Chaos reigned outside the window. Not in a 'hoo boy, it sure is windy' kind of way, more of a 'the fabric of creation appears to be making and unmaking itself before my very eyes' way. Columns of space and time, thousands of kilometres high twisted, and spun around each other like colossal tornadoes. Light seemed to bend, or invert, everywhere the eye could see, bringing darkness instead of illumination, inside of which a million jeering faces whispered of horrors unknown to mortal kind before they were consumed, torn into pieces and reformed into something new.

Above it all a sky of endless fire and ash burned. Dark clouds of smoke billowed as far as the eye could see, pierced by occasional tongues of flame that burst out from the great fire, searing a trail across the sky that burned itself into the eyes of anyone watching before flickering out. Titans of flame were born and died every second. Outside the window, a scene that would drive mortal minds to madness played out in a never ending dance of destruction and rebirth.

On the other side of the window, time was passing. That was evident from the persistent ticking of the clock mounted on the wall above the wide, astonishing window, framed on either side by potted ferns, that occupied the remainder of the wall. More on the window later. Opposite said window, lining the wall, were six, hard, plastic chairs, only one of which was occupied. To the left of the chairs was a simple wooden door, painted brown, and to the right was a small corner desk, which was occupied with a lamp, an outdated desktop computer and an 'in' tray that held a single piece of paper.

The carpet was a dull tan colour that somehow managed to look new but feel worn, whilst the off-white walls were almost entirely dull except for a few motivational posters framed in what appeared to be stained plywood. The posters themselves were rather unremarkable, or, at least the images were. To the individual seated on the aforementioned uncomfortable chairs, there was something off putting about them. Phrases like 'No pain, no nothing at all' splashed above the image of a lady in a gym, or the picture of a smiling family dressed in tropical clothing with the words 'When you want to escape the chaos… ?' emblazoned across it.

The nice thing about the posters was that they gave the occupant of the seat something to distract himself from both the growing pain in his back, due to the appalling support offered by the chair he sat in and the glaringly wide window that opened before him, something he was rather keen not to look through. From his left he heard the secretary reach forward and shuffle the one paper resting on the in-tray again and focused his attention carefully on the gym poster to avoid turning his head.

He didn't particularly want to look in that direction either.

After a few moments there came a muffled sigh of disappointment before some half-hearted tapping sounds emanated from the mechanical keyboard in no particular rhythm. He wasn't sure how he knew, but somehow he felt sure that he did, there was no coherent typing taking place, merely the pressing of keys. Regardless, he remained resolute in his determination not to turn his head, and fixed his gaze on the gym poster, scarcely daring to blink lest his focus waver.

His eyes had begun to hurt, but he did not let it dent his resolve. No pain, no nothing at all. Indeed.

Though he remained very still, his thin, long fingered hands resting on the knees of his grey pants and his posture mostly upright except the slight hunch in his shoulders, his mind churned with frantic, bewildered energy.

Where the hell am I?

What is going on?

Who exactly is this secretary?

What is going on through that window?!

Upon thinking of the window, his eyes involuntarily flicked towards it and he once again caught a glimpse of the mind altering scene that lay beyond it, before he flinched his eyes away, a fresh layer of sweat broke out on his suddenly ice cold skin and his heart pounded in his chest.

He breathed deep, slow breaths, staring with manic determination at the family poster this time, until he managed to calm himself once more. Better not to think about the … room, he decided. Perhaps better not to think about anything. His eyes flickered a little and he shut them with haste before they could waver again.

Now he was back where he started twenty minutes ago, sitting in the dark with his eyes clamped shut. He cursed himself internally and worried about his situation. He didn't want to look through the window, rather, he couldn't look through the window, that wasn't an option, yet he didn't want to sit with eyes shut in the same room as that blasted secretary. He could perhaps turn his chair around and face the wall, but he was reluctant to do anything that would give the secretary an excuse to talk to him, an outcome he was desperate to avoid.

