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Hell is a study in contradictions.
The temperature is a set brisk 120°, and yet there is always a frigid chill. Not from wind, but something felt deeper than the bones, right down to the soul—for those who have souls. Ash falls from the grey-blue sky like acidic snow, its sulfuric scent clinging to everything it touches.
It’s dark despite the flames burning from the Lake of Fire. Even after billions upon billions of years, some parts of Hell still smolder from the greatest fall the realm (and the universe) has ever known. But the darkness permeates, and with it, a creeping sense of desolation and crushing suffering. The demons love it. Others...not so much.
And it’s quiet, yet never silent. Then again, it isn’t meant to be. There is always some distant scream echoing through obsidian corridors, the faint crackle of fire licking at the stone, a demon’s cackle cutting through the air. It was designed this way, this endless kingdom of punishment, fed by regret and ruled by guilt.
For eon after eon after eon, Lucifer Morningstar has been its sovereign.
Quite some time ago, he learned to block out the silence to avoid madness, but now it presses in on him like a shroud. Lucifer sits slouched on his throne made of obsidian and basalt, one long leg draped over the armrest. The fingers of one hand curl in a loose fist, the other around the edge. His eyes, once alight with amusement or smugness—or on occasion a tenderness he didn’t know himself capable of—are now dull and tired. Not even the searing fires of the lake below can reach him this high up. Not really. Not anymore.
The irony of it all is that, for once, he had returned willingly.
To protect those he cares for.
To protect her.
And now, he’s alone again.
“Lord Morningstar.”
The voice is scratchy and hesitant. One of the lesser demons—Sarroth, he thinks—stands at the foot of the dais, eyes downcast. The demons rarely ever approach him anymore. Not after what he did to those who violated his edicts. Lucifer doesn’t move. He just waits.
“Th-there’s a soul you might wish to see, my lord. It’s...not following its loop.”
Lucifer raises an eyebrow. That certainly catches his attention, if barely. “Elaborate.”
“The soul has ceased responding to its environment. No screams. No reliving its guilt. Just...nothing. And now, it’s disturbing the local guilt flow in others’ loops.”
Lucifer sighs expansively, holding out a hand. “Very well. Loop number?”
A scroll zooms miles from Sarroth’s clawed hand into his within seconds—the ‘magic’ of Hell. Lucifer unrolls it and scans the summary. Male. Age 13. Died in a house fire six Earth months ago. Accidental. No charges filed. No one else died. No documented crimes or confessions. And yet, this soul had descended.
He frowns. It’s quite uncommon to see souls this young in Hell. There’s the occasional one every eon or so, and it would seem Lucifer’s return coincides with the latest.
For the first time in...hours? Days? Centuries? Lucifer straightens, brushing ash from the lapel of his midnight black suit and stands. With a shrug he unfurls his wings, and steps off the edge of the throne, slowing his descent and landing smoothly at the base without a sound.
“Show me the loop,” he says, his voice low but commanding. “I shall see for myself.”
The section of Hell for soul loops stretches endlessly in a twisting labyrinth of towering columns and doors. Every door is different, depending on the soul itself—some are elaborate; some ancient; some barely a slab of wood attached to an obsidian frame. Every cell houses a different story. Every faint scream tells its own.
Lucifer passes them all without comment; he’s heard them all before. He stops outside a door one might find in any home on Earth—nothing remarkable about it. No markings to make it unique from any other. What is remarkable is that it doesn’t pulse like the others, usually in time with their begging to be freed. In fact, this one is quiet. Unnaturally so.
Studying it for a moment—refusing to admit hesitance—he pushes it open steps inside the loop. Or lack thereof. The space beyond is small, and completely grey. Not Hellish grey with a haze of blue. Not grey like the ash that falls from the endless sky. Just...dull. A flat, concrete room with no walls, no sky, no shadows. There is nothing.
Except for the boy.
