I stopped dead in my tracks upon hearing knocking coming from the other side of the door. The only two times I opened this door it was just a cement wall like you'd expect. Now, with The Three Princes present, it led somewhere else, it led where it was supposed to. After a few seconds, I then threw up my entire insides when I heard a voice.

"Hellooooo?" The voice was melodic. It was the most fantastic male voice I'd ever heard despite sounding muffled from behind a closed door. I needed that voice to narrate my life from here on out. "Somebody must be there."

"I..bluh," was all I could get out.

"Ha! Such a surprise is not uncommon. I presume you realize to whom you are now speaking?"

No, it couldn't possibly be him. Religion is supposed to be a myth, something to believe in, to be a crutch in hard times. This is the real world, do beings like God and Lucifer actually exist?

"Uh, the Devil?" I stupidly stammer. It felt awkward, I didn't mean to say that.

"Well, I don't answer to my slave name," he returned.

"Lucifer," I said. For some reason I started feeling safer, knowing that the door was closed. If he was able to open it if this was really him, he would. It was locked and the key was required.

"Bingo," he returned.

"How do I know this isn't some trick? How do I really know it's you?"

"Ah, you require proof! Well, unlike SOME OTHER people around here, I can provide that. I do not require blind faith." He then proceeded to tell a story. It started with "One day, there was a little boy," and he proceeded to tell the story of the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. Only my parents and a select few other people I haven't seen in at least 20 years knew about it. But whoever this was on the other side of the door, he knew too. "Your secret is safe with me though!" he finished.

"So what happens now?" I asked.

"So glad you asked," he said. His voice was so awesome. I hated hearing the sound of my voice, I needed his voice instead. "It is so perversely simply. It is positively asinine how simple it is. The simplicity of it all is almost absolutely preposterous in nature." He sure was verbose. "What's next is, you open the door and I grant you your heart's foremost desire. Let's not make things any more complicated than they need to be however, let's not stand on ceremony. You open the door, tell me what you want, and it is yours."

I think to myself this is the prophecy alright. Holy shit, what the fuck have I done?

I regain my composure after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"I get a wish and then what?" I asked. "When does the part about selling my soul come into play here?"

"Your soul? Why in the HECK would I want your soul? You realize I have billions in here with me, yes?" Did he really just say heck?

They don't call it selling your soul to the dev..." I stop myself. "I mean, you get the idea."

He sighs on the other side of the door, I can hear it, muffled and all. "Oh yes. Such a ridiculous phrase. It is true, though most of the time this so-called "soul-selling" is done by one of my various associates. The difference here, my dear Brian, is that you aren't selling anything. It is simply a reward for opening the door."

I'm feeling strangely more confident the more we talk. I definitely feel like I have the advantage here, the more he says the more I get the feeling he really does need me to open the door.

"A reward huh?" I say. I felt confident enough to play hardball. "As in, anything?"

"Oh, my dear, dear Brian. Anything. That is the benefit of being a celestial being. May I make some suggestions?"

"Suggestions?" I ask.

"Of course, remember, I know you as well as he does. How about 400 trillion dollars in your bank account tomorrow? I'm very smart about this, Brian. After it is done, literally no one will ever ask you about it. The IRS will never notice, even when they look at your tax returns. As far as the bank is concerned you've always had that much in your account. Or how about a fully functional Infinity Gauntlet with all six Infinity Stones, also fully functional, as shown in the comics and movies?"

All I can think at this point is "wow." He really does know me, I can't believe he just offered me an Infinity Gauntlet.

"The list is simply endless, Brian. Immortality? Invincibility? Invisibility? Wealth? Cars? Any superpower of any superhero ever created, or all of them for that matter?"

He was playing hardball himself. I almost wished to myself I wasn't such a geek.

"That sounds amazing," I returned.

"You can have it," he said. It sounded like he was getting excited like he realized he had me. He didn't.

"But then what happens? If I open a door to Hell, then what? Armageddon? Hell on Earth? What good is my wish if there's no more world?"

