Hellsfire

Chapter One

Here's a fun fact about demons.

They're not evil. They're not mindless abominations that murder everything in sight. They don't lack feelings. Demons are people.

Here's another fun fact about demons.

Despite the above, some of them are cannibals.

Levi Sterling has discovered this at a rather unfortunate time. He's barely ten minutes away from his place, he almost got through the day without incident. He's just been to the shops getting groceries, and now he's walking - well, running - through the park. There's trees and grass and some kind of demon chasing after him and there's no one around to save him.

Levi is also a demon why is it doing this why is this happening-

He should have expected this, really, because sometimes humans are cannibals, so there isn't anything stopping demons from being cannibals.

...but. He'd had faith in demons as a whole.

Keyword: 'had'.

He's trying to get away without looking panicked. He doesn't want anyone else to be scared because this thing is after him and him alone, and, you know, he's meant to be a King Of Hell. He should be beating the shit out of this little bastard. This situation should have been resolved ages ago.

But, well, unfortunately, he's kind of stuck and not very King Of Hell-y at the moment. Currently, he only has a small percentage of the strength he's meant to have and his stupid teenage girl body has betrayed him. Why is he still alive? This is the shittiest possible situation to be in.

Also, his shoelace is undone.

Something is following him, and he doesn't quite know what. It's definitely a demon, but he doesn't know what kind of demon. It doesn't look like a person, that's for sure.

He's got a policy of "Don't Look Back", because the moment he looks back he will freeze in fear and the demon will come and eat him because cannibalism. He doesn't want to die yet. He's only like 22 and still hasn't reclaimed his rightful place in Hell. There is so much he has to get done and he can't be disrupted again by a stupid cannibal demon who-

Levi stumbles over an uneven patch, knocking a carton of strawberry milk out of his shopping bag and spilling pink all over the red brick of the path. He'd be more devastated if-

If he hadn't just seen the demon.

If you can imagine a child, do that. If you can imagine a child made of lava, do that. If you can imagine a short man made of lava wearing jorts and a bucket hat, that would probably be the best description. That is what is following Levi right now, and he doesn't like it.

Levi freezes. Not because of the bucket hat. Because of the lava.

Why did it have to be lava? Couldn't it be something less ouchie? Something less painful? Something less fatal? A water demon, maybe? A plant demon?

Of course it's lava. What else would it be?

Levi turns forward and bolts. He just goes for it. Faster than he's ever run. Faster than the wind. Faster than a jet plane. Faster than anything he can think of, because if he doesn't run fast he will either be evaporated, or murdered, or eaten by this jorts lava demon, and he isn't very good at running, and he needs something to distract his thoughts from the burning in his lungs.

Levi stops running after twenty seconds to take a break. He can't breathe. He's wearing a binder, and you're not supposed to run in those things. And he isn't fit, and he hasn't run anywhere since high school P.E., and even if he hadn't made the stupid fucking choice to wear his binder today he would have been in the exact same situation. If the demon doesn't kill him, he'll probably break his ribcage from trying to breathe too hard anyway.