Windows to Damnation

James Smith had been having a good day. He had continued to make an example of Felix, and ensured that the student body understood the rules. Students had to learn to take responsibility, not shove it off on someone else. If students got in their heads that they could question his decisions, then his authority would collapse. He had seen how rapidly a teacher could utterly lose control of their class to a single disruptive student, or how delinquency could spread like a plague if students got away with it. The students themselves would be hurt the most, as they drag each other down until they would be utterly unprepared for the real world. Hence, he would do whatever it took to ensure that his authority remain unchallenged, and that his decisions were respected.

After ensuring Felix reported to detention, James went back to his office to get some paperwork done. Despite what many students believed, he did have responsibilities beyond punishment, even if he focused on it a lot. However, upon stepping into his office, he suddenly found himself...

...in a giant pool of water. James panicked, **** to get his head above water, and just about managed to do so, only to feel something yank him back under. It was in that moment he saw a sight that terrified him in a way nothing in his more than forty years of life had ever terrified him before. A sea monster of the type that wasn't supposed to exist outside of myth was staring at him in the water, and its many tentacles were all around him.

So James swam again, knowing it could be futile, but with an indescribable level of panic, tried regardless. This time he managed to get to the surface long enough to see the pool's edge, and after again swimming harder than he ever had in his life, managed to climb out. Out of the water, he turned around to see a truly immense pool, bigger than any he had seen in his life before. But there was no sea monster anywhere, and it made him wonder whether he had hallucinated all of that.

Looking around, James saw a typical pool's edge transition to reinforced concrete, a ceiling made of reinforced concrete, and to his left, a giant vault door. The door had a timer on it that, assuming he did his math right, had about a week left on it. As he continued to look, he only found one other door along the reinforced concrete wall, and it was a thick metal door locked up tight. He then searched for some kind of pathway to cross over to the other side without having to swim again. He eventually found a thin edge that he just about fit on, but before he could make a decision, heard a voice behind him.

"James Smith." A voice that sounded demonic, among other things. "We have so much to talk about."

James was shoved into the pool again, and when he looked up, he saw above him a demon with fire red skin, silver hair, and burning eyes. Even crouched down to look at him, the demon seemed to tower over him, and he realized how much he had nowhere to go.

"Until you have answered my questions to my satisfaction, you are not leaving the water." She stomped one of Smith's hands to demonstrate she was serious. "Are we clear?"

James Smith did his best to nod while keeping his head above water.

"I have the ability to turn into a sea monster if it suits my needs." The demon stuck a hand into the water, and James watched in horror as it turned into a tentacle.

James again nodded, panicked.

"Excellent." The demon withdrew her tentacle from the water, which turned back into a still scary, but more humanoid arm. "Now that we understand each other, you are going to describe to me why you blamed Felix for something he didn't do."

"I was telling th-" James's answer was cut off as the demon stomped down on his hand again.

"That's a lie, try again." The demon let his hand free again.

James face became filled with incredulity. "Why do you even care?"

"James, you don't get to make that argument," the demon said. "You have far too often handed out detentions because someone gave you attitude, much less did anything meaningfully wrong, for you to whine about your crime being too small."

The demon looked at James Smith expecting an answer, but he remained silent. "James-"

"If you **** a confession out of me, it will be a lie." James said.

"Like you did with Felix?" the demon asked. "Or are **** confessions only false when you make them?"

James looked down. Every answer that came to mind would be thrown back in his face by this creature, and even if he said the truth, he had no means to get her to believe it.

"Now you know how he felt." The demon stood up. "Make your way to the other side of the pool. Once there, go through the locker room and showers. Once you do that, you'll find a stairwell, and through there, a meeting room. Don't make me wait."

Before Smith asked how he was supposed to get there, the tiny ledge he had seen earlier creating a land path between the two sides of the pool was now a reasonable size. Not wanting to know what other abilities this demon possessed, he got out, and ran to the other side. He didn't want to know how this entity would choose to punish tardiness...

