One Hell of a Chance

The spotlight shines directly on you, and maybe that’s why your skin feels like it’s burning off.

Burning. That was the perfect word to describe everything. When it was announced you’d be featured on Second Chances, it only took a few seconds for your no-longer-existent heart to start burning. When reality finally hit you, it took even less time for burning thoughts to set in. I don’t deserve this. I don’t.

And yet, you still came.

And now, the burning stares of the audience beat holes into you.

You try to calm yourself, folding your arms against your body. The couch you’re sitting on is probably the most comfortable thing you’ve ever sat on, both here in Hell and back in your old life on Earth. You try to focus on that. Couch. Nice couch. Very nice couch. Such a very nice couch. I’m losing my mind.

In contrast, The Host is extremely relaxed, suave, controlled. Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s done this a million and one times. To you, this is a life—er, death—changing event. To him, this is just another Saturday afternoon.

“We’ve kept our adoring audience waiting long enough,” he speaks as if you haven’t just arrived a few moments prior. “Let’s begin now, shall we?”

“We shall.”

“Fantastic!” He grins at you, bearing his teeth. Most natural-born demons take pride in how sharp and pointed their teeth are, and you can tell he’s no exception.

The Host wastes no time at all in slamming the file with your quote-unquote “intriguing life details” onto his desk. Honestly, it’s really more plopping than slamming; you can’t help but notice how empty the file looks.

You wish you could say you were surprised.

He flips open to the very first page; your personal information.

“Now then… it says here that in the late 2000s, you died in your mid-twenties, barely even reaching the peak of your life.”

“Yeah, that’s- that’s true.” You laugh nervously. You wanna kick yourself. Barely half a minute into recording, and you’re already an awkward mess.

“Regale us with your death story, now, how did you die?” He makes some fancy motions with his hands in mock interest.

“I, well…” You chew on your lip.

“No, no no no, wait.” He holds his hands out in front of him to say stop. “Let our lovely audience guess how you died!” The crowd cheers. The Host smiles. You blink.

“Car crash!”

“Poisoning!”

“A stabbing!”

“Gun violence!”

“American health care!”

This goes on for a few seconds, everyone shouting increasingly specific deaths that completely puzzle you. Who would ever go bungee-jumping with rope instead of a cord?

“No, no,” you speak out, and the excitement in the room starts to fizzle out. “It’s nothing like that. Cardiac arrest; I died while I was asleep.”

The audience awws in unison. You hope it’s in sympathy and not from disappointment that no one laced your food with cyanide.

“I see, I see.” The Host nods his head. “Still, your death must’ve been very hard on your loved ones.” He winks at you, and your mouth suddenly feels very dry.

“No, I- I was alone.”

“Alone?” He feigns surprise, and your throat turns sour.

“Alone. No family, and I was a loner.” You keep your voice as steady as possible, trying your best not to break eye contact with him. “I’m not even sure what happened to me after I died. To my body, anyway.”

“No family?”

“My parents died a few years before I did, and I was an only child. I had no extended family, either.”

He coos, placing his hand over his chest. “How heartbreaking! Your life must’ve been very rough!”

“I never let it get to me. That’s life, y’know? You don’t-” You pause briefly. “You don’t control everything. You just make do with what you get.”

The Host nods. “Inspirational. Very inspirational.”

You can’t tell what he’s thinking, so you jump to the worst possible conclusion: that was a horrible attempt at being profound, and you’ve already lost your only chance at a do-over.

“I think that’s enough prep! Tell us, what’s someone like you doing in Hell?”

That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it? Why were you here? What did you ever do to deserve this? You’d asked yourself so many times in what must’ve been the years you’d spent here.

All your life, you’d always strived to be a good person. To be worthy of being loved, of being happy, of being alive, of something, anything.

But you never were. Not in life, and not in death.

That was why.

“Because.” You don’t try to mask your melancholy. “Because I didn’t deserve to go to Heaven. I didn’t then, and I don’t now.”

The audience is silent. So is The Host, but just for a few seconds. “That’s a very bold statement.”

“It’s true, too.”

“But why? Why don’t you deserve it?”

“There shouldn’t be a happy ending for me. No. Even if I wasn’t a bad person, I wasn’t- I wasn’t good.”

“And what makes you say that?”

You close your eyes. “No matter what I do, there’s always- there’ll always be people who deserve it more than me.”

“So, you went to Hell… even though you weren’t a bad person… because other people were better than you?” He scoffs. “And exactly how does that make you any less deserving of it?”

“…well.” You can’t quite articulate your thought process.

“If a murderer says they don’t deserve to go to Hell because there are worse murderers out there, doesn’t that sound stupid?” Suddenly, The Host seems very serious.

“But that’s different, that…” You sputter.

“If, in order to go to Heaven, you had to be the very best person on Earth, no one would get in, would they?”

You don’t say anything.

“And holding yourself back from good things because you don’t believe you deserve them… that’s no way to live life at all.”

You can’t say anything.

“Don’t you understand?” He asks in the most sincere tone you’ve ever heard anyone speak in. “You didn’t go to Hell because you didn’t deserve Heaven. You went to Hell because you believed you didn’t deserve Heaven.”

“Maybe that’s true.” You finally say. Suddenly, it feels like there’s no audience at all. “Maybe.”

Nothing’s changed, yet somehow you’ve tricked yourself into believing something has.

The angel at the gate smiles softly at you. For once, smiling back comes naturally to you.

“Welcome. You don’t know how long we’ve waited for you to come home.”