Prologue:

🔥 ️ Infernal Payoff 🔥 ️

The man suddenly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was darkness, the pure darkness that seemed to cover him like a sphere of death. Immediately, he made the mistake of opening his mouth, but quickly closed it again. He hadn't taken his first breath yet, and the only thing he consumed was the taste of rough metal, mixed with the sensation of asphalt and coal threatening to quickly enter his lungs. A groan of pain came quickly as he felt the burning of a sharp object in his ribs. What irony.

To his misfortune, he couldn't stay focused on his pain because, all of a sudden, an enormous copper-red moon rose imposingly before his eyes. His first reaction was confusion, but then an immense feeling of uncertainty began to take hold in his chest. Grunts, stomping; and perhaps, just for a few moments, he thought he heard several voices behind him.

"Oh, Adam. Little bastard."

A voice as strong and imposing as that star alerted the mentioned one. However, it wasn't the voice of a typical 40 or 50-year-old man. With this alone, he even doubted if he was dealing with a human being like himself.

"Who said that?" He asked, raising his voice just a little, though it trembled at the same time.

Then, at a given moment, that figure appeared. He was a rather tall, muscular man; dark-skinned, wearing an apron accompanied by spiked boots. He looked him up and down with a terrible expression of disgust. Adam's lips trembled slightly as if he were a nutcracker; he was speechless. For a moment, he imagined that the world he knew had collapsed in just seconds of his existence. There was no trace left of the man who had recently pretended to be brave with great courage. In that moment, there was only the aura of a man with fear, on the verge of crying from the terror of standing face to face with Satan himself.

"Sa... sa..." he began to stutter, incredulous at what he was seeing.

"Who would have thought that the first creation of God would end up in Hell," Satan added with a certain sneer in his tone.

Adam remained silent for a few more seconds. Then, as if he were a sinful lamb begging for forgiveness in a church, he knelt before the giant man. The first thing he did was clasp his hands together as tears streamed down his agonized face. His lips were tightly pressed, trying to stifle any scream, but it was impossible.

"Please, I beg you!" he whimpered. "Don't kill me! Please!" And another moan of pain escaped from his trembling mouth.

The air felt heavy, as was to be expected when living in Hell. His body temperature increased, causing his bitterness to once again flow through the most unexpected parts of his body. He suffered a terrible heatstroke due to all the pressure and panic he was experiencing at that moment. Satan, for his part, only stood there for a few seconds contemplating him. He seemed to be pondering, but his voice swelled:

"Why should I forgive you when you did not forgive my people in the first place?"

The boy was puzzled by that question. He didn't know what this powerful man was talking about. As far as he knew, he hadn't committed any crime or attacked defenseless citizens. So his expression changed, he swallowed hard, and tried to find the most suitable excuse.

"Me...? Me having done something to your people...? Sir. Excuse me, but I don't remember anything..." As he felt Satan's piercing gaze, he shrank a little in his place, now regretful. "I SWEAR IT!" He shouted, now feeling that fear once more running down his back and arms. He felt he was trembling, that he couldn't stand. "I SWEAR IT BY THE VERY GOD WHO IS LISTENING TO ME NOW! I didn't even know my name was Adam. All I know is that I am a human who..." and he looked around, even more confused.

Darkness, a full red moon looming, screams of presumably innocent people who seemed to be writhing in the midst of a bloody ambush; he couldn't find the words to define what kind of place he had ended up in.

"That doesn't even know where he is..." he finished.

That last sentence had cost him some of his willpower because it felt heavier than a sip of bittersweet liquor that scalded his chest. A few more seconds of silence, until Satan burst out laughing like a maniac.

"You stupid boy. Did you expect to be in Germany or some shit like that? Though you should. You'd make good company for Hitler now," he mentioned as if it were some kind of joke.

This only served to confuse the boy further, though his arms were trembling a little less now.

"You're in fucking hell! Isn't it obvious? Please."

Well, that answered many of his questions about his whereabouts and why the first thing he had seen was a dark sky. Adam, quite incredulous yet somewhat nervous and deeply fearful, finally decided to ask a somewhat dumb question at first.

"If I'm in hell..." he murmured, stunned. "Does that mean I'm... dead? I'm not a human."

It seemed like a bad joke to him, because in his reasoning, a man who had no memory of his life on Earth, and now found himself in the foulest place, was seriously in a situation to commit suicide.

"I didn't think you were smart, but yes," Satan corrected. "Which means your punishment begins. Right. Now." he vocalized each word as if it were a sentence or an executioner about to impose a life sentence.

Thus, as he sang each syllable like a verse from the 80s, his demonic smile only grew. Then, without even giving Adam the pleasure of processing what he had just said, he snapped his fingers. Immediately, behind the boy, a massive vortex-like portal opened, resembling the disturbing jaws of a creature from the Nile.

Likewise, the voices the man initially heard from afar became closer and more present. When he turned around, he was met with the horrific sight of numerous arms; all struggling to stretch out, even some corpses trying to crawl as best they could; all howling in pain combined with biblical chants from the beyond. Then one grabbed Adam's leg; another, his right arm. Adam was incredibly frightened by the disgusting touch; so his first reaction was, obviously, to fight to free himself from those grips and escape from that filthy nightmare.

