Chapter 1 – Greed

Have you ever experienced deja vu? Such a strong feeling that you’ve experienced something before that you stand there considering if your mind is tricking you. That’s how I felt looking at him. He stood there glaring at my parents house from the edge of the forest. I swear I’ve never seen nor met that man before, but his appearance looked horribly familiar.

His all black clothes heavily contrasted the inches of snow on the ground and the steady falling of it from above. He calmly walked towards the house not making a single sound. If I didnt happen to go outside to avoid the drama inside, I would have never seen him coming.

As he got closer the small pebble of dread I had was growing to a sizable boulder. I knew his intentions with me or my family were going to be less than favorable. I continued to watch his silent journey up the hill praying to a god I didn’t believe in that he would turn away.

Maybe he had the wrong house. Maybe I was hallucinating from the 6 hour drive to my hometown for Christmas. Maybe there was a logical explanation as to why this man did not leave footsteps in the snow.

I pulled myself from the daze to run inside to tell my father. I knew how he’d react. He would hurry and unlock his gun cabinet and run outside and empty a few rounds into the man without questioning it. That was a horrible thing to do, but this man somehow made me lose all thoughts of ethics.

Before I could reach my father, I heard the screen door creak open and slam shut. I stopped immediately and just stood there with my back to the man. I dared myself to turn around and I casted a furtive glance over my shoulder.

To my even growing horror, no one was standing there. Absolutely nobody. This meant either I was hallucinating from a lack of sleep or something was horribly wrong. Luckily, I didn’t have to think too much about it. An angry shout came from the dining room and I rushed in, to see my entire family seated at the table with the man sitting at the head.

My family was in random moments of action. My father was standing up reaching for his keys to run to his gun locker. My two older brothers were moving to attack the man. My sister was moving to call the police. And my younger brother pulled out his phone to record.

The man cleared his throat and clapped his black gloved hands together.

Blink.

We were all sitting at the table calmly and peacefully as if he were about to have a nice conversation. I was standing, how was I sitting down now? I looked around to see the looks of bewilderment from my family as well. I moved to get up but felt an invisible and unknown pressure pushing down on me.

I opened my mouth to speak but found my lips unresponsive to my commands. The only thing I could do was turn my head towards the man. In the bright lighting I could finally see what he looked like.

He was an African American man who wore a black suit and shirt with matching shoes. His tie seemed abright with flames which looked like they were moving and changing hues or red and orange. His dark black hair and beard seemed to suck all light around him. Lastly his eyes were hollowed and empty sockets which were ablaze in a color that I can’t even fully explain. They were burning a bright red but also shining a soft blue.

The man slowly stood and began to walk around the table, placing a neatly wrapped small gift box in front of us. There was a word written on each of ours with mine reading ‘Sloth’. I didn’t notice him carrying any of these boxes so I still have no clue as to where they came from.

He sat down and glared at each of us. With a simple wave, everyone exhaled as if they were holding their breaths and began to scream and shout. All of our complaints were directed towards the man who sat there calmly glaring at us.

He raised a finger to his lips and we all fell silent again, our lips refusing to cooperate with our demands.

“I have all the time in the world. So please do continue acting as if your uncivilized and uneducated buffoons.” He said, his voice so soothing and powerful at the same time.

He waved his hands again and looked at each of us. As if he was daring us to speak harshly again. My oldest brother Marcus turned to the man and asked what we were all thinking.

“Who the hell are you?”

The man grinned and leaned back in his chair.

“Your race has come up with colorful names for me over the years. Beelzebub, Moloch, Satan or one of my personal favorites. The Lord of Flies. But, my one true name is Lucifer Morningstar. Prince of Darkness and the Ruler of Hell. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances.”

We all stared at him slack jawed until my younger brother Mason pulled out his phone. He instantly tried to record this situation but was stopped by the man. He held out his hand and Mason’s phone floated over to him.

“It seems you’re so eager to record Mason. Then it seems we will start with you.” He grabbed Mason’s phone out of midair and put it facedown on the table.

“Start what? You fucking -” My father began.

In an instant Lucifer’s gloved hand was holding onto my father’s tongue.

“Mr. Kemp you should know better than to use derogatory terms. Especially around me.” Lucifer closed his mouth and condescendingly patted him on his head. He went back to his seat and clasped his hands together.

“Every single one of you has done something so horrible in your life, that you would be sent to Hell. But that is the majority of humanity, my father’s obscene standards limit the amount of heaven bound humans. But all of you are especially sick and twisted that you’ve attracted my own attention. But in the spirit of this holiday I have given all of you gifts, pertaining to your true self and mortal sin. My intent is to suitably punish each and every one of you. “

Everyone darted glances at the black with red lacing gift boxes sitting in front of us. We all moved to rip ours open when our limbs froze and we slowly sat back in our seats. Everyone except Mason that is.

“One at a time, and as I said Mason would go first.” Lucifer said a sly smile dancing across his face.

Mason spun the box around looking at its intricate design. Since he was sitting right next to me I could catch a glimpse of the word, ‘Greed’.

Mason ripped off the lid of the box and his face went pale. He stared at the contents of the box and didn’t speak for a good minute. He attempted to replace the lid but with a quick flick of the wrist from Lucifer he dumped the contents onto the table.

Yellow police tape, a cell phone and a newspaper clipping.

“Care to explain Mason?”

Mason violently shook his head and suddenly found great interest in his hands.

Lucifer gave a light laugh and his eyes began to burn brighter.

“If you won’t tell them, I will show them.”

Blink.