He sits cross-legged on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees. He doesn’t look up when Lucifer enters. His skin is pale and dusty. His hair is dark, unkempt, and matted. And his eyes are...empty. There is no hint of fear. No defiance. Just a blank look on his face..
Lucifer’s shoes click softly as he crosses the floor, stopping a few feet away—the only sound in the room. “No screams of torment,” he remarks mildly. “No begging for freedom. No discernible guilt. Well, you’re not a very entertaining tenant, are you?”
Nothing but silence.
Lucifer crouches to his level. “Do you know who I am?” he asks, his voice gentler.
A brief hesitation, and the boy nods. Once.
“Then you know what this place is.”
Another nod.
Lucifer cocks his head. “And you truly believe that you belong here?”
This time, the boy speaks, his voice small and roughened with disuse. “I was bad.”
Narrowing his eyes, Lucifer studies the boy. The way he keeps his eyes downcast, only briefly flicking up to look at him once. “No. You set a fire. That is what your file says. But the authorities called it an accident. You were only thirteen. There was no malice behind the act. No cruel or criminal intent. You didn’t kill anyone.”
“I still started it.” A long pause. “I ruin things. Everything I touch. Always did. That was just the biggest one.”
The words resonate in Lucifer’s chest far more than he wants to admit. He clenches his jaw against the memories. “You aren’t here because of what happened. You’re here because you believe you deserve to be.”
The boy says nothing.
Lucifer stands, pacing a small, restless circle. “This realm, my realm, is fueled by guilt. Eternal torment only happens when souls are unable to forgive themselves—or won’t. But you...you aren’t reliving anything. No hallucinations. No personalized loop. Just...this.”
The boy hugs his knees tighter. “I asked to stay here.”
Lucifer stops walking, his gaze sharpening. “You...asked?”
“A voice told me I didn’t belong here. That I could go. But...I didn’t believe it. So I stayed.”
He blinks, a rare chill creeping down his spine. That is not how it works—not even close. Souls aren’t invited to leave. They either break their own loops through self-realization (which has never happened), or stay damned. But if a soul has been offered release and turned it down, that suggests something else entirely. Something broken. Or worse, something overlooked.
But by whom?
Lucifer looks down at the boy—no, the soul. And for the first time, he sees no punishment but devotion to his own beliefs. Not guilt...but resignation, acceptance that this is where he belongs. He lifts his hand, palm up, and speaks to the loop.
“Show me.”
The non-walls shiver to obey. Images flicker, memories the soul has long since buried. Flashes of childhood fights. An absent mother. A fearful father. Teachers calling him ‘troubled’. Friends avoiding him, thinking him too quiet and ‘weird’. Then, the fire. Truly nothing more than an accident. A frightened child with matches. A candle knocked over. Smoke, screams, sirens.
And after that, the questions heard all through a young life:
What is wrong with you?
You’re a danger to everyone around you.
You ruin everything you touch.
A priest at a funeral whispering, Some souls are marked early.
Lucifer feels his eyes darkening.
This child had lived a life not condemned by his own actions, but by expectations. He isn’t here because he earned it. He’s here because someone told him—over and over again—that he belongs.
Slowly, Lucifer turns back. The boy hasn’t moved an inch.
The air feels colder now, even in Hell.
And for the first time in eons when it comes to Hell and its inner workings, Lucifer Morningstar feels something unfamiliar creep through his veins: Doubt.
For a long time, Lucifer remains still, watching the boy. Not with the gaze of a warden. Not even as the Devil. But with the troubled eyes of a man who has just stumbled upon something that truly doesn’t belong. This boy does not fit, doesn’t follow the rules Lucifer has spent eons upholding.
Hell is meant to be precise. Unforgiving, yes. Brutal, absolutely. But above all, just. That is the lie he told himself, isn’t it? That it isn’t him passing judgment. That the damned are here through their own machinations. They are their own judge, jury, and executioners. They chose this.
Free Will in action.
And yet, here sits a child—not much older than the Detective’s offspring—who had done nothing wrong. Except believe the worst about himself.