He resisted the temptation to rub his hands together, a nervous habit he understood he had developed, though he had no concept of when exactly he had developed it, nor how he knew that he had.

All in all, the situation lacked order and the man in the chair was finding it increasingly unbearable. Perhaps most distressing was the sense that he had no real understanding of how long he had been in the room, despite the clock on the wall. He could remember going through several cycles of his eyes being shut, to gradually building up the courage to opening them, only to be forced to close them again in order to secure his piece of mind, but his memory was fuzzy around the edges. When he tried to grasp hold of a past event it seemed to slip right through his fingers. It was maddening.

*Click*

With a start, the gentlemen on the chair opened his eyes and turned, disbelieving, toward the first new stimuli that he could recall, not even caring that the secretary came into his line of sight as he did so. The door just to the side of the corner desk had opened and through it walked a person, a woman! A normal, blessedly normal woman entered, dressed in a sharp business suit with a skirt and dark flats on her feet.

The secretary placed his pitchfork to one side, leaning it against the wall before he stood up, his cloven hooves clacking against the hard carpet. With one red hand he reached out to the in-tray and collected the one piece of paper there, which he wordlessly passed to his boss before turning his burning eyes back onto the only person in the room who had no idea what was happening. He moved to sit down and twirled his pointed goatee around one finger as he stared at the poor man as if looking at a truculent slice of beef.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Still seated, the man who had been waiting was so pleased at the entrance of a new, normal looking person that he didn't mind having the secretary imposed on his mind. Finally, a change had happened! Perhaps a way out of this horrible room!

The person in question held an open leather binder in her hands, into which she placed the paper she had been passed, looked down at it and announced in clipped, business like tones: "Mr Theodore Holt?" and then looked about the room patiently.

Theo hesitated before turning to check the seats behind him. Nope, still nobody there. Turning back, he swallowed before tentatively raising one hand.

"Here" he mumbled.

Two dark … brown? coloured eyes stared at him, through a pair of thick rimmed spectacles, before the woman smiled a business-like smile and stepped to one side to invite him into the room beyond.

"Sorry to keep you waiting Mr Holt, please step through."

Eager to be anywhere other than where he was currently, Theo leapt to his feet and in so doing, inadvertently looked out the window directly in front of him and took in the scene unfolding beyond the glass.

Twisting fibres of reality battled each other like tornadoes the size of mountains beneath a sea of fire and ash. Shapes and forms that tantalized and terrorised in equal measure, flitted across the glass, forming and vanishing hundreds of times a second, everywhere he could see. Nothing existed longer than a moment before it was torn apart, only to be reformed anew in another place. The chaos stretched to the horizon in all directions, a bubbling cauldron of life and death that had no beginning or end.

He could feel the edges of his mind fraying the longer he looked at it. With an effort that drained him physically he tore his eyes away and found himself once again inside the waiting room, drenched with sweat and heart pounding. The secretary still eyed him hungrily and the well-dressed lady still stood to one side of the door, a smile on her face as she gestured him inside.

Swallowing despite his cracked throat, Theo placed one foot in front of the other, concentrating on controlling his vision as he stepped toward, and then through the door into the next room. Once he entered, the well-dressed lady stepped into the room behind him and closed the door softly behind her. In the waiting room, the now alone secretary sighed, reached out and collected his pitchfork before fading out of existence. He'd had some fun, but he hoped the next one would be a little more excitable.

Inside the room, the owner of the office stepped behind a large wooden desk and sat carefully in a leather bound chair before inviting Theo to sit opposite her, across the desk. Theo was relieved to see the chair was not the same as the one he had endured in the waiting room, this one had padding, that most blessed of human inventions. As he stepped forward, drew the chair out from the desk and sat in it, he took a moment to assess the room.

Smaller than the waiting room, the space was equally sparsely furnished, it contained only the desk, a filing cabinet tucked into a corner, a potted plant in the opposite corner (another fern) and the two chairs. The same over firm carpet lined the floor and the wall to one side was covered by a venetian blind that Theo fervently hoped did not conceal another window.

