text: (WP) Tortures of the Damned When you get to Hell, the last thing you expect is to see your stepdad, the coolest man in the world, sitting atop its throne. “My son, at long last, has come home!” He booms, standing up to greet and embrace me. “Dad? I don’t understand. I don’t get what you’re doing here, much less why you’re--” Your father, who is really your stepfather but raised you as his own, gives a great boom of a laugh. “The King of Hell?” He finishes, smirking; his face reminds you rather unpleasantly of the cat after it ate the canary. “I was as shocked as you were, when I first got here. Now I’ve got full run of the place!” You stare at him, your jaw on the floor. Growing up, he was your biggest role model; you wanted to be just like him. He raced cars, treated your divorced mother like royalty, was always kind and firm with you. So how had he ended up here, of all places, in the afterlife? The question must show on your face, because he smiles, looking like his old self. “Oh, kiddo. There were things I did before I met you and your ma, things that I was so ashamed of that I barely even told her anything.” There’s naked vulnerability in his expression, something you’d never seen when he was alive. “But here! Let me give you a tour of the place! God, your ma would’ve loved this place, kiddo. Hotter than the damn desert on a sunny day in California.” He laughs, and you follow him, eyes sweeping across the barren, fiery landscape of Hell. Your father points to a firelit pit, thick with the stench of blood, tears, and pain. “That over there is The Pit,” He says, nodding over to it. “Fortunately, that honor is reserved for some of the worst people to ever exist.” *And I didn’t qualify,* he adds silently, his eyes narrowing to slits as he observes the tortured and the damned. The area is so dark and shadowed you can’t make out that much; the only thing you can really hear are screams and the insistent, vicious *crack, crack, crack* of the whip. You make out the silhouette of a thick and stocky man with a thinning, gray goatee and little, beady brown eyes. “Hey, Dad, isn’t that... Isn’t that...” “A certain Hollywood movie producer who used his power to hurt unsuspecting young ingenues?” Dad replies, smirking so hard that he can’t keep the wicked glee off of his face. “Oh, yes. He may have escaped punishment in the mortal world, but you can be sure that The King of Hell and his subject never forget.” He’s pleased as punch, and despite yourself, so are you. It does what’s left of your soul good to see villains getting their just desserts. “Well, Dad, you’ve done great for yourself in the afterlife. I mean, The King of Hell, that’s really something.” “And it’s all yours, kiddo. If I’m the King of Hell, then you’re its prince.