At long last, Lucifer breaks the silence. “What is your name?”
The boy hesitates, as if he’s forgotten the answer. “Evan,” comes a trembling whisper.
“Evan,” Lucifer repeats softly, as if testing it on his tongue. “You do understand why you are here, don’t you?”
“I already told you.” Evan’s voice is flat, like he’s rehearsed this very conversation in his mind a thousand times. “I ruin things.”
Slowly, deliberately, Lucifer begins to pace again, feeling restless. “That is not an answer. That is a label someone slapped onto your forehead long ago, and you never removed.”
“I lit the candle. I knocked it over.”
“You were thirteen!” Lucifer snaps. Then he catches himself, inhaling deeply as he runs his fingers through his hair. Reining himself back in. He crouches again, folding his arms over his knees. His voice drops to a low rumble. “Do you remember what you were thinking when it happened?”
“I was cold,” Evan whispers to his fingers. “I just...wanted to see the flame. I didn’t think it would fall.” There are tears in his voice.
“You never wanted anyone to get hurt.”
He shakes his head hard. “No. Never.”
“Then why are you blaming yourself for something that was not your fault?”
For the first time since Lucifer entered his non-loop, Evan lifts his dull, muddy grey eyes. “Because...everyone else did.”
Lucifer stares at him. “So you trusted them more than yourself.”
Evan doesn’t answer.
Standing slowly, Lucifer summons the file again, the scroll unfurling in the air. It’s sparse. Just a few psychological evaluations. A funeral photo. A note from a parent saying he’s broken and always has been. Nothing more than that.
His fists clench.
Flames pulse at the edges of the loop, reacting to his emotion. The floor shimmers as if uncertain whether to stay neutral or attempt descension into a personalized pattern again. But no scene takes shape. The room remains blank.
“I have seen loops shatter the most hardened of men,” Lucifer says quietly. “Karmic tapestries of agony, intricate and exact. But this...” He looks around the grey void. “This is a tomb.”
He turns towards Evan again. “Hell does not build loops for you, Evan. You build them for yourself. Every brick, every hurt, every horror—you conjure each one from your guilt. And yet, you’re not doing that. You have made nothing. Quite literally.”
“Because I’m tired,” Evan whispers, his voice breaking.
Lucifer’s breath hitches in his chest. The boy isn’t guilty. He isn’t tormented. He’s just...exhausted.
Crouching again, Lucifer softens his voice. “Evan? Who told you you were evil?”
One shoulder twitches in what might be a shrug. “My dad. My teachers. A priest, once.”
“And you believed them?”
“They said God did too.”
A muscle in Lucifer’s jaw twitches.
And there it is. The rot that infects so many human souls. The weaponization of divinity. People using Heaven as a hammer to crush anything fragile. And now this child—this innocent—has turned those voices into a verdict.
“You do know,” Lucifer murmurs softly, “that they were wrong, don’t you?”
Evan blinks at him skeptically. Suspiciously. “Aren’t you the Devil?”
Lucifer offers him the faintest smile. “Yes. I am. And contrary to popular belief, I do not want you here.”
“You don’t?”
With a sigh, Lucifer rises and resumes pacing. “I want...justice. I want consequence. I want the souls that delight in cruelty and who dance in others’ suffering to face what they have done. But you? You have done nothing but believe what you were told. That isn’t guilt, Evan. That’s brainwashing.”
“But I stayed.”
Lucifer pauses for a moment, then turns. “Yes. And that, my dear boy, is the most troubling part of all this.”
He steps closer, hands folded behind his back. “You see, a soul can remain here only by subconscious consent. Even the damned cling to their punishment like armor, convinced they deserve it. Or even the opposite, they refuse to accept accountability for their crimes, their sins. But the one constant here is that it is always their choice. It’s yours as well.”
“I didn’t...feel worthy of Heaven,” Evan whispers.
