The King of Hell’s skyscraper is a marvel of demon engineering. The tower has rafters, it’s got gothic windows, it’s got buttresses, and it’s the tallest damn building in the whole city. But that’s what’s aboveground. Down below, it has some interesting rooms built into its foundation. The ultimate rec room, an endless pantry, a music studio for musicians... but it also has a dungeon of sorts.

This isn’t your typical dungeon with spiky beds, pointy sticks, cat-tail whips, and branding irons. This dungeon is made to torture demons who just won’t feel despair in the face of those plebian torture devices. This dungeon, is an office.

A desk, a lamp, and piles upon piles of paperwork are the instruments of suffering here. The tortured are forced to do this paperwork until they’ve realized the severity of their crimes. It’s so mind-numbingly boring that sometimes, paperwork is foregone in order to stare at the grey stone walls, which are only slightly more interesting.

And currently, this subterranean torture room is occupied by none other than one of the Lords of Hell, Evel Knievel or rather, Robert Knievel, his lesser-known true name.

In life, he was an amazing daredevil. For a buck and a thrill, he would drive a motorcycle up a ramp and over piles of cars. He’d make those machines do awe-inspiring, unthinkable things, and he had broken every bone in his body twice. And survived. Ironically, his crazy stunts weren’t what did him in. It was a lung disease.

But he did die. Initially he was going to go to Heaven or Limbo, but after learning that Christianity wasn’t entirely accurate, he decided that since he used to be a daredevil, he should become a real devil and try his luck in Hell. As it turned out, he was very lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you think of it.

You see, he had loved the life-threatening thrill of the flight, and the feeling of accomplishment when he landed on the ground, with himself and the motorcycle intact. But his body became extremely durable when he became a demon. The excitement of ramp jumping was gone.

So when the old crazy activity no longer worked, he tried newer, even crazier things. He wrestled with a leviathan and survived, though he was left with some nasty bites. He rolled down Mount Doum inside of a barrel. He raced a Toxic Hell Drake in one of his beloved motorcycles- and won. And each time he did something crazy, he became a little bit stronger.

Too strong. After all that, nearly nothing could threaten his body or life.

So, he retired. Sort of. He left a life of physical thrill, for one of mental thrill. He became a Lord of Hell, and started making plans, plots, and Rube-Goldberg machines. It wasn’t as fun as motorcycle ramp-jumping, but he tried his best. After all, regardless of what he did for a living, he was a daredevil at heart.

Of course, he had never plotted much in his life, so he kind of sucked at it. His knowledge of being a mastermind came mostly from Hollywood spy movies, and he knew just how accurate those were. After all, whoever heard of a daredevil mastermind?

In fact, the reason he was stuck in this torture-office was because Carl had caught him finishing his latest dare. The asshole was slowly pacing around his desk at that very moment.

“Really Robert. You just had to take your underling up on a dare like that?” Asked Carl.

He was currently supervising Evel’s punishment.

“You wouldn’t understand Carl.”

The King of Hell raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’ll never understand your suicide-by-motorcycle tendencies.”

“Hey!” Evel snapped. “It’s not suicidal. The goal is to land the jump unharmed, not to kill yourself!”

Then Evel frowned, realizing that Carl was just trying to get a rise out of him. Manipulative bastard.

“Well, I don’t really care about your tendencies, suicidal or otherwise. But I do care about you breaking Hell’s rules. Seriously, one of the first ten rules is: “No messing with mortals in the Overworld, unless you’ve been summoned.”. And what do you do? You go and do it on a dare.”

Evel had nothing to say. After all, he did break that rule and he knew there was no excuse for it. But he couldn’t deny that he had fun while breaking it.

“Evel. I like you, I really do. You’re a fun person, and you’re good company. But you’ve got to learn to say no to stupid dares like that. I don’t want to have to demote you from Lordship because you were impulsive. Honestly, you’ve done a surprisingly good job, managing the DMV. I would hate to see you go.”

“Actually, the DMV kind of needs me to get all those people reincarnated... maybe you could end my punishment here so I can get back to it? I won’t break the rules again, I promise.”

The Demon King grinned, and Evel was reminded of how Carl used to work in HR when he was alive.

“Haha, no. You’re staying here until you’ve learned your lesson. Now get back to work!”

