Idk why but pottery seems fitting for him

The more complex a structure, the higher the odds that something goes wrong. ANYONE can make a PAPER boat, but even trying to craft a simple WOODEN boat requires careful planning and consideration.

I would love for the narrator to have been a psychologist in life, and he ends up being Lucifer's unintentional therapy guy who ends up redeeming him and saving trillions of souls in the process. :)

The thug pulled the black hood off of Jenny's head, revealing her face to the air. I frowned at the sight of a small bruise high on her cheek, the tear-streaked cheeks, and the duct-tape gag over her mouth. "I thought I told you she was not to be harmed," I growled.

"Forgive me, Doctor Oblivion. The girl struggled, and I had to keep her quiet," Jonas said nervously.

I scrolled through the PainApp on my phone and tapped Jonas's icon. The big lunk screamed as he fell to his knees, every nerve in his body activating at once. "Your orders were to go to her house, knock on her door, and ASK her to come with you to the Lair of Fate!" I bellowed. "NOT to grab her from behind, put a HOOD over her head, and smack her around!"

Jonas fell to the ground screaming and twitching. It was tempting to hold down the icon until he shit himself to death, but I relented. "Take him away. Put him on stable duty for two weeks. Maybe some time mucking out the doombeast stalls will teach him the meaning of following orders to the LETTER. Now leave us."

My squad of mirror-masked death goons bowed respectfully and exited the room. I waited until they were gone to lock the doors and turn off the internal cameras. "Godddamn it. I'm sorry about this, Jennifer," I said, giving my daughter a tender pat on the head. "This wasn't supposed to happen this way. This is going to hurt like hell, by the way."

I ripped the duct tape off her face in one swift movement. "FUCKING HELL!" Jenny screamed. "Goddamn it, Dad, I thought I told you! No more sending death goons to my apartment!"

"It's been a long time since I last saw you! I thought you might like to have lunch! Guido makes a delectable spaghetti with Sunday gravy. Hang on a minute, I'll untie the ropes." Jonas had used a granny knot to tie her hands behind her back. I made a mental note to hold a hogtying seminar with my death goons at a later time: this sort of sloppy behavior did not bode well for them.

"Then send me an email! Or a TEXT! Or CALL! Don't just send a death squad over to my place with orders to bring me to your lair!"

"Emails and texts can be traced. Calls can be tapped. Our connection cannot be made public. For your sake." I gave up on untying the knots and just used my vibro-scalpel to cut the rope in half.

Jenny sat up, rubbing her wrists and giving me an incredulous look. "Calls and emails and texts are no go, but kidnapping me in broad daylight. . . never mind." She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "So, what did you want to talk about?"

"I mean. . . the usual. How's college? How's your mother? Are you seeing anyone yet?"

"College is fine. Mom's all right. And yes."

"Oh? What's his name?"

"Tracy."

"Is this one of those gender-neutral names? Like Pat or Lee?"

"No. Tracy's a 'she.' A Black 'she.' "

"Oh." I heard the screaming of my grandfather's ghost in my ear, howling about miscegenation and unnatural relations. I quieted the inner voice with a stern reminder: This is my daughter, whom I love very much. "Does she treat you well?" was what I said.

Jenny breathed a sigh of relief at that, and I saw the tension release from her shoulders. "I mean. . . she's great," she said, curling up on the couch. "She's sweet, she makes me laugh. . ."

"But?"

"But she keeps disappearing for days on end. . . cancels dates on me at the last minute. I'm worried she's keeping secrets from me. Worried she might be. . . you know. Cheating."

"I could have my death goons trace her movements. Find out what she's up to."

"God, Dad, not all problems in the world can be solved with death goons! I'll just talk to her about it the next time I see her!"

"That would work too. But I want you to know, if she does hurt you, that death goons are on the table."

"Like with Jeremy Clark?"

"Jeremy was a little thug who bullied and tormented you, and he deserved what happened to him."

"It was THIRD GRADE!"

"And the lesson he learned served him well to this very day. Model citizen, I understand."

Whatever Jenny was about to say next was drowned out by the sound of the Red Alert alarm. "Fuck," I muttered, tapping my earpiece. "Delilah, what's going on?"

"The Lair is under attack by a superhero," Delilah Doom said. "Patching the feed through now."