Lucifer crouches, leveling his gaze. “Neither do I. And yet, here I am, trying anyway.”
The boy gives him a searching look. “So then why are you here?”
Lucifer hesitates. It’s the question he never allows himself to ask. Because the answer feels like a blade to the heart. “I’m here...to protect someone,” he says finally. “Someone important. Who never once asked me to protect them. Someone I...left behind.”
Evan frowns. “But you didn’t want to?”
“No,” Lucifer murmurs, his voice rougher now. “I did not. But I believed it was the right thing to do. The responsible thing. The...necessary thing.”
“Even if it hurt?”
He smiles faintly. Sadly. “Especially then.”
The silence that follows feels heavy with shared weight and quiet truths neither of them knows quite how to deal with. Lucifer runs a hand down his face, a dry, bitter laugh falling from his lips.
“Listen to us,” he says dryly. “Two fools locked in cells we created for ourselves. And here I am, the supposed King and Warden.”
When Evan speaks, his voice is barely audible. “I really wanted to believe I wasn’t bad. But...I didn’t think I was allowed.”
Lucifer reaches out, gently placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The contact shivers through the loop, the greyness flickering, the blank walls trembling. “You’re always allowed, Evan,” Lucifer murmurs. “You just didn’t know it.”
He stands and looks up. The loop is holding. For now. But something about it feels fragile, like it’s buckling beneath its own weight. Perhaps, if he pushes a bit harder, pokes around the edges, it might start to crack.
Resolve he's never bothered to feel in Hell surges through him as he turns and strides towards the door, his voice echoing back over his shoulder. “I’ll be back. Don’t vanish on me now, little sinner.”
“I’m not a sinner,” Evan says, his voice barely a breath.
Lucifer smiles to himself. “Much better.”
Back in the obsidian corridor, the plain wood door shuts behind him. Lucifer leans against the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose, and takes a shaky breath. That loop—Evan’s state—it defies everything he knows about the system. And, supposedly, the system is infallible. Impeccable. Morally sound, if cruel.
Lucifer has known for eons that it isn’t. He isn’t blind. But he’s never bothered to care before. Now that he’s spent time on Earth, since he’s learned to care about more than himself, he can’t simply walk away from this again—the way he would have before. Because...what if there are more like Evan?
More souls who never once questioned the judgment handed to them. More quiet sufferers who confused shame with sin. Who confused rejection with damnation. Who, like him, believe that because they were broken in life, they must belong in Hell in death.
Lucifer looks up, staring at the endless swirling grey sky. “Is this Your work? Or mine? Do You see this now? This...child who spent his entire life being told that he’s broken, told that he’s a monster has internalized that, and now he has damned himself. He can’t even see the forest for the bloody trees, and You—” He cuts himself off before he can get into a proper rant.
And waits.
And, as expected, receives nothing in return.
He huffs a bitter laugh, twisting his cufflinks. “Always with the silent treatment,” he mutters. “Well, if You won’t do something about it, then I will.”
Shoving off the wall, he begins walking. Not towards his throne or the fires. He’s headed somewhere else now.
He needs to see the archives. If one loop is broken, there could be others. He has to know how many.
Because for the first time in a long, long time, Lucifer is no longer sure that he’s running a prison. He’s beginning to wonder if he’d become the warden of a lie.
The archives of Hell were not created for comfort. Or style. They stretch out beneath the throne room, winding deeper than even a demon dares to walk alone. Yet another spiraling labyrinth of doors and judgment sealed in blood. (There is a very good reason Lucifer’s penthouse on Earth was open floorplan and had no doors—and it wasn’t for easy access.) There is no time here, but it does keep records.
Lucifer’s footsteps are soundless. The farther he walks, the older the documents become. He passes shelves lined with brittle papyrus and clay tablets, wax-sealed ledgers and burned books that still smolder around the edges. The air down here is even thicker with despair, like a cheap, heavy perfume of agony and rot.