Evel’s moans of suffering wouldn’t cease for a very long time.

---------

It was called a city, and I found it wonderful. And scary.

I’d never been in a city before, so I was a bit lost after Chad dropped me off and drove away.

His exact words when I asked him what to do were: “Newcomers just have to live in the city for a while and figure things out themselves. Someone’ll probably help you if you ask, so don’t get too worried. You won’t be clueless forever.”

Then, he laughed and vroomed away in his pink convertible.

So I was sitting there on the dreary sidewalk. The road is out in front of me, and demons are walking past in droves.

I begin to walk with them, and then head down some alleyways. A mistake.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

After exploration, I conclude that Hell city should have been named Hell maze. Actually, given that the place is run by torturers, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been designed to be one.

I can’t figure out where anything is. Sometimes I come across public maps, usually near the communal car stops, but their lines and squiggles are alien to me. And the alleyways! There were just so many dead ends, infinite loops, dizzying spirals, chaotic zig-zagging turns, and pointless paths leading to nowhere.

And the sounds don’t help.

*BEEEEP*

*HOOONK*

*CHATTER*

Roads slash through swaths of buildings. Hundreds of cars are roaring and honking, threatening to run over anything in their way. The city’s red-skinned inhabitants make their way across the sidewalks, talking to each other, blaring music, shouting, laughing, sometimes screaming.

It’s so loud.

I remember how quiet home was. Usually all I could hear were the trees rustling in the wind and the low chittering of insects. Other than that, it was peaceful. Here in Hell, it’s just noise noise noise in the city. It invades my ears and makes my head pound.

I deposit myself on the sidewalk, out of the way of pedestrians. I’m tired from all the noise and confusing paths. My eyes are closing too quickly. It’s been a long day after all. I have no energy left. So I lay on my side in the resting-cat pose. This pose is a subtle signal to others not to bother me.

“Hey, you ok buddy?”

But demons don’t understand cat-body-language.

“What do you want?” I snap, annoyed at not being able to sleep.

“Well isn’t that harsh? I mean, I’m just being friendly to a harried-looking person. Is that so bad?”

I muster up the energy to look at the cause of my annoyance.

It’s a bird. Or a demon-bird. I guess birds are annoying here in Hell, too.

Most demons I’ve seen were Boss-species (Chad told me Boss was a human), and thus had mostly human appearances. Just red skin, some horns, and a tail were all that separated them from normal humans. But sometimes, I’d see a demon with more animalistic features. Maybe their head was dog-like or their hands ended in thick claws. I even saw a huge fat demon who looked like a red, horned, bipedal pig.

And this demon was like that too. He (She?) had a round head, grey-black beak, thoroughly dead-bird eyes, and red feathers. Essentially, it was giant bird. He did have a spiffy suit on though.

“What’s the matter? You can tell ol’ Zack. Oh, that’s my name by the way. I’m Zack. Zack Sparrow.”

Zack Sparrow:

[https://i.imgur.com/cKsQ9QO.png]

I reply irritably. “Why are you bothering me? I just wanted to take a nap.”

“Bothering? Oh, I see, sorry about that. It’s just, you looked like you might need some help. I actually know this nice quiet place out of the way where we can go, if you want. I myself am feeling a bit peckish.”

My aggravation towards the annoying avian dies a little.

Did he say quiet?

A few minutes later I’m sitting in an booth within a... ‘cafe’ I think Zack called it. And like he promised, it was quiet. Apparently, these carpets on the walls diminish the room’s volume. Its temperature was warm and while there wasn’t any sun inside, some magical flames on the ceiling provided a soft light that Zack said was nearly identical to the sun’s.

It’s a cozy comfortable place. I never would have expected it to exist in a boisterous place like Hell city.

Across the table from me, Zack is talking about how a friend of his had to get looked at by a doctor because of his strange behavior.

“- yeah, so the Doc was telling me it was a ‘damaged anterior gyrus’ that was making my buddy act like a complete Kakapo. So I says to him, ‘There ain’t no such thing as an anterior gyrus, ya birdbrain!’, and that shut him up real quick!”

His fashion of speaking quickly and loudly kind of ruins the cafe’s atmosphere though.

“So then he kicks me out and tells me if I come back, he’s gonna set old man Robbie on me. And I never did go back after that. No way was I risking that ancient dog’s wrath!”