I threw the image onto the big screen. A dark-skinned young woman with black dreads, dressed in a skin-tight red outfit, was speeding around the outer perimeter of the Lair, punching death goons in the face. "DOCTOR OBLIVION!" she screamed. "I KNOW YOU'VE KIDNAPPED JEN! DOES YOUR TREACHEROUSNESS KNOW NO LIMIT!?"

I slowly turned my head, one degree at a time, to look at Jenny. My daughter's face was a mask of horrified realization. "So. . ." I said. "'Tracy'. I don't suppose that would be a nickname for Trace Margrave? As in. . . the secret identity of the superhero Tracer Fire?"

". . . she told me she had a part-time job," Jen whimpered. "Dad. . ."

I sighed. I'd kept my relationship to Jennifer as secret as I could. Kids of supervillains often end up as targets for the types of antihero vigilantes who think that killing bad guys is the same thing as helping the good. And Tracer Fire was exactly the kind of hero who might blab Jen's real identity out of impulse or some misguided sense of honor. . . or even worse, break up with her. "Don't worry about it," I said. "Dad will take care of it."

I fired a dart from my wrist-launcher. Jen whirled around, clapping a hand to her neck. "Dad, you fucking asshole! I meant you should talk to heeerrrrrrr. . ."

She was passed out before she could finish the sentence. I caught her and lowered her gently to the couch. "Sorry, honey. Not my style."

I took a moment to address my goons over the private channel. "Death Goons. Engage Rapunzel Protocol." Nonlethal weapons only. Don't escalate against the attacker. Secure essential areas, but leave the path to my private chambers open. Try to funnel the attacker into my private chambers for a 1 on 1 confrontation. Do not interfere with their escape. Full medical care for anyone who is wounded, full retirement benefits for anyone who suffers a career-ending injury.

I took a wad of bills from my wallet and tucked them into her jacket pocket. "A little spending money, hon," I said. "And apology money for the kidnapping." I took a moment to arrange her theatrically on the couch, then took up my position standing at the window, looking out over the bubbling magma pools.

Tracer Fire kicked down the door with a mighty CRACK! Then she gave a mighty gasp. "DOCTOR OBLIVION!" she bellowed. "WHAT FOUL DEEDS HAVE YOU VISITED UPON MY BELOVED JEN!"

"WHAT!?" I screamed back. "How DARE you imply that I could. . . I could HARM AN INNOCENT!?"

"Then why did you kidnap my GIRLFRIEND!?" Tracer Fire shouted.

"To lure you out of course!" I cackled. "Too long have we danced around each other in this little game of ours. . . today, it ENDS!" I tapped the badge on my chest, and my powered armor deployed around me with a thousand little clicks and whirrs.

'Tracy' let out a gasp. "Then this. . . was a TRAP!"

Sure, let's go with that. I tapped a control on my wrist and closed the blast shutters: I'd had them installed for those times when the magma pools got a little extra-bubbly. "NOW YOU ARE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME!" I bellowed. "AND NOW YOU MEET YOUR DOOM!"

I deployed my defensive turrets, surreptitiously turning down their accuracy so that every shot would barely miss. Knowing Tracer Fire, she'd take out the turrets before going after me, which would give me enough time to deploy the catwalk over the magma pools. A quick fistfight over the magma, a dramatic plunge for me into the molten rock. . . it would test my powered armor's mega-shields, but they should hold long enough for Tracy and Jen to make their daring escape.

The things I do for my daughter. I sighed. "I hope you appreciate this, young lady," I muttered, activating my electro-fists.

>Good luck not existing!

that is actually what I expect after death, just disappear into the void, stop the existence of the mind and thought so there is nothing. They say you get what you believe in. I choose to believe in nothing and get nothing in return.

Isn't that literally just project "Tapered Spear" from the article SCP-3309?

Edit: Okay, I waybackmachined it... 682 wasn't a part of the article in the past.

good job! Also

>Dad, I hate you for this

This sentence gave me strong Lucifer vibes.

Given this is hell, they're probably used by frat boys who live off cheap beer and Taco Bell.

A great prompt, but just a brilliant short story!

Very dark humour but I would love to see a series of graphic novels of this and other stories of this hell.

Huge kudos for creating a complex system and then creating a super clever loophole to break it.

Wow! What a bitch, has to be said!

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On instinct due to my history of running into people like them. And seeing the shush as a signal to turn them away. I shout "hail satan" and slam the door. Annoyed I look to him and he gives me a apologetic look.