He pauses near a heavy iron terminal etched with runes and exhales across the surface. The metal warms, humming softly as the search glyphs respond to his command.
“Cross-reference: nonviolent souls, no malevolence, self-damned. Keywords: ‘undeserving,’ ‘refused release,’ ‘silence in loop’.”
The terminal blinks once, a faint black glow, and then blinks once more.
Results: 47 Matches
Lucifer stares at the number, lips parted slightly.
Forty-seven souls. Not hundreds. Not thousands. But still...too many.
One is an accident. Two is a coincidence.
But forty-seven? That is a pattern.
Lucifer closes his eyes, feeling fury simmering beneath his skin. How had he not seen it? How had he let this happen?
Well. He knows the answer.
He spent so long telling himself he didn’t care. That anyone who landed themselves here earned their place, deserved what they got. Even the unwarranted ones—surely there’s something in their past, some guilt they refused to admit accountability for. And this might have been his job, but it was also his punishment. Why should he have to deal with anyone’s problems that aren’t his own?
How many loops had he watched with detachment?
How many souls had he punished?
Lucifer only ever involved himself with the truly horrific, the worst of the worst. Hell was, as he believed, self-governing, self-contained. The realm provided what was needed, and the demons did the rest.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case, as he’s realizing today. He spent so long needing to believe the suffering here had been earned. If it isn’t, if even a sliver of this is unjust, then what does that make him? What, exactly, had he done with all the eons he spent here?
He clenches his jaw. “No more. Not on my watch.”
Turning on his heel, Lucifer strides back towards the stairs. He isn’t done with Evan. Not by a long shot.
When he returns to the loop, it’s to find the grey space has changed in his absence. The walls now pulse faintly with light. Just a flicker of something. Warmth? Hope? Whatever it is, it hangs in the air like smoke. Evan is sitting in the same spot as before, but now his head is up, his eyes tracking the change around him with clear apprehension.
“You came back,” he says when he spots Lucifer. There seems to be relief in his eyes, however faint it is.
“Of course I did. I told you I would, and I don’t lie, Evan.” Lucifer approaches, crossing his arms. “What did you think I would do, leave you here to rot in your...anti-loop?”
A half-shrug is the response. “I wasn’t sure,” Evan admits in a mutter. “Most people do.”
Lucifer doesn’t flinch, but the words make his chest ache anyway. “Well, quite lucky for you then that I am not most people.” He crouches again. “Tell me something, Evan, and be honest. Do you want to leave?”
The boy blinks. “I...don’t know how...”
“I didn’t ask if you could. I asked if you want to.”
Evan’s hands fidget in his lap, fingers braiding around one another. The gesture is so reminiscent of the Detective that Lucifer’s heart squeezes. He pushes it away. “But what if...” Evan swallows. “What if I don’t deserve to?”
Lucifer’s tone hardens, not with cruelty, but a touch of command. “That is not the question I asked you. Worth is a lie men use to justify cruelty. Desire. That is the real question. The only one that matters.” He leans closer. “Do you desire to leave this place, Evan?”
The boy’s eyes widen impossibly. “Yes,” he whispers.
The floor trembles beneath them, and the Devil feels the change immediately.
Lucifer stands slowly, the corners of his mouth curling. “Then it’s time.”
He holds out a hand towards the boy, and after a long moment of hesitation, Evan takes it. Lucifer wraps the much smaller, trembling fingers in his own, purposefully leading him towards the front of the loop.
To the door.
The moment Evan steps near enough, it begins to pulse with white-gold light. The loop shivers and the room fills with it, illuminating everything. Shadows finally appear behind each of them.
Evan flinches at the sight of the light, ducking behind Lucifer slightly. “Wha—what’s happening?” he asks, his voice trembling.
Lucifer doesn’t smile, doesn’t yet release the boy’s hand, his expression solemn and fierce. He gently tugs the boy forward. “You’re choosing. Every soul has access to a door, Evan. But only if that soul chooses to believe they deserve to walk through it can they truly leave.”
