#7

Dear Frances,
Satan came into the room again. Except this time he brought me with him when he left. He said he had to start teaching me how to be Satan now. I was going to refuse, but then he started to stare furiously at me, so I went with him, shivering. Today was my first day of "training", and, ugh. It--it's hard to describe how I felt throughout this training. There were a lot of things going through my mind at once, so I don't think I'll be able to say all of them.
Outside of the room there's this, like, hallway sort of thing, but it's not really a hallway. I don't know how to describe it. It's like it looks like a hallway, but it feels like a cave or something. Anyway, we walked through it, in silence, mostly, except for when he said that that room is mine, so I had better get used to it. I didn't answer. I also made sure there was a four-foot radius between Satan and I whenever possible.
He led me to this office-y sort of thing, but it was very dark and unorganized-looking for an office. There were two candles lit on a desk to the side, but I could see that there were a lot of unlit candles standing around the perimeter of the room, doing nothing. I glanced nervously back and forth from Stan to the desk. I was so scared. I'm still pretty scared of that desk. I mean, now I know what it's for, but it's still scary.
The desk is for paperwork. As the Devil, it's my job to account for every soul that comes in. I have to sign a piece of paper for all of them, and then send it away, along with its folder of sins and wrongdoings and such, to the demons who are in charge of punishments and eternal placements and other such assignments.
The Devil sighed sort of...wearily, almost, as he watched folder after folder pile up on his desk while more and more people died and came to Hell. It was strange to think of the Devil doing something as normal as sighing wearily at his ever-growing workload, much like any office worker would, or even sighing at all. It was such a normal human thing. It made me think how he used to be a normal human, until his father came and took him away from Earth. A lot of questions stirred up in me, but not any that I would ever ask. As if I'm asking the Devil about his past. I was too scared to even look at him, let alone volunteer hearing his voice directed at me.
He said it was the only actual paperwork I would have to do, but it would keep me busy. He said that he did it for four hours every three hours, and that usually kept him up to date. You have no idea how weird it was to hear him talking about things so normally like this. It creeps me out. My soul is....shaken. I was wondering how much time that left for sleep, and as soon as I thought it, he said he never slept. I couldn't help but look at him. He never did sleep, did he. People died all the time, and people did bad things all the time. He said that part of my training would get rid of the desire for sleep, and other such humanly "glitches", he called them. He said I would be able to eat if I wanted, but I probably wouldn't. He also said that as Satan-ish as I would become, I would still be a human inside, and thus, I would age and die, hence the need to procreate and have an heir. It made me wonder if there were any girl Satans. It also made me really, really wish I had not been born.
He went over to the desk and gave me a folder. I clutched it for a long time, shaking with fear. I had a life in my hands. He grabbed my right wrist, making me drop the papers all over the floor, and flipped my arm over so the veiny side was up, and he touched it with one of his very long nails. I screamed in pain. It felt like all of the whole world's pain had been confined into that one little speck of my arm he was touching, and then it had been intensified. It was the worst pain I have ever felt. It was physical pain and emotional pain and spiritual pain. It hurt so much. He removed his fingernail after I had screamed for a short while. He let go of me, and I clutched my arm as hard as I had clutched the person's folder. I looked at the speck. My skin was literally boiling, and smoke was rising a little bit. It was the worst feeling I have ever felt. It still hurts like nothing I've ever felt in my whole life. It was so strange, because I felt like it had scarred my arm and my soul and my brain all at the same time. It was awful. It's like I've been through some crazy trauma, but all he did was touch me for a few seconds.
Then he showed me his right arm. On it were many similar scars, scattered like large, disgusting freckles across the plain of his forearm. He said that's what I would get if I did something wrong. He must have done many wrong things. I felt sweat break out on my body. Everywhere. I'm still sweaty now. He said to pick up the folder, so I did, and glanced at the first few pages. It was minor stuff, like taking someone's toy without asking first. Satan said not to bother looking, it takes too much time. He flipped through to the back page, where a line with an X beside it waited for Satan's signature.
I thought he wanted me to sign it or something, but as far as I know, I'm not Satan. So I didn't. He signed is as T. Devil. He said Lucifer, the original Devil, signed it as F. Angel, for Fallen Angel, and he had lived for a good five hundred or so years, but since he had left heaven, he didn't have eternal life any more, so he died too, and nobody else was ever an angel so they signed it as whatever they wanted, as long as it was Hellish. He glanced at me. T is for The, he said. How creative, I thought. I can't believe I actually thought that. It seems too normal to be thinking sarcastic thoughts while in Hell, becoming the next leader of eternal death.
He said for the next four hours he'd be doing these papers, so while he signed them, I could prepare them for sending and them put them in slot and we'd get twice the work done. So today I clamped countless folders, sealed them, then packaged them in groups of 25 to be put into the slot for wherever they went after. It was a long four hours, and the whole time I was just thinking about my mom. I miss her so much, Frances. How am I going to do this without her. I cried a little bit, quietly, as I sat on the floor next to T. Devil, but he didn't say anything. I stopped crying eventually, and after he had finished, we left the office and he sent me back to the room. He said This would probably be the last good sleep I got, because in a few hours he'd be teaching me things that would make the desire for sleep slowly go away.
It's a horrifying thought. So here I am, wasting away the time I should be getting my last good sleep by thinking about the heaps of papers I'll have to sign in the future, and the things I'll learn that will take away my dreams, and missing my mother, and writing in here, and crying half-heartedly now and again. Crying, I'm learning, is getting me nowhere. It only makes me miss life more.
Phew. This has been a long entry, Frances. It took up like seven pages. But I spent four hours with him. How could I not make it long?
I guess this means I'm adjusting a little bit, because I don't even have the energy to be an emotional wreck. I just feel down. I don't want to adjust, but there's not really a lot I can do about this, is there. I hate this. My inevitable future grows dimmer and dimmer.