love our son. I spent a long time making him and I can't send him back to the factory. That sale is final," she said, smiling at me. She looked exhausted.

"You should get some rest, babe," I said, kissing her on the forehead.

"I will. Just as soon as I close my eyes," she said. She closed her eyes, laid her head back on the pillow, and immediately started snoring. I wasn't sure if she really fell asleep that fast, but the snoring sounded real.

They let me stay in the room. I waited a few hours before Margaret woke. They said Margaret would have to stay in the hospital for the next two or three days. I planned to spend that time with her as well, but fate didn't like that very much.

Dr Peter came back into the room and said, "You two better see this." He turned the news on the TV.

A female reporter was standing in the middle of a street where buildings were burning and destroyed on both sides.

"Yes, Stuart, I'm here in Little Big Town where several buildings have either been reduced to rubble or are in the process of becoming rubble. It appears that several damned human souls have escaped from the Circles of Hell and are wreaking havoc wherever they go. I'm being told this is due to the reduced security in the Circles caused by the numerous mysterious deaths that have occurred in the last forty-eight hours," she said.

"The death toll so far is unknown, but it far exceeds one hundred. This is a tragedy of epic proportions. Where is Dave? Why has he done nothing to prevent or mitigate this devastation? No one knows."

"He could still be in the hospital, but what father stays that long by his partner's side before and after childbirth? Likely, he has teleported away to destinations unknown. That is all we know right now. Back to you in the studio. This is Sabrina Copperfield, HBS 2 News."

Doctor Peter turned off the TV. "Do you see? You are needed out there, Dave. People are dying in droves."

I looked at Margaret. She had a scared and concerned look on her face. "I caused this? Oh, no."

I grabbed her hand. "No. This is no one's fault, especially not yours. Sometimes when it rains, it pours."

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"When stressful or difficult situations happen, sometimes a lot of them happen all at once," I said.

"Oh. That makes sense," Margaret squeezed my hand. "Please go and save as many people as you can. You were here for Eli's birth like you said you would be. You fulfilled your familial obligation. Now go."

"Thank you, Margaret. Thank you for understanding. I love you, and I will be back," I said, teleporting away to Little Big Town.