Encore

It was the music.

Despite what the poets say, the torture in Hell is not relentless. The demons tasked with flaying the souls of sinners found that constant pressure all became much of a muchness for the adaptable ex-humans. Better results yielded when the poor fools had time to reset and relax, even grow a little hope, until another wave of pain and humiliation broke them all over again.

The apprentice demon was taking a break himself. Shit rolled downhill in Hell, and he was all the way down at the bottom, superior only—barely—to the deceased ex-humans beneath him. Enduring his master’s vicious tyranny had finally granted him unsupervised dominion over a handful of frightened souls, with the stipulation that he was not to wear them out of existence.

It was a necessary stipulation. Like many apprentices with their first taste of power, the young demon lashed out against his victims, venting all the rage and frustration he wouldn’t dare spit back in his master’s face. It took no time at all for his subsection of souls to actively hate him, even missing the master’s callous indifference over the young demon’s targeted cruelty. Breaks were brief and sporadic, often followed by a renewed savagery that made the quiet time bitter.

The apprentice watched his charges from a distance, concealed within the hostile terrain, letting them think they were alone. They were divided from each other, unable to reach out for human contact, but close enough to hear each other’s screams. Perhaps because of this, or maybe for no reason at all, one of them picked up a small stone, and started tapping it against the rocky cell wall.

In the back of his mind, the apprentice knew he should have stopped it. It was too individual, too self-motivated, too human. But it was a pleasing sound, the rhythmic tapping, resonating through the igneous hollows. The other despairing souls, hearing the beat, started to copy it. Started to expand on it, with their own rhythms humming and pulsing between the cell walls. The sound rippled through the acrid air, compelling the body to move, the head to sway, the eyes to smile.

The apprentice tapped his fingertips against his skin. He felt his own heartbeat in sync with the surging measures. And he could feel time ticking onward, knew he’d have to get back to what he did best, but he could wait one more moment. Another. One more.

It had to be shut down; there was no choice. The apprentice was low dick on a shit stick, only one mistake away from being right back where he started. If something as human as music were discovered by his master, he would be made to suffer for it. The souls would be split, ripped into mangled splinters that could knock no stone against another. They would be boiled in acid, smothered in tar, and the apprentice would witness it, salting the wound by knowing it was all his fault. He had to take control before it got too far.

In a moment. Just one more.

When the torture did begin again, maybe no one noticed it was missing a bit of its bite. Although the demonic apprentice had a particular talent for twisting brittle fingers, he simply neglected any practice that might damage fragile hands. There was less abusive binding, less skeletal snapping. The reprieves were getting a little less frenzied, and a little more frequent. Maybe the condemned souls noticed that their music made the breaks last longer. Maybe they just longed to reach the companions they could not see.

“What.” The master’s voice cut through the apprentice’s spine. “The. Fuck.”

Crushed under compounding dread, the apprentice turned to face him. Behind him, in their separate cells, the human souls were singing.

“Uh,” the apprentice scrambled, knowing nothing he said would save them. “We’re on break?”

“There are more thorough ways to break you.” The master breathed deep, nostrils flaring in disgust. “Do I smell joy?”

“Absolutely not,” the apprentice said quickly. “Resilience, at best. Maybe camaraderie.”

“Do you think this is funny?”

With the swelling of human harmony behind him, the apprentice said, “No. It breaks my fucking heart.”

“What.” The master sliced his words with a razor tongue. “In Hell. Makes you think. You have one?”

The master was bigger than the apprentice. He was older, more ruthless and cunning, with centuries of experience gripping a whip. Perhaps that is why, when the apprentice struck first, the master was too shocked to stop him.

The disputed heart pounded in the apprentice’s chest as he gathered the ex-humans from their cells. Well trained, they kept their eyes on the ground, compliant and resigned to whatever horror came next. It disappointed the demon that they didn’t ask where they were going, what was happening to them. The apprentice had no practice in delivering good news.

“So, listen,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you anymore.”

The five souls exchanged glances. They did it quickly, furtively, unwilling to let the demon see what they were thinking. To give him that ammunition. The demon understood; he’d been raised in the same system. He knew exactly how dangerous desire could be. “It’s not a trick. I’m not going to take anything away. You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

But they do, said a little voice in the back of the demon’s head. Of course they do. It’s what you’re for.

The former apprentice sighed, smacking a hand against his fist. “Okay. I was under orders before. Those orders are gone. I don’t have to torture you, and I’m not going to. I promise.”

One of the ex-humans coughed. “You promise a lot of things.”

He did. That was part of the torture. The demon scratched at his own thick skin. “Okay. Fair. You don’t have a reason to trust me.” He held out empty hands. “Do it anyway.”

“Just you?” one of them asked. “Just us?”

Another soul wanted to know, “Why us?”

His fellow asked, “Why now?”

“Okay!” The demon’s voice was sharp, and he heard it. The humans flinched. They shrank away from him, huddling together, a clear division between ‘us’ and ‘threat’.

Anger flared up inside the demon. The demon who put his own hide on the line to protect these insignificant insects, and they didn’t have the wit to be grateful? Hadn’t he earned that? Didn’t they understand?