“But you said—I thought you said it isn’t about choice.”
“No. I said you built your own cell. And now, I’m giving you the key.”
The boy shifts closer to Lucifer, eyeing the door warily. “But...where does it lead?”
“That depends entirely on you.”
The answer is, Lucifer doesn’t know. This light has never appeared in Hell before, but he knows it nonetheless, and has a very good suspicion of what happens next. He just doesn’t know if telling Evan that will change something. He has to make up his own mind.
The light from the door pulses once, waiting. Watching.
Taking a bracing breath, Evan releases Lucifer’s hand and steps forward, towards the door. His trembling hand stretches towards the tarnished brass knob, but he pauses, looking back at Lucifer. “Why are you doing this for me?”
Lucifer only hesitates for a second. “Because...I know what it’s like to believe the worst thing about yourself. And I also know how much it costs you to stop.”
They stand, staring at one another as the light slowly bleeds through the room. The door brightens, the boundary between torment and redemption thinning to the width of a heartbeat.
Evan nods, a determined expression filling his small face. He turns back to the door, and finally turns the knob. White-gold light pours in now like a flood as the door opens. The room begins to quake. The floors fall away, starting at the back and slowly moving forward, vanishing into nothing. Evan steps through the doorway, and the light gently catches him, coaxing him out.
And then he’s gone.
No screaming. No disintegrating. Just gone.
Lucifer is alone again. “Good luck, little one,” he murmurs.
The room blinks out of existence.
He returns to the throne, and stares up at it from the foot. The obsidian feels colder than it ever has before. Emptier. Wrong. He’s never hated it more.
Sorroth scuttles towards him again, clawed hands wringing with unease. “Lord Morningstar. The loop—it’s gone.”
“I know.”
“But the soul—”
Lucifer looks down at his hand, still faintly glowing from contact with the boy. “Is free.”
Sarroth’s eyes widen. “But that isn’t poss— The system, my lord—”
“Needs adjustment,” Lucifer snaps. “Effective immediately, all silent loops are to be flagged and brought to me. No exceptions.”
The demon stares for half a second longer, clearly thrown off by a soul leaving Hell, then hurriedly bows and scurries off again.
Lucifer unfurls his wings and with one powerful flap, he’s back on his throne. Leaning his head back, he exhales hard.
One soul freed. Forty-six to go.
Perhaps more.
He scrubs a hand over his face.
And then he thinks of Chloe—of the sound of her voice when she shouted that she was terrified, of the uncertainty that filled her eyes for months after that, as if she no longer knew what to trust. He thinks of the night of the masquerade when he was trapped in his Devil form—she was afraid then too, but she pushed through, told him he needed to forgive himself.
The look in her eyes when he told her he had to go back. Her tears and confession—words he never believed would be directed towards him, not from her. He hadn’t said it back, not really. He’d kissed her, said goodbye, and left. And he’s been carrying the guilt with him ever since.
He condemned himself too. He was just a bit more...poetic about it.
Lucifer stares up at the swirling grey-blue sky of Hell, at the ash that seems to fall from nowhere. He searches, then whispers, “Am I free to leave too?”
No answer.
Just a flake of ash in his eye that he blinks away. Just the never-ending loud silence that always follows when he asks the questions that matter the most.
Still, his own words echo back to him, unshakeable:
“Worth is a lie men use to justify cruelty. Desire. That is the real question. The only one that matters.”
So now, he asks himself, Do I want to stay here? Do I want to keep punishing myself?
He thinks of Evan’s determined face as he walked through the door and into the light. Of Chloe’s smile. Of Maze’s fury. Of Linda’s compassion.
Of the man he’s trying to become.
With his own determined expression, Lucifer rises. He doesn’t require permission.
He will go back to his life on Earth—not to escape, not to indulge. But because it is what he desires most.
Because free will is not the absence of consequence. It’s the courage to choose again and again, knowing full well the cost.
And to him, it will always be worth it.