He sighed. "We always end up here. Listen, it will not be Armageddon. It might be Hell on Earth, but only for those that deserve it. Besides, part of your wish can be spared any and all of your loved ones."

I think to myself "that was such poor word choice." He just said "sparing" my loved ones. That meant he had more in mind than just rounding up a bunch of sinners and scumbags. Much more, I began to realize.

"Those wishes sound really great, but something is still holding me back," I said.

There was a pause.

"I don't know why." For the first time, his voice wasn't sing-song, it wasn't melodic. It sounded annoyed. "It's not like you go to church anymore, Brian."

He was right. I didn't know if I still believed in God.

"You know, Brian, we really aren't all that different. All I did was the question, as you do now. I didn't understand, it seems you don't either."

"How do you mean? I asked.

"Why is the world the way it is, Brian? Why is it the way it is if it was created by an all-loving being? Why so much hate, division? Why so much war and violence? Why so much suffering?"

I didn't say anything.

"I will take your silence as agreement. Brian, I know why your faith in him wanes. It is for the same reasons my faith waned as well."

"And why is that?" I asked. I wanted to see what he would say.

"Well, let us ask ourselves, who is really the villain here? Who is the real fiend? I am not the one who gives children brain tumors. I do not give teenagers, who are just now at the very start of the best part of their lives, terminal cancer. I am not the one preventing good, loving couples from bearing children while drug-dealing lowlife criminals have eight children each with a different mother for whom they will care nothing."

I was trying to think of a rebuttal, but it was hard. I was trying to think of something, anything, I'd ever heard in church that might counter his points.

"You know what is really evil though, Brian? How can a being grant humans the ability to love someone else above even themselves, then take that person from them prematurely? He takes them, and people will say 'God called them home,' 'They are back with God now,' to make themselves cope with the loss. To me, that is the most absolute, pure evil imaginable. How selfish of a being to do this. Why is it that everything that goes wrong in a person's life, it is because it is God's will? They bear a child, yet it was God's will that it dies before it is even six months old?"

This was a powerful tirade, it's almost like he'd had an eternity to practice it.

"Brian, we are on the same team. You cannot deny you have thought these very same things. You look at the world and question how a creator could continue to allow things to go on as they have for so many millennia."

I couldn't believe it, I couldn't stand it, but he was right. The things he was saying, were exactly the reasons I had been having trouble believing there was a God.

"You know, Brian," he started. He sounded even colder now. He was getting impatient. "There's no guarantee you won't end up down here with me anyway in the end. You are certainly no saint."

He was right.

"I know you, Brian. You are the utmost anti-hero. You are very vindictive, a quality unacceptable up there. You want people who wrong you to pay for it."

He was right, but don't most people want that as well?

"You love to tell people how you would make a terrible Superman," he began. "Superman is the ultimate being not just physically, but morally and ethically. You wouldn't be if you had his powers. We both know if someone hurt a person you loved because they couldn't hurt you, you would absolutely fuck them up. If someone accosted a pretty waitress and then poured an entire beer over your head, oh buddy, they'd have been put through that wall, wouldn't they?"

He was right, I would make an awful Superman. I had said that exact thing to people. But he was also right in that for all I know, I could end up in Hell someday. I make fun of people I shouldn't, I cheated in school, I cut corners at work, I want to bang married women, I live a very gray life. I felt like maybe I am walking the line.

"So what do you say, Brian. Help me clean up the place around here?" I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a joke.

Remember a while ago when I said I knew exactly what I wanted to wish that could potentially not result in Armageddon and keep myself safe? It was at this time I realized there was nothing I could wish for that could undo this meeting. I could not word it in any way that he could not find a loophole that would result in my soul being his and Armageddon commencing.

"I don't want to be the one to bring about Hell on Earth," I said.

"Didn't you read the Book of Revelation?" he asked. He was annoyed again. It seemed like the angrier he got, the deeper his voice got. "He'll do that himself."

I was familiar with Revelation and he was right. It seemed Lucifer had literally nothing to do with the End of Days it spoke of.

"The end of the world will happen someday, there's no doubt about it," I start. "And as much as I want the gift you could offer, what good is a wish after Armageddon has occurred."