"This is the third time this week" I say annoyed as we have a seat in the living room.

"I know. I never thought it turned to this though. I can sense selfish desires from them. It breaks my heart" he says.

"Welcome to the modern era. Where some wear their faith on their sleeves whereas some where it on their wallets" i say pouring us some wine.

Miles was not a good woman.

Back when she was still alive, one knew, with just one look at her—the sores on her face, the stench emanating from them, the discoloration of the little skin that wasn't popping red with white pus—exactly where she was headed, if religious. If the observer was a non-believer, then, well, instead of feeling pious-pity towards this grotesque masquerade of a woman, they'd just cross the street and try their best to get the stench out of their nose and the sight out of their mind.

Miles herself was a devout Catholic. She was so incredibly devoted to the higher power of God that she went to Church, like many others good Christians, only on Christmas Eve, drunk and hazy, making sure to have drank so much that she wouldn't remember the next day whether she had gone or not. Despite this lack of reverence, and many other vices, though, Miles was sure, once she had passed, and everything had turned black, that when she opened her eyes she'd be face to face with the Saviour Himself.

Just like she had predicted, when her soul regained the pure consciousness that only souls had with all physical volition gone, she saw a man. The land surrounding them was bright white. This had to be Heaven.

"Welcome to Hell," the man said. Miles smiled. So, God had a sense of humor after all, she thought to herself.

"Hello, Father," Miles said. Then, instinctively, like a fawn that knows to hide in the bushes, or a salmon that knows to swim upstream, Miles held her arm out in front of her. The small, round burns that had been with her since childhood were gone. The sores and discoloration, too, had faded away. She was holding up an arm that, though it was hers now, she did not recognize. The feeling was strange to her.

The man ahead, in fact the Devil, not God, further explained to Miles that it was true: she was not in Heaven, but Hell. After a showing involving flames and red-skin, Miles was finally convinced, though still confused.

The clean, white light; the cordiality of the man; the cleansing of her body—how could this be hell? she wondered.

"Your confusion is normal," the Devil said. "Almost everyone finds this place a little different than they had imagined. But some things align with preconceived notions: this is, Hell; and you, Madame, will be punished."

"Okay," Miles said. She eyed the small man up and down, thinking he wasn't so much different from him, the one she had when she was alive. "So what's my punishment?"

"That's the thing—you get to choose."

"I do?" Miles said, smiling now. This man was just like him. Just like all of them. Whatever this game was, she'd be victor. "Is this like, a genie thing? I choose, but then you warp it to be bad?"

The Devil nodded. "That's a way to think of it."

"Okay," Miles said. She licked her teeth, a habit she had formed as a child whenever she was excited. The giddiness in her chest made her feel like a schoolgirl again. "I'd like to spend my time in Hell together with my husband."

The Devil paused for a moment. It looked as if the light in his eyes had gone off, as if he were a computer and suddenly went into sleep-mode. Then, he turned back on.

"Your husband is currently in Heaven," he said. Miles nodded.

"That doesn't surprise me."

"I can bring him down under, but are you sure that's what you want?"

Miles looked the Devil in the eyes and knew that she had won. "Yes."

"All right. Have fun." The Devil clapped his hands and instantly Miles found herself in the house that had belonged to her when living. In front of her, on the couch, was her husband, dazed and confused from the fall.

Back in the light, with a new customer in front of him, the Devil felt good about his choice. Miles didn't seem like an atrocious person—sure, snatching someone from Heaven was bad, but it's normal for humans to want to be with their beloved—so he hadn't warped her wish at all. He figured the bickering from her husband, an eternity of complaints about being brought to Hell, would be enough punishment. Things might even get physical; he smiled.

Back in the house, though, the Devil could not have been more wrong. The husband, a tiny, meek excuse of a man, sat, shivering, on the couch. On seeing his wife, he shook even more, and brought his hands up in front of his face to defend from the incoming strike.

that’ll be an awesome band name

I feel like I should edit it a little and make reference to rhe traps,somewhere before it hits him. I just don't know where it would go in Well.

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Oh this one is really good.

Looks like Lilith didn't take after daddy!

An award for the Revolutionary Hell Lesbians

What a sentence

strong ted chiang vibes !

Golden. The fact that he dies so fast before even figuring it out was a turn I wasn’t expecting

Good for him!

That is how a plan comes together. Beautiful.

They werent real

Aye, warm beer is nasty.