The Devil Son's Oath

YOU KNOW,

dying is probably the worst birthday present I have ever received.

Don’t get me wrong, the day started normally. I woke up, my mom made me a nice breakfast, I went to school, students who I don’t know were forced to sing happy birthday to me, I walked home, did my homework, ate dinner, then went to bed. It was your standard high-school student’s birthday.

What I didn’t expect was to die in my sleep.

I suppose it’s not the worst way I could have gone. I could’ve been hit by a truck on my way home.

But alas, here I am, standing in front who I could only assume to be the God of Death, presumably awaiting judgment.

The God of Death looks like a scraggly, emo teenager. He didn’t look any older than me, and I had just turned seventeen. He sat with one leg dangling over his over-sized throne, absentmindedly tossing around a burning piece of coal. He didn’t even notice I was there until I cleared my throat.

He nearly fell out of his seat. “Woah! Who are you and what are you doing down here?”

I looked around, still not entirely sure where I was. “Um, my name is Cassidy Harrison and I just died, I think?”

The boy-god stared at me for a moment, then pulled the clipboard off from its peg on the side of the throne, flipping through numerous pages frantically. He stared back at me, seemingly in disbelief.

“So, you are telling me you’re not Taylor Gray?” He asked slowly, raising an eyebrow.

“What? No. I just told you, my name is Cassidy Harrison.”

He looked back at his clipboard, back at me, and then back at his clipboard again. It seemed impossible for him to process that I was, in fact, not whoever this Taylor Gray person is.

“This can’t be possible! My dad trusted me with one job for one day and I somehow already messed this up! I was supposed to be expecting Taylor Gray right now! Not whoever you are!” The boy hopped down from his throne, frantically pacing the area in front of me.

Now that he was near me, he was really only slightly taller than I was. He was probably 6′2 at best and the only nonhuman feature I could distinguish were tiny horns that peeked out of his messy black hair.

I now realized that this was not the God of Death but the Son of the God of Death.

I also understood that I was not supposed to be dead right now.

“So, why am I dead instead of Taylor Gray?” I asked, interrupting this kid’s panic attack.

“I already told you, I don’t know!” He shouted, before suddenly darting back to the throne. He began digging behind the cushion, eventually pulling a dramatically over-sized book out from behind it. He filed through the pages until finally stopping, reading something apparently shocking, then snapping the book shut.

“I’m not sure you wanna know why, Cassandra.” He whimpered.

“My name is Cassidy and I would kind of like to know.” I retorted.

“Kinda? Or like really?” He countered.

“Fine. I really want to know.” I sighed.

The devil-boy exhaled sharply, before quietly stating, “Taylor Gray knew she was going to die on her birthday so she killed you on yours instead.”

My stomach sank.

I was murdered?

On my birthday?

“I have to get back! There has to be some way you just un-kill me, right? Taylor Gray should be here! Not me! I need to get home. I want to go home!” I was panicking now. I could feel the tears starting to fall as my vision blurred.

Before I could collapse, the god (demon?) grabbed me from under either of my arms, keeping me on my feet. He just stared at me for a moment, unsure of what he should do.

“My dad normally doesn’t comfort the recently deceased, even if they were murdered. But I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before. How could Taylor Gray have known she was going to die on her birthday? And how could she have known that killing you would override her death?”

He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was lost in thought, deeply concerned about the logistics of this event.

It was starting to concern me, too. Realistically, no mortal knows when they’re going to die. A couple of minutes ago, I was starting to accept that it was just my time to go. But now, knowing that I should still be alive, it hurt so much more than being murdered ever could.

“I want to help you.”

My own thoughts were interrupted by the demon-kid’s words.

“What?”

“I mean, I can’t make you be alive again because my only powers are in the death department, but I have some friends we could go see? Maybe if we could get you to Sasha...she could help...” He was in his own world again, trying to formulate some kind of plan.

Finally out of my daze, I released myself from his grasp, the shock of the situation finally hitting me.

“Wait. Who are you? And who’s Sasha and where am I and who’s your dad-”

He was laughing at me now. With his mouth open like this, I could see tiny fangs where his canines should be.

“I forgot, you just died! Sorry, I was kind of rushing into the whole get you back alive thing. Um, my name is Prince Zoazel of the Underworld, but my human name is Damien. I’m the son of the God of the Underworld, but his name changes depending on what you believe in. You’re currently at what some would call the Gates of Hell and technically I should be deciding where in the Underworld you will spend the rest of eternity, but obviously we aren’t planning on doing that today. Sasha is a friend of mine, she is the daughter of the Goddess of Life. Um, yeah, that’s all the questions you’ve asked so far. Got any more?”

I didn’t even notice my jaw hanging until Prince Zoazel - Damien? - pushed my mouth closed.

For someone with such a depressing job, he was awfully bubbly. He was also understandably jittery. Bringing someone on a crazy adventure through wherever we were did not seem like something he was just allowed to do on a daily basis.

I nodded at his reply, taking a moment to really take in my surroundings.

Ahead of me was a giant, solid iron gate that was slightly glowing red from the intense heat. Beyond that lied three sections, from what I could see. The lowest level could only be described as burning. There were intense flames with the vague shapes of human figures within it. Above that was a fairly standard looking town, with the more rundown buildings closer to the burning pit and the slightly nicer homes further away. All the way at the top were the most extravagant homes. Large mansions sat upon hills of coal, the faint sound of music blasting from one of the homes.

Noticing my gaze, Damien turned towards the view, his cheery demeanor falling a bit.

“It’s not organized how you would think.” He uttered.

I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

“Most think that the worst of the worst are in that burning pit and that the better behaved are in the mansions. But, surprisingly, the Underworld doesn’t punish those who were bad. It punishes those who weren’t bad enough.”

As if he read my mind, he continued, “You would’ve been in that burning pit with all the others who didn’t deserve to die when they did.”

Turning to face me, he studied my face for a moment.

“Why wouldn’t you have gone to Heaven?”

He didn’t even give me a beat to respond. Before I knew it, he was walking away from the gates (a direction that hadn’t even crossed my mind) and was already well off into the distance. I quickly ran after him, only catching up to him once he had reached a river.

The gates were now impossibly far away from us for the distance we had traveled.

“How...” exhaled, hunching over, horribly out of breath.

“Time and space work differently here, Cassidy. And for the adventure we’re going on, you better get used to things working differently.”

Damien began to climb into a boat that definitely wasn’t there a second ago, messing with the ropes and oars.

I looked back at the gates again, so many questions buzzing through my mind. “What about other people that die? Don’t people die like, consistently?”

“Yeah, but, again, time and space work differently here. Besides, they’re dead. They have all the time in the world.” Damien chuckled to himself, still making unnecessary knots with the rope that now had one end tied to an oar. I got the feeling he was not too skilled with rowboats.

“Shouldn’t we at least talk your dad first? Couldn’t he help?”

This question should have remained unasked.

Damien stopped in his tracks, his jaw clenched. When he looked at me, his eyes were a dull shade of red, a startling contrast from his previous grey. Before he spoke, he ran his tongue over his teeth, an annoyed smile again displaying his fangs.

“Do you wanna die, Harrison?”

“Tm already dead?”

“You know what I mean. If I were to take you to my dad, you would be sent to the burning pits immediately. Once you got there, there would’ve been nothing I could do to help you. Trust me, sneaking you out is the only option.”

He let out a deep sigh, regained his composure, then returned to me with a smile, his eyes back to their usual grey.

"Now, hop in Cassidy, we have quite a trip ahead of us.”