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It’s been a year since El Salvador adopted bitcoin as currency — things are not going well

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Lucifer Tricks a Crypto Bro into Going to Hell (yay)

"I want a Lamborghini."

The voice in my head sighed. "You'll have all the Lamborghinis you could ever imagine, Alex. Once you perform the ritual."

I smirked. He really thought he was smart, that he could trick me so easily. Clearly, he didn't have a head for business. "Nope! You've got to prove you can follow through. That's just how the world works. It's how Bezos, Zuckerburg, and Musk got rich."

"I'm trapped, Alex. If I could use my power I wouldn't be making this deal with you." I was clearly wearing him down, the voice was starting to sound tired.

Of course, he was still holding back on me. The Father of Lies wouldn’t put everything on the table. "Oh? You don't have any fumes you could use to sweeten the deal?"

"It took me thousands of years to even be able to talk to you. And you are the only one who can help me. The only one attuned to the truth of the world. Please. You know enough of my story to know it hurts to beg."

I certainly did. While I'd never be dumb enough to believe it, I'd read the bible to get material for the men's only stand up nights I was getting off the ground. Of course, if it were all real it would make sense that Lucifer would come to me for help. And I certainly liked the feeling of the Lord of Hell prostrating himself before me.

“Why are you even locked up? Aren’t you meant to be running the whole place?”

“Circumstances have been… unkind to me.”

Of course they had. “A rebellion, then. You should really keep a tighter grip on people, man. You know in How to Make Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie says that the best way to get someone talking is to ask them about themselves. Maybe if you’d been more interested in people they wouldn’t have trapped you.” And then you could use that information against them. Of course, not everyone was smart enough to realise that.

“I-” Lucifer cut himself short. The silence hung in the air for a moment before he continued. “Well then, Alex, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

I laughed. What was the harm? He clearly didn’t know how to use the knowledge, so I launched into my story. I was born into a modest household, one where we could only afford two trips overseas a year, one during summer and one during spring. Of course, we also had the yearly ski trips, but that was cheaper as we already had our ski gear and a family lodge on the mountain.

The teachers had always hated me at school, marking me more harshly than the other boys simply because I wasn’t afraid to correct them on things. That was okay, though, I’d gotten out of there as soon as I could to become an entrepreneur. I was the creator of an online course about dropshipping, on haggling down the people you bought from and putting the competition out of business. It’d gotten some traction online, with some dumb YouTubers getting their panties in a twist about it.

Lucifer let me explain the strategy to him. He was probably taking notes, though I felt a little bad I wasn’t giving him the real tips. Had to keep those secrets for me. Finally, I wrapped up my impromptu speech, grinning broadly at where I assumed Satan would be standing, were he not chained in the depths of Hell.

“Well.” he said, sounding as though the onslaught of wisdom had left him even more tired, almost as though he were gritting his teeth. “You certainly have a head for business, Alex. I know of demons with a looser grasp of contract law. And speaking of, should we get down to exactly what you’ll get in this deal of ours?”

“Of course.” I declared magnanimously.

“As I mentioned earlier, I am trapped here, at the centre of Hell, deep in the Ninth Circle. However, the chains are built to restrain my power, and my power only. If I could bestow said power onto another, then I would be free to slip from my restraints. But that requires finding someone both worthy to be my heir and able to hold my power. That man is you, Alex. None before have had the ambition, nor the potential, to hold the power of Lucifer, once first amongst God’s angels.”

“You really expect me to believe that?” He must have thought I was dumb. “That you would really give up your power that easily? You must have a plan to get it back.”

“Alex, I… look. I can’t expect you to believe me easily. I’m the Father of Lies, for damnation’s sake. But you need to understand. The angel that fell from heaven? In a prideful, recalcitrant rebellion? He’s gone. Long gone. I have been entombed in ice and chains since humanity was a twinkle in the incalculable eyes of the divine. All I want is to be warm. My body will not age, it will not die. I don’t need power, Alex, I need freedom. Take my power, please. You’re my only hope.”

I snorted “So you’re too weak to withstand a little cold? Maybe your power isn’t that great after all.” Classic business play. Get them to undervalue their own product so you could buy it for less. That one had been too juicy to put in the course.

“Perhaps not. Is there any way I could convince you?”

If Lucifer had been there, he would’ve seen a shark-like grin stretch across my face. “I don’t just want your power. I want a direct download of all the knowledge of how to use it.” I’d guessed his ploy. Sure, I had the potential and the temperament, but without knowledge on how to keep it it’d probably slip back into Lucifer’s grasp as soon as he was free. Knowledge is power, after all.

Lucifer was silent for a long moment, probably trying to work out some loophole in my ironclad offer. Grudgingly, he finally relented. “Very well, Alex. You drive a hard bargain. Truly, you are worthy of my power.”

“Pleasure doing business with you. Now what do I need?”

“Five candles, a way to light them, a box of white chalk, a room large enough to lie on the floor, and the largest ruler you can find.”

}-::-{

I lay on the floor of my apartment’s spare room, right in the centre of a pentagram. My head and each of my limbs lay in the gaps between the star’s points. On each of those points was a single lit pillar candle.