Austin White was having a great day, as he could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Soon, a bitch that couldn't take a joke was going to lose a court case. She would have to pay his legal fees, which would almost certainly crush her financially, and that was just fine. He didn't have time for any of this woke or feminist bullshit, and was going to ensure no one tried introducing that horseshit to his office. He had lied and cheated with the best of them to get to where he was that day, and wasn't going to let any bitches spoil his fun. However, when he exited the office, instead of finding himself in the parking garage...

...Austin found himself in a room full of wooden shipping crates. While he had been aware of his place of work doing stuff with shipping, he was too removed from the day to day of what the company did to remember well what the shipping was for. After all, he was a C-suite executive brought in to make a tech company more efficient, and ever since had embedded himself enough in the corporate bureaucracy to be impossible to remove, he hadn't had to worry about the day to day functioning of the company at large. He had been too successful, both in his education and his connections, to be concerned with such matters.

"Austin, I've been waiting to meet you for awhile." A voice said, that sounded suitably demonic."It has been awhile since I've punished the wicked, after all."

Austin was turned around against his will, and was lifted off the ground by a demonic hand around his neck. This **** hold was as immovable as mountains, yet somehow just a hair short of actually **** him.

"There are so many things I could do to you here, and you would deserve every last one of them." The demon said continuing to maintain eye contact with her bright, burning eyes.

"Alas, I'm on a schedule, so I'm just going to show you a taste of what I once did to people like you as my job." The demon began to walk while carrying Austin.

Austin tried to turn away, and close his eyes. "Oh I'm sorry dear, are my eyes too bright for you?"

The glow over the demon's eyes went away, but what replaced them was something far worse. Austin saw into this demon's eyes and saw tens of thousands of writhing people that he somehow knew were souls suffering. He saw people burning, being drenched in acid, and ever more indescribable torments, all involving their bodies being slowly destroyed in agonizing fashion.

"They aren't there for eternity you know, just until their souls have all the bad things they've ever done burned away." The demon explained while continuing to walk.

All Austin could do was cry in terror, unable to look away from the horrifying sight in her eyes.

"However, I understand it is an agonizing process that takes centuries." The demon chuckled while all Austin could was cry in fear...

Zachary Hanson was still being interrogated by a ghost. He had gotten the chance to try to explain himself, but that did little to persuade the ghost about why he shouldn't be there. Any accomplishments he had were either dismissed as trivial, or the result of his father's favor instead of his own efforts. That's when the conversation turned towards a discussion of nepotism...

"How can you critique me for needing my father's help when you're a fucking noble," Zachary asked, "You couldn't have done anything without your-"

"In my era, we had none of these refrigerators that you rely on. Could you survive even one week in my family's castle, I wonder? Or would you cry for mechanically-cold milk?" The ghost continued to circle around him.

"How, despite all of those advantages, and your father being able to give you things I couldn't even dream of, have you failed to do more than win at a sport?" The ghost's question burned at Zachary.

"Because, I'm a fucking teenager, and don't live in an era where I can lead soldiers to war!" Zachary screamed.

"... I was younger than you when I first killed a man," the ghost was much quiet when he said that. "I lead armies to conquer the lands of many foes, and have spilled quite a bit of blood."

The ghost paused to let that sink in. "And I had to suffer for it a long time."

Zachary didn't immediately respond, thinking that maybe the ghost would calm down, and see things more reasonably. He was unfortunately proven wrong when the ghost spoke up again.

"But I at least accomplished something of significance with my sins!" The ghost screamed again. "All you did was ruin the life of a teenager so that you could get away with a stupid fucking prank."

Zachary grew furious again. Now his fucking joke was being judged as bad as someone who killed thousands in conquest? What kind of horse shit was this?

"It was a fucking joke!" Zachary screamed. "How could a prank gone wrong possibly be the equivalent of what you did?"

"It is precisely because it had no greater purpose than a fucking joke!" The ghost responded. "That's what is wrong with you Zachary, you don't take seriously any of what has been given to you! You just piss it away for the pleasure, and you can't even do that properly!"