"NOOO! NO! NO! GET AWAY FROM ME! SATAN, PLEASE!"

But his screams were suddenly drowned out by the sudden appearance of a blood-red avalanche with orange tones, which was the living reflection of his condemnation, a volcano threatening to erupt right in front of him, a corrosive liquid summoned capable of annihilating every bone of that boy who once showed such imposing stature on the upper part of this planet. It was Satan's living revenge.

Suddenly, the man began to emit moans of immense pain accompanied by screams and sobs that begged for some mercy from that powerful being. Because right now, only he could save him. But then, another laugh; this time deeper and more sarcastic than the previous one, echoed throughout the environment.

"It was a joke!" He exclaimed before snapping his fingers again and making all those chaotic elements, worthy of being characters in a Lovecraft tale, disappear.

Adam felt he could breathe once more, now relieved and grateful to have all his bones intact. He was glad to still be breathing, even if it was that heavy, cigarette-scented air.

"I should kill you. But I'm not going to." he expressed, appearing calm.

Adam's eyes seemed to brighten for a moment, hopeful that surely the Lord of Hell had taken pity on his situation.

"Re... really, Lord? Thank you!"

"But," he cut him off, "you will have the chance to redeem yourself. Here in Hell."

That conclusion seemed very far-fetched, it had no logical reasoning or foundation for the other boy. He tried to process it.

"Redemption? For me?"

"Don't tell me it's a Phd assignment for God's first creation," he mocked in his face.

Although that wasn't the real problem, since Adam didn't remember anything about his past life, not even his life as a human. Of course, he associated Adam with the biblical character from Genesis, but he wondered over and over again how the hell Satan expected him to repent for something when he seemed to suffer from irreversible amnesia. But on the other hand, he also felt a lot of fear about what that Lord might do to him if he refused. It was either go along with it and accept that deal or pay his unjust permanent sentence in the Underworld, with a bunch of piles of bones and infernal souls also consuming his soul for all eternity.

"I will," he confirmed this time, trying to muster a more energetic voice, confident in the words that sealed his fate.

That stance, rather than surprising the Demon, only made him smile, revealing a line of sharp teeth.

"Perfect. See you in six months."

Adam raised both eyebrows, with an expression of discontent. That couldn't be true.

"Six months? But that's too little time, and besides...!"

But this time, it was Satan who dared to suddenly approach just a few centimeters from the face of that defenseless man, with a gesture of full, raging anger. Adam could smell the intense tobacco mixed with the smoke of coal in a locomotive about to start its track.

"That was the same time you gave my people." That was all he said, like a warning to the other.

"What...?"

But the question, a promise of an explanation, hung in the air, because next, a giant book appeared before him. It opened, flipping to a page with letters that resembled hieroglyphics, or perhaps a language very similar to Arabic. Then, a small floating pen appeared before him, falling into his hands.

"We have a contract then, you little bastard. You have six months to redeem yourself. If you don't comply, your soul will be mine."

He smiled again from ear to ear while the other finished signing the pact. As expected, he hadn't bothered to read it, thinking it wasn't that important. The book closed, disappearing as if by magic. The final "mine" was pronounced as he closed his hand into a fist, raised and imposing in the face of that insignificant being to him.

"For all eternity," he concluded, though he assumed the message had been clear from the beginning.

Adam swallowed hard again, sweat running down his face. He was very scared and just wanted to get out of there.

"Y... yes... Yes, Lord. I swear by all that is sacred."

The infernal clock didn't give him any more time to extend a formal promise, because immediately Satan snapped his fingers. By the time the sound ended, Adam found himself in the middle of a road. Around him, everything (including buildings, the sky, the bushes) was tinged with a faint red. Disoriented and even more confused, he tried to get up from the pavement; until the horn of a moving car woke him from his trance.

"GET OUT OF THERE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" he heard a man who was driving shout.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed, then moved out of the way. "Six months... Six months..."

He tried to process. Again, the heavy air, the breathing, and the pounding of his heart hurt him immensely. With the purpose of not fainting and perhaps dying stabbed, he made his utmost effort to stay on his feet, supported by a streetlight, awake and fully lucid.

How was he supposed to redeem himself in six months if he couldn't remember doing anything wrong in his life?

The mission had just begun.

Thank you very much for reading this far if you did!

I am a big fan of the Hazbin Hotel series, and I wanted to take advantage of the fact that Vivzie won't be releasing the second season until next year. Also, the couple I support the most from this series, if you ask me, is of course Adam x Lute, and I felt a little sad that Adam died without knowing if he felt something for Lute or vice versa. Therefore, to console myself a bit, I decided to start writing this fic.

This is just a 'What if...?' scenario and is not canon, of course. I don't know how many chapters it will have, but I aspire for it to be somewhat long because I don't want to establish the couple without a foundation first. In this case, seeing Adam struggle with redemption.

Regarding publication, I plan to do it monthly, so I aspire to have Chapter 1 ready by early July. I hope for your deepest support.

So, with nothing more to say, see you later!