The dragoness awoke as the judge slid a scroll between her claw-hands. She looked up and saw that the angel was gone. Sandy was still here, still stared at the scales, but her mouth hung open with horror. The creature looked over to the judge, who nodded solemnly.
“I’m sorry, Sandy,” said the dragon. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
“But the scales are balanced!” wailed the human. And indeed they were.
“But only one grain extra on either side could confer the judgement.”
Sandy tried escape. She managed to take two steps to freedom before a couple of scaly claws lifted her into the air. The dragon hauled the girl over one painfully spiky shoulder and took her through a doorway.
It led to a classic vision of Hell, albeit a fairly quiet one. Lava bubbled in circular lakes of fire, surrounded by harsh volcanic rock. Sulphur and brimstone stank out the air. There were no wailing souls to be seen or heard.
“I think I need the lavatory,” said Sandy, shivering, as she was returned to the floor.
“Well you don’t need the lavatory, Sandy. Your body just remembers, uhh, going before you were bo… before you died. It doesn’t need to any more.”
The dragoness looked at her charge, who was shifting from one foot to the other, and sighed. “Use those rocks over there. I’ll turn my head away.”
After a while, Sandy said, “You’re quite nice for a demon.”
The creature sighed miserably. “I am to be your tormentor. You will quickly start to loathe me. Ohh, and don’t try to run away again. You don’t want to be running at all on this thin crust. One foot wrong and you’re up to your waist in lava.”
“Won’t you be doing that to me anyway?” asked the condemned soul shakily.
“I… can’t say I won’t.”
Sandy returned reluctantly to the friendly torturer, who opened the scroll that she had been given.
“You have committed more evil than good in your life, and so you shall be punished accordingly.”
The dragon read on, lips curling slightly around silent words as she took the writing in.
“What does it say?” begged Sandy.
“The sum total of evil you have committed, less the goodness you have wrought…”
She suddenly lifted a talon and stamped it down hard on Sandy’s foot.
“Aaaagh!”
The damned soul hopped away.
“This concludes your punishment. Your torment is finally at an end.”
The dragoness breathed onto the scroll and it evaporated into flame and ash.
“That’s it?” asked Sandy incredulously, before overbalancing and toppling into a pool of lava.
The demon sighed and dropped her tail into the fluid furnace for its occupant to grab hold.
“What are you, a masochist? As you said, the scales nearly balanced. Very nearly. Now stop screaming and we can go have a drink.”
By Hedonism