I’m looking at Mason’s bedroom. I look around and find it exactly as it looked earlier today when I went in to help him wrap his presents. I walked around and finally looked at myself in his mirror.

I’m looking at my brother. I give a wave and I sharply inhale. I’m in his body. I want to run to check on my family downstairs but it seems my body is on autopilot. I walk around the room grabbing my essential things before running out the door.

I walk around taking pictures with my phone of tons of places I find impressive. Houses, statues, buildings. Anything I feel would look good in my album. My brother’s legs lead to a park where I begin to walk on the trail. I begin to record a dancing video for Tiktok when I reach a less densely populated part of the trail. I try the dance several times but can’t seem to handle it.

I stop when a family walks past me and give me uncomfortable stares. Mason picks up his phone and walks deeper into the forest. I wish I could look away from the second hand embarrassment, but it seems I am merely a spectator in my brother’s body.

He reaches the end of the trail and turns to walk back but decides to walk on. He pushes past branches and trips over tree roots. He finally reaches a stream and begins to try the dancing video again. He continues for what I can assume a half hour, when I hear a short scream and wet thud.

Mason heads towards the sound and stops recording. The stream hid the location of the scream until it came again this time much weaker. Mason crept through the woods to where he found a horrible scene playing out.

A man dressed in camo gear is on top of a woman raising a rock above his head and landing it on her forehead. She attempts to fight and protest but the man is too strong and refuses to get up. Mason pulls out his phone and I assume it’s to call the police. But to my horror he begins to record.

I watch through his eyes as he records this man beat the woman to death with a rock. After the man finishes, he stands and runs away. Mason records the entire thing. After the man was far enough away to not hear his footsteps Mason walked up to the recently alive woman and zooms in on her dead face.

“Sick.” Mason says in a voice that wasn’t horrified, but happy. I felt so disgusted that I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. Looking through his eyes as I watched him save and edit the video and upload it to his Tiktok. It seemed like he didn’t get a strong enough signal deep in the woods so he painstakingly walked out of the forest, made his way to the trail until he finally got a signal and posted the video.

Only after all of that, a whopping 20 minutes did he call the police. He sat on a bench and watched his Tik Tok start to gain views and comments. He smiled and responded to a few comments. The police arrived a short half hour later. He leaped up and began to record again.

I knew my brother was greedy for clout but I didn’t think he would be this sick and defiled. The entire time he spoke to the police he was recording. When he led them to the body an officer asked him if he recorded what happened he proudly said yes.

They asked to see his phone and my brother simply switched to the camera roll without stopping the camera. They watched the video and from the looks they gave each other I knew what they were thinking.

“Well, son this is great evidence to catch that man. But why didn’t you intervene or do anything?” The officer asked.

My brother looked away and muttered something about being scared. But they had to know he was lying. From my brother’s voice and reaction in the video, it was obvious he wasn’t scared. But happy. Sickeningly happy.

It seems the officers came to the same conclusion. After my brother texted the video to one of them and gave them his number in case they had more questions, he was dismissed to a mass of disgusted and horrified eyes that pierced his back. And Mason walked away as happily as if he just saw his favorite film.

Blink.

I was back at my parents house for Christmas.

My brother’s face was pale and he was furiously staring at his legs. He didn’t dare glance up at our horrified looks. My mother Magaret, was the first to speak.

“How could you Mason? All of that for your little app? WE RAISED YOU BETTER THAN THIS! I’m so disgu..” she trailed off and broke into tears. My father hugged her awkwardly since we still couldn’t move our legs to leave the chairs.

The rest of my family began to yell at Mason but I toned their voices out. Just like I normally do. I like to avoid conflict so I usually don’t speak on the things I see. I saw Mason’s TikTok on it. I didn’t tell my parents because honestly, they would somehow drag me into the problem.

I instead turned to face Lucifer whose face was unreadable. Was he angry or content? I couldn’t tell.

He clapped his hands again and we all immediately sat back in our seats and shut up. He did not force us but we learned our lessons from the first time.

“Mason Kemp, aged 17,” he began. “By giving in to your greed before your human decency you have earned your punishment that you will suffer for all eternity.”

“Wait!” Mason cried. “It was wrong, I’m so so sorry! Please forgive me!”

Lucifer’s eyes burned as he glared at my brother. “No, what was wrong was being present for a murder and not intervening. What was wrong was not only recording this vile act but posting it online simply to feed your greed.”

Mason began to sob. I’ve never seen him cry before. Then again I would leave before he would get close. I felt sympathy for him, but I remembered what he did and my feelings of disgust outweighed my familial love.

“What-What are you going to do to me? Burning for eternity?” Mason choked out.

Lucifer grinned. “Hell hasn’t been like that in a long time. No, each person suffers their own personal Hell. One which is tailored perfectly to their sins. And for you Mason? I sentence you to an eternity of being watched. You will be brutally murdered each day in different ways, over and over again. And each time you will find a crowd watching but merely enjoying your pain and misery.”

Mason’s cries reached a peak and he began to claw his face. Blood began to run down his face.

“My eyes! They burn! Make it stop!” His shrieks of pure agony were so horrible I closed my eyes and clogged my ears. I don’t know how long I held that position for. When I pulled my hands away he stopped moving. His eyes were burned out and a dark crimson had started to dry making his face look like a macabre mask.

Gasps of horror and screams came from my family.

“Shhhhh,” Lucifer’s voice rose above the panic. We all fell silent horrified at what we’d just seen.

He turned to my sister Vicky. “Shall we get started with you next?”