The Souls Left to Earth and by Extension, to Satan

(The Latter of Whom is Called, in Heaven, Stan, so as to Avoid Saying ‘Satan’)

Pictures on this page courtesy Carl at GotMedieval.com, and whoever let him use their pictures!

When Christ came a second time, he took a good many people up to heaven. You and I are two of the lucky ones. Or blessed ones. Forgiven ones, good ones, deserving ones…it doesn’t much matter what words you use to describe us; the point is we’re up here and they were left down there, until Christ and God told Stan they were done, and Stan brought his demons and collected the rest of the souls from the planet. It took about four days, and the Others were collected by Stan, put aside for their sins, whatever they may be (among the worst I observed was a man who convinced two nuns to carry him into a nunnery, for what reason I would prefer not to say.) But, the Lord has given us all gifts, most of all I, and I have been watching the Others, out of a sort of morbid fascination, to see what happened to them, to better understand justice as the Lord sees it. I’ve been watching everyone, but a specific group caught my eye and I see them all the more specifically.

There is one; his name was Angus, who Stan asked for specifically. He’s who drew me to the group. Angus killed himself at fourteen, gave in to temptation and jumped [note: this is actually going to get like ten times more dark than I expected. It’s not going to let up] from a tower, when he realized that Christ had not taken his soul. When he merely broke several bones, and the jump was attributed to a fall, Angus stole pills from the doctor’s bag and took all of them. He suffered for several days and then passed. Angus’ jump was the first day of the purge, and his death the third. He, along with the rest, are to be thrown into the soul furnace.

There are three witches. They all denied it in life, but they hoped for bad things to happen, had a tendency to mumble under their breath, and good Christians accused them, so it was clear that they were practitioners. It had only been a matter of time before they were found out. They are dragged, naked, to the furnace. Margaret is one of their names, and she is quite the complainer. Her demon intentionally drags her over rocks, and she whines and moans as if she is undeserving. Those without God cannot accept their punishments, for they do not think they deserve them. If they were with God, they would know that they deserve every scrape, but they would not be scraped. It is miraculous, truly, that we have escaped that fate.

The demons sent to retrieve this group travel together on their long trek down into hell. They are immaterial, so they are able to pass through many layers of lava, rock, and mud without great difficulty, but that does not change the fact that hell is a long journey, and even demons may not venture straight down. The journey took a month and a half, and Margaret whined the whole way, on her back pulled by the rope. A couple of the men were perverts, but mostly they were sympathetic. There were two Jews, one of whom was called Dan, and had lent money but not forgiven it after seven years. The Jews were simply told to follow, and walked towards eternal torment, understanding that they had no other choice and that it was no sense to argue with a demon. They were not wholly terrible men, but they forsook Christ’s salvation and failed to follow God’s laws for them, so Stan took them.  Another, named Levi, did not circumcise his son. The two of them were greatly sympathetic to Margaret. Since without stops to rest at night, pain would blur in and out of consciousness and the days would stream together, the demons stopped each night, and each night, the second Jew, a doctor, tended the woman’s wounds (our souls have been made immune to wounds by our Lord’s righteousness, but damned souls do not gain such luxury. They are intended to suffer.)

Two pagans from far off lands joined them, and though they did not share a language, the chains they put the men in were hot to the touch, and great red welts appeared on their skin under the chains. None of the other prisoners paid them any mind, for they were neither men of god nor men of sin nor men of virtue. They were simply men, and their apparent crimes were failing to accept salvation or follow God’s laws. They were in chains because they had no theological understanding, and could not be trusted not to run, which would inconvenience the demons. The demons thought the heat was a nice thought, but it had no actual reason.

A lesser, but physically stronger demon had to push a cart with all of the most mangled souls in it. Souls so mangled that they could no longer walk towards hell, but who had not been condemned to be dragged. There were those who were street trash, drug and sex addled murderers thieves and prostitutes. There were many in the basket of another type, those who were riding towards hell because of the sins of others. Unbaptized babes, whom even demons fail to see the pleasure in tormenting were among these.

Two were actually carried by demons, their plight being worse than the others. One had been involved in experiments on human flesh, active participation in mutilation and attempts at resurrection with demons. The resurrection had not been successful, but many of the experiments had lived, and horrible, twisted beings emerged. The others kept far away, having felt the difference.

They all of them were thrown into the furnace. I could not bear to continue looking on. Such anguish is not fit for heavenly eyes. That is why the demons are necessary: a God of justice must have demons, must cause pain and suffering. Breaking God’s law carries consequences. God was merciful and still, those souls were not able to avoid damnation. They deserve the pain, every ounce. Though they can be separated into three camps (those who were horrid, those who were bad, and those who mistook Christ for a myth,) we among souls can be separated into the only two camps that are important: those who are in heaven and those who are not. So do not think about those below. They deserve what they are given, and we are not called to look upon it.

"Souls Left to Earth" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.