Hell Desk

Lara glanced around, mostly to have something to do other than watching awkwardly as the assistant tried to stare their clipboard into submission. "I admit, this is not where I expected to end up."

Hell's waiting room wasn't that different from any other reception area: the walls were a drab grey stone that somehow managed to be even less remarkable than beige walls. A number dispenser stood near the door, while mildly uncomfortable chairs stretched into infinity, each one filled with a person awaiting Judgement.

Every so often, a doomed soul would vanish from their chair and reappear in front of one of the several desks manned by an assortment of... denizens of the afterlife seemed the safest term, given the wide variety of appearances and comparative mythologies.

The one at Lara's desk looked mostly human, if one discounted the draconic wings and a complexion not generally found in nature. Two desks over, the occupant looked like an Old Testament angel, all wheels of fire and far too many eyes. On the other side of the room, something that looked like a giant naked mole rat with the mouth of an anglerfish was staring down someone who thought arguing with that many teeth was a good idea,

The frustrated expression they all wore, however, was very familiar. "There's nothing in your file to indicate that you should be here, either. Refusing to conform to a belief system doesn't actually mean eternal damnation, whatever the monotheistic latecomers might say."

Did that mean Christianity and Islam, of any of the more modern religions, like Mormonism or Scientology? Lara decided that it didn't really matter. "In that case, do you know why I am here, and where I'm supposed to be?"

They didn't look up, "One second, I'm just... ah! Oh. Well, that's awkward."

Lara knew those words far too well. "Oh, no. What happened?"

For a being wearing classical armour and towering well over six feet tall, this denizen was looking rather sheepish. "The short version is that soulmates exist, and are determined by the resonance of your soul, but they don't always exist in the same time and place."

Lara had always firmly believed that soulmates, if they existed, would do nothing but complicate romance into a worse tangle than it already was. "My soulmate did something?"

The being nodded. "Sold their soul in some kind of exchange, but through some kind of error, it was your soul that was accepted. We'd been wondering why it hadn't been received yet, but they weren't out of the range of a long human lifespan yet."

Hopefully soulmates didn't confer any protection against having their kneecap privileges revoked, when Lara got her hands on them. "I see."

The being smiled briefly at her tone, which was not a reaction to that particular inflection that Lara had received before. "The good news is, it's reversible. The bad news is, you're stuck here until we actually get it fixed, locate their soul, and drag them to where they belong. Then you'll be free to go for Reincarnation or the Afterlife of your choosing."

Lara doubted that the fixing would be done in a short time period. "Well, while I'm down here, can I do anything useful? I'm terrible at doing nothing, and none of my hobby kits made it down here with me."

The being blinked, clearly wrong-footed. "You... want to assist us? Why? Would you even know how?"

Genuine offers of assistance probably didn't happen often in Punishment, Lara supposed. "Honestly? Because you look like you need it, and I've never been one to stand aside when people need a helping hand. As for how, I did this sort of thing for a living, so show me how the system works and we'll see if I'm up to the task."

Besides, the sooner any other administrative errors were caught, the sooner they'd all be on their way to where they were supposed to be. The being laughed, "Additional proof that you definitely don't deserve Punishment. Let me send security to start hunting down our wayward soul, and we'll get you started."

Bob pre-dated names, and therefore didn't technically have one. Strictly speaking, Bob didn't have a gender, either, but over the eons, he'd decided that he preferred masculine presentation. He'd given himself many names over time, usually whatever extremely common name that he thought would get an amusing reaction from anyone foolish enough to ask.

Bob had manifested when the first humans had started to work out concepts like Morality and Justice. In the early days, it mostly equated to letting anyone who didn't want to act like part of a community go it alone (and die) or seek out another community (and probably also die). They hadn't really conceptualised religion, at that point, just vaguely hopeful thoughts aimed toward the forces of nature, but it hadn't taken long before mothers were telling their children that a dreadful fate awaited those who indulged in truly anti-social behaviour.

The ones that ate from communal gatherings and hunting, and slept safely because others stood watch, but somehow never managed to take their turn doing the work. The ones who clubbed someone else in the knee when wolves and lions prowled nearby, under the principle that survival only required being the second slowest. The ones who hoarded resources while others in the group went cold or hungry.

Teaching turned to belief, and belief led to manifestation, which led to the being currently known as Bob.

At first, Bob had just sent the wrongdoers to stew in their worst fears for a century or two, before letting them reincarnate with no concious memories, but a renewed ambition to be a good person. Organised religion had both simplified and complicated things, because suddenly there were a lot more people to help manage Punishment (and Paradise, which had existed nearly as long as Punishment), but they all had different ideas about what Punishment should be and whether or not it was permanent, which had led to a lot of confusion at the time.

