What do you think of this short story idea?

2009-02-21 20:32:39 UTC

There are too many souls in Hell. Even the Io Overflow Annex is full. So God tells the Devil that he must release at least 1000 souls who are presently in the top (mildest) level of the main Hell area in the mantle of Earth. These are the sinners who were almost good enough to get into Heaven, but not quite, so they were just barely damned.

The Devil doesn't like letting souls go once they've been in his clutches, but he must obey God or he might be converted from Warden of Hell to being just another inmate. The Devil decides to have some hellish fun in the process of selecting the 1000 lucky souls who will receive a second chance at living a good life on Earth and then going to Heaven.

He chooses a thousand people and lies to them. He says that of them all only ONE of them will get to go back to Earth to be born again. He says he'll let go whichever soul is chosen by all of the others. Naturally everyone in the group of candidates wants to be the one chosen. But it soon becomes clear that nobody will escape from hell if everybody keeps selfishly insisting on himself. One of the sentimental female souls suggests that the poor, weak soul of a crippled person be allowed the chance to be reborn. Everyone else grudgingly agrees, and their selection committee informs the Devil of their decision.

The Devil congratulates the ethereal invalid, but he says that there is one more test to pass. The other people in his group will be allowed to watch, but not interfere. The chosen soul is conducted into a room where there are weapons, and the Devil leaves him there. He can't move around because he's still crippled and weak. Suddenly, the opposite door bursts open and IN walks the vigorous soul of a strapping warrior. The warrior and the cripple look at each other.

Then over the PA system, the Devil's voice tells the two souls that they both come from groups of 1000 and that they must fight to determine which of their groups will be released from Hell. Whoever wins, wins for their entire group.

The people in both groups of 1000 souls overhears the Devil saying this to the souls who they'd chosen. The group that chose the warrior is now very happy that they chose their best and strongest to have the chance at a new life. The group that chose the weak cripple is now cursing themselves for being sentimental instead of logical.

The warrior soul picks up a knife, walks over to the cripple, and casually cuts his throat. In practice, what this means in Hell is that the soul that gets killed moves down one level in the myriad compartments of Hell and suffers a degree of torture that is a notch greater than what he'd been suffering before. And every member of the crippled soul's group also (poof!) moves down to the lower level.

The warrior and his group move outward from Hell back to Earth to be born again with a new chance to live a good life and be worthy of Heaven when they die. The End.