The Earth was obliterated. The apocalypse had struck. Every living being on the planet perished. Billions of years of evolution wiped out in an instant.

And it was all because of me.

Now, in my defense, I didn't start my day wanting to annihilate the planet. But given the choice between going out with a bang or a whimper, to be completely honest... I didn't hesitate.

"So what happened, again?" my roommate, the original demon, inquired.

"I've already told you a million times, Ilbis," I grumbled. That's right, I was talking to none other than Satan himself. But I preferred using one of his lesser-known stage names. Though not particularly religious, being around him gave me the creeps. If I could, I'd avoid him and pick someone else as a roommate in Hell.

The ninth circle of Hell, to be precise—where only the worst of the worst dwelled. My roomies were quite the assortment of talent: Judas, the notorious traitor; Brutus and Cassius, Julius Caesar's assassins; Lucifer, to whom I refused to speak; Medea, alluring but certifiably insane; and Attila the Hun, an actual barbarian.

Frankly, I couldn't stand any of them. They were all insufferable.

Matter of fact, Hell in its entirety was insufferable.

I had resigned myself to my fate - after all, you couldn't blow up the planet and not expect to end up in Hell, but it really was dreadful here.

The air was so cold that it burned my throat and lungs, leaving me feeling lacerated and sickly. Sometimes, I would even cough up blood. The air was so thin I was eternally lightheaded. It was hard to think and I often found myself losing consciousness.

Have you ever heard of the Divine Comedy? You might know it as the loose inspiration for the Devil May Cry series and the heavy inspiration for the game Dante’s Inferno. At least, that’s where I first came to hear about it.

It was written, a long time ago, by a man named Dante as a form of protest or commentary against the government of the Italian city he lived in, or perhaps the world at large. It detailed his journey through the nine circles of Hell, each one housing a different type of sinner. The punishments and horrors grew increasingly brutal and severe as one descended deeper through the circles.

Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery - in that order, Dante discovered the truth about the afterlife and the varying degrees of sin. Not all sins were created equal; a hundred white lies held less weight than ten heavy ones.

The more outrageous the sin, the deeper you were doomed to dwell.

Turns out Dante’s description wasn’t too far off. Hell was neatly organized into nine levels, each holding its own bizarre forms of punishment.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

In the deepest, darkest part of Hell was the frozen lake of Cocytus. It was the lonesome prison of Satan himself, where he was trapped waist-deep in ice. The coldness his sins brought to the world kept the ice trapping him unable to melt for all of eternity - irony at its finest.

And somehow, not even a stone's throw from him, there was me. I, too, was waist-deep in ice, but unlike Iblis, my hands were trapped as well. If I could accurately say how long I’ve been trapped, I would. I can't, however. All I know is that my fingers were long past the frostbite stage, and I couldn't remember the last time I felt them.

The others, including Attila the goddamn Hun, were free to walk around and enjoy the frozen nothingness of the Ninth Circle outside of Cocytus. It was no vacation for anyone trapped here, deservedly so, but at least they could actively avoid Satan.

There were a lot more people trapped here, apparently, but I only knew of the ones who dared come close enough to Satan to learn about me - the man who sold the world.

The other circles of Hell offered a chance of redemption. A person could serve their punishment and repent, balancing out their karma in an attempt to rise up the circles until they had a chance to stay in Purgatory.

Those confined to the Ninth Circle could not repent. Our sins could never be forgiven, and we had to stay here for eternity. Our punishment was boredom and dealing with how fucking cold it was. I was stationed at the Arctic once upon a time, and the Ninth Circle was even colder than the North Pole.

I hated both extreme cold and extreme heat. I was always a room temperature type of guy. 

But, as I vaguely remember from an old TV show, you do the crime, you do the time.

Shit, I suddenly have a headache. I’ve been getting a lot of headaches recently.

“You don’t look too good,” Ilbis noted. His voice was a combination of many voices, if that made any sense. It always made my headache worse.

I tilted my head to look up at him. There was no good way to describe the incarnation of evil other than evil incarnate. He was a beastly, monstrous figure that I could not even begin to go into the fine details. You’re gonna have to form that image yourself. He had a freakish, Dark Souls boss-like body with three faces of varying colors - red, yellow, and black. Six wings, each faintly resembling different creatures from Earth, crookedly jutted out of his back. He had four arms, but the two longer ones were frozen in ice, and the other two were akin to T-Rex arms - small and not very useful. But hey, at least he had arms that weren’t frozen.

Each face had a different voice, and they either spoke one by one or in unison. One voice was boyish, young, and innocent. The second was sultry, feminine, and seductive. The final voice was what one would expect from Satan - an evil, fiery, and demonic gargle that made me want to claw my ears out.

“I’d be a lot better if you’d be quiet,” I replied haughtily, closing my eyes tightly and trying to fight the searing pain in my head.

“I asked you for your story. If you regale your tale, then perhaps I will be quiet and give you the solace you desire,” the feminine voice said to me.

“I’m not bargaining with Satan. That’s common sense,” I spat, wanting to gag. Even after all these years, I could never get used to Ilbis.

“Common sense is merely a mirage to justify maintaining the status quo. Common sense cannot bring you peace, but a deal can,” the boyish voice explained.

“A deal with the devil?” I laughed sardonically. “That sounds pleasant, doesn’t it?”

“What sounds pleasant, to you, is the lack of any sound, right? Will arguing help you achieve such peace? I daresay that it’s the opposite.”

I pursed my lips and let out a sharp exhale. “Fine,” I relented, knowing that it was a borderline impossible task to argue with the king of deception. “You want to hear about how I destroyed the planet, yet again?”

“Of course,” the demon voice said lowly. “It’s one of my favorite stories.”

I sighed. 

“Here’s what happened…”