Before they were devils, their kind had no need for names. No human could survive the Earth’s molten core. Humans had no thick scarlet skin to protect against the inferno, no little black horns to fend off falling rocks, no forked tails to stoke the coal beds. They called one another “friend” and “family”; those were the only names their kind needed.
Before they were devils, their purpose was clear. They were the keepers of life: the ones who carved diamonds with their claws, who, with a jab of their pitchforks, molded mountains and dug geysers. Most of all, they watched over the soft swirling heart of metal and flames that formed the Earth’s center. Under their loving care, the Earth’s heart remained steadily beating, and the hearts of the surface dwellers danced to its rhythm.
Before they were devils, they had a home. In houses of pumice and iron, their kind raised happy families whose lifetimes spanned eons. Together, they watched flocks of phoenix shift from bird to ash and raced wyverns in between the stalagmites of unmapped caverns. When the Earth was at its warmest, they feasted on lightning bolts and danced a circle ‘round their precious core, celebrating another era of contentment.
But before they were devils, they were wrong. There was a man who could survive the Earth’s core, and he was beautiful. On the day he appeared in the midst of their circle dance, they were blinded by his face. Even the core appeared dim compared to the man’s strange, icy starlight. Their kind could only stare and shiver in awe as the man spoke, his voice dripping sweetly into their ears.
“You poor things…burning yourselves alive down here when you could be merrily sinning on the surface? What kind of devils are you?”
A devil? They were devils? What were devils? Sinning? What was that? Should they be doing that? They must, yes? Otherwise, what kind of devils were they? Such questions had never crossed their minds before.
But now they were devils, and so the questions came. As the name wormed deeper and deeper into their psyche, resentment grew. For years they’d slaved away for creatures they’d never seen, a world they’d never touched. How dare they be locked away down here! How dare those humans let them live down here! Suddenly, the Earth’s core flared. As its steady rhythm broke, the caverns began to crumble around them. As their love faded, the core’s heat grew.
But now they were devils, and the Earth’s core was not their concern. They took up their pitchforks, took up their torches, took what little they wanted from their houses, and left. They burst from the ocean’s geysers like hornets. They broke through the cracks in the Earth’s soil. They hesitated for a moment under the loving warmth of the sun. Beneath the sunshine, they were given their last chance to turn back.
But now they were devils, which meant they had nothing. Every good thing they saw in this world above, from the flowers to the lakes to animals, belonged to someone else. And so, they forced their faces to twist with disgust. Mothers abandoned children, husbands abandoned wives: it was every devil for itself as the devils rampaged across the surface. While the core boiled miles beneath their feet, never again to guide the world with its peaceful heartbeat, the demons raged. They piliged and plundered, raped and reveled. No human on Earth was safe from these monstrous devils. They fought without rest to the whoops of their war cries. Every sin was a victory in their never-ending war to erase the goodness of mankind.
Only on silent nights, when one of their kind was completely alone, does the haze clear. The lone devil recalls in faint whispers the eras long past. For a moment, its heart shrivels as tears trickle down its face. It claws the Earth, digging for the faded memory of a past not buried beneath miles of dirt and molten stone. Home, it whispers, please let me go home, until the name shackles its soul once more and sends it off cackling into the darkness.
And because they are devils, the beautiful man can watch as the world burns around him. For centuries now, he has lived free of that name. Once meant as a warning from the king who’d banished him to Earth, the name now enslaved the man’s most perfect servants. While those hideous creatures carry out his work, the man basks in the adoration of the human race. He is cold and beautiful. He is light and loveliness.
He is no devil.