Anyone worth anything at all sacrifices all of their peers to get there. They have to delete names on the about page on their tech startup. They have to poison the brandy and snatch the documents and publish them. But then there's nobody else at the top of the ladder except for people they haven't screwed over yet because they can't.
Mania supposes it's a choice that makes people lonely.
Maddie steps into the chamber, staring at Mania. She quietly walks closer to her, a vaguely worried expression sitting on her face.
After a moment of keeping quiet, she breaks the silence.
"Are you alright? I hope you've thought about things a bit since... last time."
She trails off a bit, not making eye contact with Mania as she remembers how mean she was to the tortured soul.
"I have been thinking—do you remember when Georgia used to exist? Do you remember those plantation owners and their stupid peach cobblers and that fucking free labor they'd get whipping backs?"
Mania watches for Maddie's reaction, the only thing at all that the demoness could change in these shackles.
"I met this guy from Connecticut who also hated them. Jackson Neale. I never stopped being in love with him, by the way."
Maddie tilts her head and then shakes it.
"No, I don't think I do. It doesn't sound like it was a great place."
She sits down on the recliner, sitting it up straight.
"What ended up happening to him? Is he still kicking around down in Hell or did he skip that part?"
"He probably went to Heaven."
Discomfort crosses her lips. Her pointed tail flicks.
"Awful place. I didn't want anyone's dirty products, let alone their slave money. Him and I were going to move back to where he grew up, but he fucked me as soon as he proposed to me and we had a daughter. I was afraid I was going to Hell because we didn't wait until after we got married. I prayed for forgiveness from Fucking Christ."
Maddie thinks for a moment and then giggles as she remembers what she, an angel, has done with Mania.
"Well, I don't think that was the reason you went to hell. The uh, myriad of other things is why. But you'll be out of here soon enough."
"Maddie, I'm not a bumbling idiot. I already know the exact moment I became damned. I even knew it the moment I did it."
She collects herself.
"Skipping ahead, I have these three kids and I'm married to him and we still live in this marshy-ass place. The youngest one is not even a year old—Mary Ellen. I'm exhausted. Mr. Neale leaves me alone with the kids for like twelve hours a day. I fantasize about doing just that, too. Leaving everything behind, becoming my own damn boss somewhere, managing my own fucking money..."
"I guess you're back to square one now, because the only thing you're the boss of is a tiny stone chamber in the deepest pits of hell with only a pile of chains to keep you company."
Maddie shakes her head, still unsure of what to do with the demon.
"I don't know why you hold onto that so dearly. You don't even have anything to spend that money on. You just make money and it does nothing. You're playing with monopoly money."
"I'm not talking about right now—I'm talking about 1824. Don't get me fucking twisted. Do you want to hear what you've been missing or not? Want to waste our time for another millennia? You know Hasbro hasn't released a set in eighty years, right?"
Mania grinds her ankles against the clamps. She's only about as fearsome as a snapping turtle.
Maddie looks at her, confused.
"What's a Hasbro? I'm not trying to waste your time. I'm trying to get you out of here. Besides, it looks like you have all of the time in eternity."
"Fine, Maddie. Look, fantasies of having any financial control at all haunted me back then. It was hard to ignore them. I mustered the courage one day to tell Jackson that I wanted to start my own business. I wanted a share of the finances he's been managing for his startup and our family. But he didn't trust me. He said the kids needed their mother more than they needed more money. He told me to stop when I pressed the issue. He expected me to just do housekeeping. Women around this time didn't have much of a choice, got that? I was just another victim to this global dick-measuring contest. Men did all the fun stuff."
She frowns. The evil aura encompassing her being ripples.
"I understood my place. Kept managing the kids. Tried to plug the aspirations away. So much of it was fucking routine. Then a special night happened. I woke up in the pitch night, and he asked me to get him a glass of water. I forgot why I originally even got out of the bed by the time I poured from the pitcher in the kitchen. Then I looked at the kitchen knife. Thing looked different by the little candle stick I brought in."
Maddie fidgets uncomfortably, starting to realize why Mania was telling her about this.