There was a short moment after he sat down where neither person said anything. The well-dressed lady took a few moments to observe him, her dark green eyes glittered behind her glasses and she raised one hand to brush her long, dark hair away from her eyes. Theo fidgeted slightly in his chair. He didn't like to be stared at in this way, he could feel that was the case, and there was something about this person that unsettled him.

"Well" she broke the silence, "I'm sure you have questions."

Theo stared at her. Questions? Him? He had so many questions he couldn't possibly think of where to start! Where am I? Who are you? Who am I? What is going on here?

The sheer number and scale of questions was dizzying and Theo struggled to grasp hold of one long enough for his tongue to push past his lips.

"Let's start with the first and work our way through" the woman sighed. "This place" she gestured to the room with one hand, "is my office. Administration, I suppose you could say."

Theo could accept that, it made perfect logical sense. Secretary, waiting room, desks, all familiar enough concepts that he felt he was on solid conceptual ground.

"My name is Adelaide, you can think of me as the person in charge of this place. That's not quite accurate, but functionally speaking it gets the message across" she continued.

This was all very calming to Theo. A human woman, an office, names and bosses. This felt comfortable to him.

"You are Theodore Holt, and you've been brought here because you were selected to fill a role in our ..." Adelaide searched the air for an appropriate word with her eyes, "… organisation. We have positions opening up quite frequently, and due to some special circumstances, you have qualified to be an … employee, I suppose you might put it that way."

Things were starting to settle for Theo now. The corporate terminology was all well and good, but he couldn't help but think it was being deployed for his benefit, which made him worry that something was coming that he wouldn't like.

A slight frown crossed Adelaide's face, but it was smoothed away so fast he couldn't be sure he had seen it all. She once again brushed an imaginary out of place hair back into position and turned to her computer, tapping away at the keyboard with rapid ease.

"Well, I suppose we just have to go into then, Mr Holt. I have your records here, as well as the details of your … work assignment. We'll discuss the exact nature of that work in a moment. First, I want to give you another opportunity to ask any questions you have at this point."

Theo was feeling an acute discomfort, deep in his psyche. It was still vague at this point, just the rumour of a whisper of a migraine, but the sheer unknown that enveloped him in this place was starting to tilt his axis. He didn't like not knowing he decided, didn't like it one bit.

"Why -" he started, but his voice cracked almost immediately.

"Why …" he began again, "don't I remember how I got here?"

His voice came out a little nervous, and he didn't think he could be blamed overmuch for that. If a person were to find themselves in a position where they needed to ask that question, he figured it was only natural that they'd sound a bit nervous.

Adelaide smiled and her dark yellow eyes glittered behind her glasses.

"It's quite normal to experience some memory loss and confusion after the transition. I assure you it will be temporary, for the most part. Some memories may never return, as well as some impulses that you experienced … previously. You are living quite a different life that you led before, after all."

Yes, definitely nervous now. There were implications in the words that had just been served to him, implications he didn't like one bit. Permanent memory loss? Life he led before? Before what?! And now he could see that Adelaide had a 'now we come to it' kind of expression on her face.

Wait, why did she smile?

"You'll have to forgive me, Mr Holt. This is a task I've performed… many times in the past, but there are some elements of our meeting that I am finding wholly unique. I apologise for any perceived rudeness."

It seemed genuine, which only managed to put him off kilter even more. His mind reached for the worst case scenario, a direction of thought that felt quite natural and smooth, as if his mind were travelling down a well-worn path, with grooves that perfectly fit the wheels of his imagination.

"Am I dead?" he asked, deadpan.

"Oh, yes," Adelaide smiled.

He nodded slowly, face a blank mask even as his thoughts began to warp in uncomfortable ways. He thought of the burning nightmare-scape outside the window. He thought of the demon secretary with the pitchfork and pointy beard. He thought about Adelaide and her dark red eyes that seemed to glow as she watched him politely as he writhed internally.

"Am I in hell?" he asked calmly.

"Absolutely," Adelaide nodded.

He fainted.