Lara was a first, though.

Not so much in the sense of being where she shouldn't; that happened at least a few times a year. Particularly gruesome murder victims didn't always realise they were dead right away, and accidentally gravitated to the same kind of pain and torture they'd just escaped. Souls that hadn't actually done anything wrong, but had been told so often that they deserved Punishment that they believed it. Someone offering up someone else's soul in an exchange, instead of their own.Most of those cases were sorted out quickly and sent to the correct afterlife.

Until now, no one had ever offered to help. Perhaps that would change, or perhaps she was unique.

It would be interesting to see how she handled those awaiting Punishment, either way. "We summon the next in line, you may just have to wait for them to come to you. When they do, their file, for lack of a better word, will appear. You don't have to create their punishment yourself, just send them to the appropriate department."

"What are the departments?"

"Dante got things broadly correct, different destinations for different crimes, he just had the framework of his own religion, a vivid fever dream and his own ego to flesh things out. I'll summon the first one, and you can see how you do."

Someone else might have felt bad for throwing Lara into the deep end to sink or swim. Bob had chosen the kind of person who made rational humans run screaming. Very few of the souls sent to Punishment believed that they deserved to be there, having some kind of self-justification, but this was the sort of person who couldn't grasp the idea that they could be wrong about anything.

An older woman appeared in front of the desk. "Well, it's about time!"

Lara barely glanced up from the file, which had a long, long history, of making life difficult or miserable for others in order to avoid reflecting on her own feelings of lonliness, inadequacy and emptiness. Lara hummed, "Well past time, even, but murder is one of the things that gets you sent here, no matter how justified it might have felt in the moment."

The woman blinked, caught off guard, but rallied. "I don't know why I'm here, but I demand that you fix this!"

Now, Lara did look up. "You know why you're here, even if you won't admit it. Just like you knew it wasn't the poor salesperson's fault that you didn't get what you wanted, but you wanted someone to suffer anyway."

"I want to speak to -"

"This is Punishment, lady. The Manager doesn't show up with a gift card and some grovelling to make you go away faster; they show up with red hot pokers to shove in unfortunate places. So go ahead. Ask for my manager, I dare you."

The woman fell silent, her lower lip trembling. Lara's voice changed to an oddly gentle tone. "You have a choice between Wrath and Fraud. You were angry with your own life, and chose to make that everyone's problem by falsifying claims, but if you truly reflect and regret, there will be a way out for you, eventually."

The trembling lip firmed, and the woman stalked away to the twin doors that appeared between Lara's desk and the next one. Bob suddenly had far fewer qualms about Lara's ability to handle herself. "I hadn't told you about Redemption, yet."

Lara shrugged, "It's a common theme across most of the ancient mythologies, that Punishment isn't eternal unless you really messed up. The Greeks, for example, held that those souls who had done too much wrong to be granted Asphodel, but not enough to deserve eternal punishment, could spend time in self-reflection by the River of Lamentation, before being permitted rebirth to try again."

Souls that were granted Paradise rarely wanted to leave again, with the exception of the easily-bored, the ambitious who wanted to see how often they could attain Paradise, and the very determined who wanted to keep improving the lives of others, even if it meant repeating high school.

The ones who found their way to punishment, with a few exceptions who would probably see the death of the universe before they atoned enough to be allowed Rebirth, tended to want to try again as soon as possible.

Lara was still talking, as she made notes on the file, with a writing implement that she'd pulled from... somewhere. "General psychology, too, emphasies that you have to acknowledge wrongdoing, and no-one is owed forgiveness, but it's really hard to reach a point where you're truly, beyond redemption, either. As long as you're willing to put the work in."

Bob eyed the door where the woman had disappeared. "It takes longer to sink in for some, than others. I hope you weren't expecting her to appreciate it."

Lara smiled, and there was nothing kind in the expression. "Oh, she'll be much worse for it. Knowing that someone was acting with genuine compassion, and they squandered it in favour of making their Punishment worse, and the possibility of what might have happened if they'd shown themselves capable of redemption? That's going to stick with them for a long time."

Bob looked at her with a feeling that might have been admiration. Using a touch of kindness to make the absense of such sentiments in Punishment that much more stark? Human ingenuity really was a treasure! Lara closed the file and set it aside. "Next!"

Bob reluctantly returned to his own desk. He'd check back on Lara after another soul or two.

Bob had never experienced what humans called affection. He wondered if this strange warm feeling was what it was supposed to feel like.

I'm not sure whether to leave this as a short story, or to expand on it into a longer novel. I definitely have ideas if I decide to write more, so I'd appreciate any feedback.