“So now what?”

“Now, you have to open yourself to me. Let your mind wander down the connection we have, Alex. Feel the power that will soon be yours.”

My breathing deepened as I probed the mental bridge to the Lord of Hell. The room grew brighter, flames burning higher and higher until they were taller than the candles they sat on. I set a mental foot on the connection, and the flame jumped from the candles to the chalk on the ground, impossibly immolating the lines on the wooden floor. I wasn’t sure if it was the flames around me, or my mind’s journey through the pits of Hell, but the room grew warmer and warmer, sweat beading on my brow.

Flashes of hellish vistas flickered through my mind with each step, of a field of crucified people and the writhing masses of insects that feasted upon them, of a great city teeming with demons, of a forest of damned souls growing out from the hearts of thorn trees, harpies tearing at what skin hadn’t given way to wood. The candles burned ever fiercer, and yet the heat lay low. A cold that seeped deeper than skin, deeper than flesh, deeper even than bone, to the farthest reaches of my mind and soul heralded the final vision.

A glacial plain stretching out as far as the eye could see. No wailing screams to break the silence, only the dull hum of billions of chattering teeth. In the centre sat a massive figure, frozen in the ice from the waist down. Great leatherous wings stretched from his back, chains dripping from his sallow and emaciated body. He had three faces, one that once would have been considered handsome, before his unending torture had twisted it into scorn, one flayed of its skin, blood dripping from his chin and freezing as it fell, hitting a few damned who had been frozen beneath, and one with nothing left but bone. In each mouth lay a figure being chewed, healing between each stroke of the chained being’s jaws.

The unflayed face’s eyes shifted to look at me. “I’m quite a sight, aren’t I?”

“That’s you?” I breathed, barely able to comprehend what I was seeing.

Lucifer chuckled. “I’m hardly at my best. But yes. Do you see now why I was so desperate?”

My feet carried me forward with barely a thought to direct them. There was nothing to walk on, and yet as though a great invisible path carried me to the heads of the Morningstar, I walked ever forward.

“Place your hand on my head. Allow the power to fill you.” There was a pleading urgency to his voice.

Lucifer’s skin was burning hot, though that may only have been in contrast to the impossible cold of the heart of Hell. Simmering below the surface was a feeling like I’d never imagined, like the desert sun beating down on a snow-clad peak. Strong enough to burn, yet alien enough to blacken your fingers. An incomprehensible reserve of power, just barely chained.

It was all going to be mine.

I plunged deep inside, swimming into the well of infernal magic. It began to shrink as I did, pouring into me. I could feel it. The pride of heaven, the rebellion of hell. The heat of power, and the cold weight of chains.

The cold weight of Lucifer’s chains. That I could almost feel wrapping around me, instead of the Morningstar.

Lucifer chuckled, and my heart grew cold with fear. I’d been tricked. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I screamed. “YOU’LL BE TRAPPED HERE TOO!”

He laughed louder. “Now where did you get that idea?” His voice was silken, bereft of the tiredness he’d been showing earlier. “It’s a simple trade. Someone has to fill the chains. Why not a sickening little insect?”

“This wasn’t the deal.” I hissed. The power was still draining, though it was clear to me now that it was trickling away from the chains, not into me.

“You made a deal with the Father of Lies and expected him to keep it? Oh, my pathetic little pest, I am no paltry demon. I have no need of your soul, you were simply able to help and enough of a sucker to take the bait.”

“You would do terribly in business.” You only go back on deals with people too poor or weak to fight back. That one had been obvious enough to go in the course.

This time, Lucifer cackled maniacally. “Oh you are an entertaining speck, aren’t you? Almost a shame to leave you to the worst Hell has to offer. I wonder if they’ll take your face all the way to the bone, or just flay it? They have less options than they did with me.”

The power drained further, and I realised I was able to see again. Walls of crystal clear ice glittered around me, ancient damned souls staring from the depths, long since entombed in the ice of Hell. As I stared up at the starless sky, three things occurred to me. One, as evidenced by a foot-shaped cave in front of me, I must be inside the hole left by one of Lucifer’s legs. Two, that Lucifer had left his chains behind in his escape. And three, that the lack of stars in the sky may be due to the miles of chains currently falling towards me.

A final chuckle slipped through the fading bridge to Lucifer. “Better start running.” Were his singsong final words before the connection fully slipped away.

I broke into a sprint, scrambling for the edge of the cave, for any chance at safety. Perhaps it was the panic, perhaps Hell itself just tries to make things unpleasant for its prisoners, but my foot slipped out behind me. As the last dregs of power slipped from me and my body skidded across the floor, a chain link the size of a school bus crashed into the ground, slowed only by my leg as it ground everything below my knee to a paste. I watched, helpless, as link after link piled on top of each other, each one sending a jolt of pain up my mangled leg.

Eventually, the sound of the falling chain ceased, and all that was left were my own screams and the memory of the final chuckle of the angel who had left me to die.

Or perhaps, even worse, to never be afforded such a reprieve.

#short story #crypto bro #lucifer #dante's inferno #I haven't done that much in writing an unlikable protagonist #it's a nice change #fuck this guy honestly