"I didn'-

"You beat up a classmate, member of your football team, and someone who considered you a friend. All because of where a spinning dial landed." The ghost's voice became cold, but somehow angrier than at any point Zachary had heard it.

"I had to do great labors to pay off my sins." The ghost said. "Work for decades, maybe even centuries, in the afterlife doing tasks that could hurt, or **** me to examine every hypocrisy I had. All of that, just to become at some peace... except for a demon to show up, and show me that you are a disgrace to that labor."

The weight of the ghost's words started to be felt by Zachary. Was he going to be punished after **** for carrying out a hazing ritual? Would he have to do labors, like some kind of fucked up afterlife flavored community service, if not worse?

"It is clear that you aren't worthy of my bloodline in your current form," the ghost said. "A demon has offered to fix you, and make you worthy as my last living heir."

Zachary's eyes went wide hearing that, but before he could respond, the last bit of sand in the hourglass fell, and the ghost went back into his urn. The demon appeared shortly afterwards in a cloud of black smoke, and sealed the urn back up again. After removing the urn and the hourglass, the demon came over to him.

"Family can be so harsh," the demon said. "But alas, his decision is final. It's time you joined everyone else."

After a brief moment of silence, everyone around Felix erupted in debate. Cameron explained what he had seen, which only further confirmed the insanity of the place they were in. Mr. Winters, after getting off the floor and getting seated, added what he had seen, which caused the group to be yet more confused. That there was a gigantic pool in the floor below just made the facility they were in even more bizarre. Who would build such a facility, and why?

Before they could debate that further, James Smith sprinted into the room. Felix became even more confused, as did everybody else.

"Felix I..." James Smith tried to explain himself, but was out of breath.

"Did you come from downstairs with the pool, or this floor?" Noah asked.

James Smith took a minute to collect himself and replied, "Downstairs near the pool. There was this giant monster in it and..."

Smith trailed off again while collecting himself. Noah motioned for him to take a seat, which Smith took him up on. "There was this giant monster, who then changed into a demon and... we talked about Felix."

Felix perked up that, and it was enough for him to introduce his theory. "Guys, this is going to sound crazy, but I think you're all here because of me."

Hailey raised her eyebrows at that. "Why? I barely know you, and... wait." She got up and started to go around the room.

"You're related to him because you used to let Felix into your group, and I'm related to him because I was part of that group." Hailey said while standing in front of Noah.

"You're related to him because you punished him." Hailey pointed to James Smith while she spoke.

She then moved to Cameron, "You're related to him because you knew him when he was younger."

Hailey then moved to where Mr. Winters, "And you're related to him because your his teacher. But... why would we be the ones picked out of all the people who know, or have contact, with Felix?"

"For that matter, why would a demon want to bother with Felix, or the people connected to him?" Asked Noah.

Before anyone could try to answer those questions, Vizrokoth showed up again with a man clutched in her arms she held at eye level. Felix thought he saw a flash of a second where the demon's eyes weren't burning, but couldn't remember in a way he found... strange.

"Did someone order an office pest?" The demon then dropped the man unceremoniously to the floor, and left again.

When the man got up, Felix knew who he was in a heart beat. "You're Austin White."

"Yeah, how did you..." Austin White trailed off when he realized who he was looking at.

"How do you know each other?" Hailey asked.

"He groped my mom and then fired her when she called him out on it." For a moment, Felix forgot where he was, or why he was here. All he could feel was the burning rage at someone worse than anyone else in his life, and someone he had only known from pictures before.

The room returned to silence as everyone was now staring at Austin White. "Look kid, I don't know what you know about me but-"

Before Austin could continue, Vizrokoth returned again, this time bringing Zachary Hanson. She dropped him at Felix's feet, in a move clearly meant to look like an offering. Vizrokoth then snapped both fingers, and everyone was seated in a different arrangement from before.

"Now that we're all here." Vizrokoth said. "It's time to begin the real festivities."

The demon walked to the very center of the room, held her arms all the way out to her side, and then clapped them together with a level of **** that, for a split second, caused the lights in the room to go out. When the light returned...