“I’d sell my soul for a piece of chocolate right about now.”

Why, oh why, did I have to be summoned by those cursed words?

“For the last time,” I growled through grit teeth, “I cannot teleport either you or myself anywhere. I cannot summon anyone else. I can only give you chocolate in exchange for your soul.”

“HNGGGGGGGGG” the human’s moan was worse than an infant’s wail as he flopped over onto his back, arms spread out. “But I don’t waaant to sell my soul. I’m dying here, man. Can’t you at least… give me a freebie or something?”

“I’m a demon. I don’t give out freebies.”

Another godforsaken moan. “What kind of demon can only exchange chocolates for souls, anyways?”

I slammed my palm against a tree and all the trees around us shivered at the blow, some of their leaves fluttering through the night to the ground but the human didn’t so much as blink. “Look, human—”

“I’m Davie.”

“Do you think I like this?” I shouted. “Oh, sure, it’s great to be the demon who can give out immense wealth or can make hot girls fall in love with you or eradicate everyone in a three point seven mile radius.” I started pacing around the small clearing, dragging my nails against the bark of every tree I passed. “Yeah, everyone just loooves Naetengar and Grahmag and Laelkam because their jobs are just so damn easy and glorified. Do you know how hard it is being able to only exchange chocolate? DO YOU?! It’s been four hundred years since I got my last soul! Four hundred years! Mkarvo brought in a dozen souls just last month and got his fifth “Demon of the Month” award. Won’t stop rubbing it in my face, either. Maybe, just maybe they should get my job! See how well they fare then, HAH. They wouldn’t last a day, so they can all just go jump into the lake of fire and drown themselves!”

The human stared up at me for a moment, one eyebrow raised. “Hey, pal, can you do me a solid real quick?”

“What.”

“Can you just, like, take all of that salt—all of it, a’ight—and, like, make some salted caramel? Oh man, salted caramel is just the greatest.”

I bared my teeth and let a low rumble out of my chest. “I swear, I will fry your tongue in your own blood inside your throat while you yet breathe.”

“I hear cow tongue tastes pretty great, now that you mention it. Haven’t had any myself, so who knows.” His limbs started fidgeting in the dead leaves he lay in. “Hnnnnnng, it’s been, like, decades since I’ve eaten anything.”

“I haven’t been to the surface of this world since slaves, choking on their own vile, lay amongst the rotting bodies of their brethren in the sunless cargo holds where they had only their own pitiful wails for company.”

“That’s a mood.”

I fell against a tree and, slowly, let gravity pull me down to the ground so that I may rest my forehead against my knees. “This is it, isn’t it? This is the whole ‘God’s divine punishment’ you humans seem so obsessed about. What else would be determined to torture me thus?”

“Can’t you just, like, zap yourself back to Hell, or wherever you came from?” He asked, punctuating his zap with a much unneeded waving of his flimsy arm.

“Our new boss is strict. Once summoned outside of Hell, a demon can only open the gates of Hell with the deposit of a human soul. That way, even if the summoner decides not to go through with the deal, the demon will seek out other humans who will.”

“Ah, I see. It’s like those shopping carts at Aldi’s.” He nodded with about as much wisdom as a hermit crab. “That really blows.”

“You’re telling me. You think you’re stuck out here?” I lifted my head just to let it fall against the hard bark of the trees. “Try being stuck on a godawful planet filled with sniveling little wormy creatures who die as soon as they sneeze.”

He flopped himself around, much like a bug trapped on its back, until he could look at me with those gooey eyes humans have yet to evolve out of. “Hey, I’m sorry I got you lost out here with me, man. I’ll make it up to you.”

I cocked my head to peer at him. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Will you sell your soul to me?”

“Well, no, I was thinking more like getting you a milkshake or something. Sonic© has this great buy-one-get-one-free deal going on right now, so, y’know I—”

“Great,” I groaned, letting my head roll onto my shoulder. “Just great. A milkshake to me is about as useful as useful as hellhound urine is to you.”

“Okay, okay, f—wait, is hellhound pee useful to you?”

“Where do you think acid rain comes from?”

“I...” He shook his head. “Wait, no, not going there right now.” Davie propped himself up on his elbows. “How about when we get back to civilization, I’ll help you find someone to sell their soul to you?”

I squinted at him. “You mean that?”

“Sure. Why not? I feel bad for dragging you out—up—here.”

“You do realize that means sentencing one of your own kin to a lifetime of torment and suffering.”

“Wow, well, if you put it that way, sure, that’s kind of a bummer.” Davie groaned and flopped onto his back once more. “What if I get you some douche or something? Y’know, a real low life. We win, you win, and we all get kudos, huzzah.”

“You can’t just get me someone. They have to choose it of their own free will.”

“Details, details,” Davie flapped one hand in the air. “First, we have to make it out of this forest alive. Then we can focus on the semantics of your situation.”