The ex-apprentice took a breath, and uncurled his fists. “I…want…what I hear in your music.” He spoke slowly, honesty unfamiliar on his tongue. “I can’t…the way we work…it doesn’t work that way.”

One of the musicians ventured, “What do you want us to do?”

I want to be one of you, the demon did not say. I want to make music. I want to be friends.

What he said was, “Follow me.”

The landscape of Hell is reflective of the prisoners inside of it. It can be expansive, and claustrophobic. Obscured, yet exposed. The deceptive geography would layer miles around a desired destination, and erase the inches insulating a trap. There were ways to escape; evil infiltrating the land of the living was very much part of the program. But the stronger the desire to get there, the more dangers would be placed in their way. Battling his own desire was hard enough for the ex-apprentice, and he did not want to give ensnaring hope to the humans he'd come to care for.

One of the souls, bolder than the rest, fell into step beside him. “Where are we going?”

The demon nodded his head forward. “This way.”

“For how far?”

“A bit farther.”

“How can we trust you if you won’t answer our questions?” When the demon glanced sideways at him, the searing look made the poor soul skip a step. “You said you wouldn’t hurt us!”

“I’m not the only thing that can.” Tamping down his desire to get this over with, the demon said, “Just do your best.”

Keeping a step behind, the human asked, “Do you want us to make music while we walk?”

As his shoulders relaxed, the demon said, “Yes.”

Softly at first, the wayward souls patted and tapped, gentle drumming in a steady rain. Tentative voices hummed in cautious throats. Repetitive phrases, call and response, folding into close harmonies that resounded off the rocks. The demon listened, breathing in each rippling chord. And, desiring only that the music should continue, he stumbled upon a narrow way out.

Shushing the music with a gesture, the demon stepped to the side of the small, dark door. “Go ahead.”

The humans hesitated. One of them asked, “What’s out there?”

“Better than what's in here,” said their tormentor.

One of the sinning souls scoffed. “We can’t just walk out of Hell.”

“Why?” said the master-slayer. “Because it’s never been done before?”

The bold human, the inquisitive one, went first. One by one, the others followed, swallowed up by that rocky maw. The demon glanced over his shoulder, knowing there were eyes out there in the ash and smoke, and slipped through to the other side.

The night air was cool, clear and fragrant. A whispering canopy of silvery leaves veiled a vast and starry sky. Chill breezes chased through flowering creepers, green leapers splashing through the treble trill of a chuckling brook. The escaped apprentice peered through watering eyes at the soft and mossy shadows. “Where is everyone?”

A single figure, the bold one, hooked a thumb over the departing footprints of his absent companions. “They ran.”

“They left me?"

The remaining soul nodded. “Yes. They are free. And you are scary.”

The demon had to agree. It was a thin shield, that promise not to hurt them. And he knew, better than most, that fear did not nourish loyalty. “You stayed.”

Moonlight dappled the musician’s face. He studied his former captor, unable to hear the heartbeat thudding in the demon’s chest. Quietly, the free sinner said, “I want to go back in."

Oh. The demon deflated. “You can’t. Why would you want to?”

“Because of all the other people down there,” the soul said. “People who are just like me. Who suffer the way I suffered. They’re still down there.”

“You can’t go back for them.”

“Why? Because it’s never been done before?”

Squinting sideways as annoyance met admiration, the demon explained, “You will immediately be caught and destroyed. You have no idea how to navigate that space.”

“But you do.” The free spirit crossed his arms. “Do you remember what it felt like, when you heard music for the first time?”

“I remember every time.”

“What if you could give that feeling to someone else? Someone just like you?”

Crickets chirped in the dew-dipped grass. Foxes yipped and dashed between the trees. The master-slayer considered the silent fissure, jagged and black beneath the wide-open sky. They’re still down there. “Not one of them would deserve it.”

"Did any of us deserve to be free?" A human hand waved over the fleeing footprints. “You don't do it because they deserve it, you do it because you can."

"What if I can't?"

"Just do your best."

Shivering, the torturer turned away from the chasm in the rock. “You can’t even trust me.”

“I have no reason to trust you," his free prisoner agreed. "That doesn’t stop me doing it anyway.”

The demon made a hacking scoff, the closest thing he had to laughter. “How on earth did you get into Hell?”

“I used to let a lot of things stop me.” The sinner smiled, leaning into a conspiring whisper. “Would you like to make music?”

The demon swallowed. “Yes.”

“Then, follow me.” The musician stepped back into the black abyss.

The demon, who knew how easy it was to get lost, who knew that hope was lethal folly, who knew there were monsters in the depths far worse than he would ever be, let that stop him. There was no reason to go back there, to endure that rage and pain. He had already freed five prisoners, and that was more than anyone asked him to do. Hadn’t he earned a break?

The void echoed with a faint percussion. A rhythmic tapping of stone on stone.

Ah, Hell. The demon sighed, squeezing back into the underworld before half of ‘us’ met ‘threat’ without him. I did free five, I can free another one.

And another.

One more.