"Well, it will at least put you in my good graces," he bellowed. This was the deepest, most annoying voice yet. "Isn't it better to be next to me rather than in my way?" I'll give him that.

"I'm not gonna open the door," I put the key back in my pocket. "You might think you know me, but you don't. You're right, I would be an anti-hero, but at the same time, not all anti-heroes are true villains. I'm greedy and selfish, but I'm not the greedy, selfish person you think I am. I want very much to make a wish, but not at the cost of everything."

There was a long, drawn-out sigh on the other side. "Brian, open the door." If I had started off talking to Lucifer, this voice was definitely Satan. It was demonic, terrible.

I didn't move.

"OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!" Oh yeah, this was definitely Satan.

"No," I said back.

"YOU KNOW WHO'S HERE WITH ME RIGHT NOW?" He named off a couple of my relatives, even some recently deceased who I thought very highly of. Did they go to Hell? "THEY ARE GOING TO SUFFER TENFOLD! ONE HUNDRED! UNLESS YOU OPEN THIS DOOR!"

I didn't fall for his trap, for all I knew he was lying, but even if he wasn't, their being in Hell had nothing to do with me.

"It's very unfortunate if you're telling the truth, but if they are in there with you, it's by their own doing. They lived their own lives and made their own choices, that's not on anybody but themselves.

Satan roared with displeasure.

"IF I WERE YOU, I'D LIVE A PIOUS LIFE FROM NOW ON! YOU BEST GO TO CHURCH! IF YOU END UP DOWN HERE AFTER YOU PERISH SOMEDAY, YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS! ETERNITY IF ONLY FOREVER**!"** He must be insane, as he cackled maniacally after that last line after being so furious before.

I decided it was time to end this. I reached for a statue, the closest one to me, Beelzebub. As I began to pick it up I heard "NOOOOO!!!!" as I picked it up and hurled it across the room. It landed with a loud thud. I'd hoped I had broken it, but it was completely undamaged.

Since all three princes were no longer present, the doorway seemed to have shut. I quickly gathered the other two and stepped away from the door. All noises and groans I may have heard from the door ceased immediately.

What a rush. Part of me wondered if I hadn't just imagined everything that had transpired.

I packed up the statues back in my gym bag, knowing what had to be done. I knew they couldn't be destroyed so I knew I had to get rid of them for good. Here's what I did: over the next few days, I got some home concrete mix you can buy at Lowe's or something, Quikrete or whatever. I then encased each statue in a solid block of cement. I spent the next several weeks getting rid of them. I live in the Great Lakes region, so my plan was to drop them in the water at the deepest point I could get to. The bottom of the ocean would be preferable but I couldn't think of a way to get there aside from going on a cruise where blocks of cement would surely be confiscated. My plan was to drop each one in a different lake, hopefully never to be discovered again.

The first lake I decided on had a ferry that goes back and forth from shore to shore, conveniently passing over the deepest part of the lake. That was easy. About halfway through I coyly dropped the first one in. It took me another week to get to the second lake and I found a place that I could row out from the shore that it wouldn't take a month to get to the deepest point. It took hours, but the second statue was gone. The third lake I chose had speed boats available for charter. I went on a little cruise with a small group and once again dumped statue number three when nobody was looking.

It was done, or so I'd hoped. I can only pray they are never found. The cement may have been overkill, they were dense and heavy enough that they'd have sunk on their own, but at least this way I feel better than if they are somehow found, maybe if they see it's just a concrete block they'll leave it alone.

I got rid of the storage locker as well. I dismantled the door and sold all the contents of the locker. The magazines I had to throw out. Altogether I made about 45 bucks on the clothes, so I was only out five bucks. I used the door for firewood, it seemed the right thing to do to get rid of it.

As for the Key to Hell, I still have it. It still changes too. Don't worry, I only use it sparingly. Some of you are probably saying "you haven't used it on a bank at night?" No, I haven't. I'm no criminal. Besides, I'd particularly like to avoid going to Hell when I die someday. There's someone down there who's...substantially angry with me.