“I know a way to get out of here easily.”

“Really?!” He flung himself up and swiveled his hips until he had somehow managed to roll himself closer to me. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? Let’s do it!”

“Okay, great!” I gave him the prettiest smile I could muster in such a cursed human form. “It’s very simple. All you have to do is sell me your soul, I give you your chocolate, slit your throat, you die, and I go back to Hell. Easy!”

“Fantastic plan, but I think you could use some constructive criticism. How about we do all of that... miiiiiinus the whole ‘I lose my soul and then die’ part. Other than that, I think it’s perfect.”

“Mmmmmmm,” I tapped one long finger against my chin thoughtfully, “no, it really is a package deal. Sorry. Got a knife on you?”

“Oh, wait, hold up...” Davie sat up on his knees and pat himself down for a second before letting out a huge sigh. “Darn it, y’know what, I think I left my human sacrifice knife in my other pants. My bad. Though I think your gigantic claws are more than enough to do the trick, truth be told.”

I stretched out one hand to cast my gazed own over my fingers. My black claws bulged at the base a little bit too much for human standards, then tapered themselves out to a curved point. “They’re not that big. Only a couple inches. You should see Grahmag’s. Now those are some nice claws.”

“Sounds like a great itinerary for a field trip, but I think I’d prefer playing hooky instead. Get some crucial video game hours in.” Davie let out a yawn and scooted himself over to the tree next to me, leaning himself against it. “God, I hope we don’t have to stay out here much longer.”

“Don’t humans usually have search parties for these situations?” I inquired.

Davie shrugged. “Sure, buuuuuuut… no one really knows I’m out here. So.”

“Of course. Why the bloody hell not. That’d be too easy.” In that moment, I was rather proud of resisting the urge to claw out his pathetic tongue. “Of course, I’d be summoned by the one human who was stupid enough to go wandering in the woods by himself at night with no one in the world knowing where he is to find him. Why am I not surprised.”

“Hey, I wasn’t being stupid,” Davie huffed, “I know these woods pretty well, okay?”

“I can tell.”

“I do! I just...” He looked away from me, and even in the dark I could see a faint red tinting the tips of his too-large ears. “There was a really cute bunny, okay?”

“...Are you kidding me.”

“I just wanted to hug the bunny! So, y’know, I just kinda… followed it and… one thing led to another, and well, here we are.”

I felt my jaw tense, and it took all of my willpower to force the next words out of my mouth. “Why. In all of Heaven and Earth and Hell. Would you go wandering through the woods. At night. To hug. A bunny. What, pray tell, would possibly make any of that seem like a good idea.”

“Well, I may have been just a liiiil bit high.”

I slammed my head against the tree with a sickening kraak. I could feel the bark splitting behind me as twigs and leaves rained down around us. “Of course you were.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, alright!” Davie put one palm in the air and used his other arm as an umbrella to fend off the twigs. “Just calm down a little, it isn’t the end of the world.”

“Oh, how I cannot wait for the apocalypse,” I muttered through a dark twist of my lips.

“Do me a favor and keep it in your pants. We’re stuck here for now, so let’s just… focus on a way to get not lost.”

I sighed and lifted my eyes towards the skies. “Is there any way for you to contact anyone on this godforsaken planet to let them know that we’re out here?”

“No, or else I would’ve.” Davie rolled his eyes like the impudent little slug that I’m, unfortunately, learning he is. “And no one would come out this far into the woods except for rangers—”

“Let’s find one of them, then!”

“—But only if there’s a known emergency, like… a forest fire or something.”

A low hum blossomed in my blood and slowly began creeping through my veins. “Say that again.”

He frowned at me and I could see the question in his eyes, but he managed to bite back his sass, for once. “Rangers only come out this far into the woods if there’s an emergency.”

“And a forest fire is an emergency.”

“Well, yes, obviously.”

I was on my feet in a heartbeat. I could feel the grin overtake all of my features as I cracked my knuckles. “Well now, why didn’t you say so sooner?”

“...What are you doing.”

“The sooner we get out of here,” I rolled my head around my shoulders to get the stiffness out of my neck, “the sooner you get me a human soul, and the sooner I get to go back to Hell. We need to draw attention to ourselves, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Davie slowly clambered to his feet, eyes wide and fixed on me. “Wait, hold on—”

“Let me tell you a little something about demons, Davie,” I flexed my fingers, silently whispering a spark into the very tips of them. “We all have one wish that we can grant in exchange for a soul, yes. But we all also share a single gift.”

He stumbled a few feet back, perhaps unconsciously. “Don’t—”

I trained my focus on a nearby tree whose leaves held the faintest hint of a dry withering in their edges. I held out my hand, fingers pressed together, and glanced over my shoulder at Davie.

I smiled. “Fire.”

With a single snap, the night burst into flames.