One minute past midnight, the start of the Witching Hour, I exited the portal and hurried to the house.

Hell was repetitious. Every day you woke in perfect health then were slowly tortured to death. Many went insane within a week and were never seen again. I learned to limit my screaming: it only encouraged the demon torturers. I took every opportunity to talk to other survivors and even the demons themselves. They were just doing their job and were happy to share their knowledge as they hosed you with flesh-eating acid or thrust a red-hot poker into your eye socket.

Eventually I came to the attention of Satan himself. He made me an offer, promotion to demon to become a torturer. I made him a counter-offer. He liked it, although it took time to iron out the details.

Satan got on his hotline to God and reached agreement that I didn’t deserve to be in Hell; I could be allowed to make an unprecedented return provided I hadn’t become a demon. Nevertheless Satan endowed me with some talents I’d find useful.