Devil’s Hill is not a special place. It’s mundane. And therein lives its evil. There is a circle of hell dedicated to this type of sin. Look closely and you’ll see the minutiae of decay.
1 Day in day out, the middle manager oversaw his automaton flock as they grew like rotting mushrooms under florescent office light.
5 The middle manager couldn’t see the forest for the trees, so he pushed through the foliage blindly until he found his way to a clearing.
9 He’d have to make do with the corporate fire and brimstone that crackled around him.
2 His day was filled with monsters disguised as coworkers, ordeals disguised as meetings, and dragons disguised as managing directors.
6 He didn’t know where to go, but he knew he had to go inside. He didn’t know what to expect, but the corporate ladder beckoned him.
10 Demons pranced and paraded cackling and fornicating, their seed splashing writhing like worms into the ashen soil of hell.
3 But sometimes, he was able to find gorgeous leaves flourishing throughout the cubicle farm carved out of concrete and steel.
7 He was mesmerized by his own potential to be more than a fungus, more than a vehicle for rot.
11 He didn’t know his name. He only knew his initials. The misery of his existence was a complete mystery to him.
4 Layered with plastic and nylon that coated everything, the office was suffocating. The maggots fed on the plastic first, leaving the organic zombified employees for later.
8 One day he would regret it all and repent his sins. For now, he was stuck in limbo, headed for hell.
12 He typed away at his devil’s keyboard in a language he didn’t understand in a script so alien that it burned into his eyes.
13 At every turn, he expected another immoral encounter, but occasionally he was able to pluck a flower from the decay.
14 Every slice of beauty that he touched turned into molten regret and shame. His life was everlasting and pain.
15 His only wish was to leave this place. But the clock on the wall ticked asymptotically close to closing time.
16 So he resolved himself to continue. Every click and clack on his keyboard punctuated the never-ending doom that beat in his disheveled heart.