He makes a trilling sound, which I interpret as laughter. If there’s anything I’ve learned, after spending the last half-hour in the talkative bird’s company, it’s that he likes his jokes, even if I don’t understand them.

I sigh, and finally talk to him, instead of letting him go on and on. “Zack, thanks for showing me this place and all, but I don’t understand your jokes.”

He looks resigned. “Well, I guess only birds would understand them. Anyways, what’s a suburb cat like you doing in Hell city?”

Suburb? I think that’s what Boots, the cat from a few abodes down, called our abode-cluster.

“How’d you know where I li- used to live?” I ask.

“Don’t you know? Observation is one of my many superpowers! First off, you’re a tabby, which lots of suburban humans like. Next, you seemed unused to the noise around these parts, which means you’re definitely not a city cat. Either that, or you’ve just died. Probably both. So from these facts, I can tell that you’re probably a suburban cat. And you just verified my hypothesis.”

Does he need to be so wordy? I know that birds chirp a lot, but hearing that chirping put into words is exhausting.

“So, you died recently, right? Where’d you live? What was your life like? You can tell me.”

Annoying. But even if he’s tiring to talk to, he did show me this quiet place. I should indulge him for a little while.

“Yeah, you’re right, I am from these ‘suburbs’. I used to live with Boss. I worked as a guard for him, and he gave me fish in return.” My mind pangs hungrily at my mention of fish. “It was nice there. Nowhere near as loud as this city is.”

Zack was amused and started talking again.

“Yep, I was pretty overwhelmed at first too. Like most sparrows, I had gone to limbo when I died, but there weren’t many plants there so I got pretty bored. Oh, I love plants by the way. Anyways, after a while in Limbo, I got a job offer from the DMV, so I became a demon and went to Hell in order to stave off the boredom. Let me tell you, my first days here were practically spent with pillows strapped to my ears! That’s how dang loud it was.”

Yeah. Even birds, who loudly chirp all the time wouldn’t like the noise here.

Wait...

“And then I nearly got fired because I couldn’t hear what my boss was saying! That’s when I knew that sadly, I had to take those pillows off.”

I interject as soon as there’s a lull in his speech. “Hold on Zack, you said the DMV?”

He gets a strange glint in his dead-bird eyes.

“Why yes, I did. I work in data management there. I get make sure that all the papers of recent deaths and rebirths are filed properly. I also occasionally run diagnostics on out machines, just to make sure that the computers are working properly.” Computer? I don’t know what that is. “In fact, I was on my way back from work when I found you. Why do you ask?”

“Oh. Well... I was hoping to talk to Lord Evel Knievel. The DMV’s lines are too long, so I wanted to talk to him about fixing it somehow.”

He looks at me and makes some strange noises. They subside after a few seconds though.

This bird is so weird.

But he eventually speaks. “So you want to fix the DMV, huh.” Maybe. Honestly, I don’t care so as long as I reincarnate out of Hell. Preferably into somewhere with lots of fish. “If that’s what you want, then you’d be right to talk to Lord Evel. But he’s missing. He could return any day now though.”

Zack goes into thought for a moment.

“How about this. I have a contract here. If you sign this, I’ll help you out and take you around the DMV. Maybe you’ll see Lord Evel there.”

He pulls out a yellow sheet of paper. It’s frayed around the edges, and has lots of symbols on it. A strange red symbol resembling an eye stares ominously from the top.

I’ve never seen a contract like this before, but I already know its fishy.

“Hey Zack. Before I do this, what exactly is a contract?”

He tilts his head at me. I wish I could read bird-expressions.

“It’s... ah, it’s a paper that you sign.” He explains. “Once you sign it, you have to do what is written on it.”

Hmm... so it was something like that.

“Why do I need a contract for you to show me around the DMV?”

He answers more readily this time.

“It’s because I can’t just bring in random people to the office. If you signed this contract, then my boss would have less questions about you being there.”

Hmm... I don’t want to sign it. I can’t read it, so I don’t know what it says I should do.

But if signing can get me reincarnated...

“Well... Alright. I can't write, but I'll figure out a way to sign it.”

At that moment, a voice resounded from above us.

“What do you think you’re doing, Sparrow. You’re not allowed in here.”

I looked up. And up. Nearly scraping the ceiling was the head of a very unhappy demon.