"You... didn't, did you?"
Maddie sighs, guessing what happened.
"But you did, didn't you."
Mania bows her chin and closes her eyes.
"Yes, I killed him. And I killed my oldest daughter too. She heard the struggle. Her name was Edith."
She groans.
"I didn't mean to kill her. But I had no choice. I just wanted the money. That's all I ever wanted, Maddie. So there, that's what I've been thinking about. I'm sorry I killed my fucking family, it was four hundred fucking years ago! God dammit!"
She cries uselessly, watching the tears trickle from her cheeks and drain into the dry floor.
"Well, you can't kill me. And even if you could, I think you're beyond that."
Maddie steps forwards and wipes the tears from Mania's face.
"Despite your ways, you've changed, even if it's only a little. You're getting better. The fact that you're crying at all shows that. You'll be out of here soon, I promise."
"This is just making me feel like shit, Maddie, that's all. I keep thinking about these things that don't matter anymore and it's driving me insane—I think I'm going insane."
She continues to sob despite the angel's caring touch. Her golden eyes glimmer.
"I don't want to change. I'm doing great usually. This is not the norm... "
"The fact that you're crying and having a breakdown means you do want to change. You seem deeply unhappy with how things are right now."
She sits a chair down under Mania momentarily granting respite from the hanging chains.
"Your 'norm' is wallowing in your own misery and scamming people."
Mania reclines as much as her constraints will allow into the chair, and she digs her white nails into the wall.
"Can you stay longer this time, Secretary?"
She can't listen anymore. Her mind still rages with remorse. She wants it to stop.
"I don't want to be alone right now."
"Of course I can stay longer. I'll stay with you here for a week if you need me to. A month, maybe even a year."
She brings out a fresh cloth and wipes the demon's face again, dabbing away the tears.
"Only your kind could extend a ridiculous offer like that and truly mean it... Thanks."
Mania licks her lips. Something else is nagging her conscious and refuses to go away. She can address that.
"Sorry I berated you last time. There."
"I... would have told you that you don't have to apologize once upon a time, but now... well, thank you for apologizing. I accept your apology."
Maddie lays back in the recliner, simply keeping Mania company.
--------------------
"Do they still do football?"
Mania has been pestering Maddie for hours now. She went from mock meditation to almost excitement.
"Last I checked the public conscious was starting to plummet out of favor of it altogether. What even is Neo-American culture anymore? Lab grown meat?"
"They do this weird derivative of football. It's got holograms and some stuff like that; it's really all beyond me. They definitely still play football up in Heaven, though. I've never been particularly good at it."
Maddie pulls a football out of the ether and tosses it up and down a couple times before it bounces away. She pounces on it, causing it to vanish back into golden light.
"What did people do for fun back in your life, actually? You always talk about the bad stuff. Did you have plays and dances?"
"Weird. Well, I had some stakes back in the NFL Championship Games. But believe me, broadcasters and viewers soared that shit to the moon mostly without me."
Mania follows the ball and squints at its final brilliant display of divine light. She nods.
"Humans are most creative with their little entertainment. Of course we had plays and dances. The carnival was my favorite, I loved gimmicky bullshit like that... I used to play board games. Sucked ass at chess even though nobody had fucking Stockfish anyway... But mostly the cheap fun was talking and short walks. It was still possible to see the Milky Way, by the way. Ah, progress."
"Well, I guess we're doing half of your cheap fun right now. If you consider talking to me to be fun, that is."
Maddie giggles, amused by her own comment.
"I think talking to you is quite fun, actually. Definitely more fun than football. Maybe not more fun than mini golf. We should play that together sometime! There's a whole course the size of a small country up in heaven. It usually takes three to six months to complete."
"Let's just say that the alternatives are not as fun, Maddie. I wish you could rig us a TV. That we could get along with."
The entirety of 90s sitcoms and 00s dramas are burnt into her retinas. She lifts her head and practices her neck's muscles.
"I'm not allowed into Heaven anymore. Not unless, you know... Anyway, I think I would have liked mini-golf as a human. Maybe you two would have gotten along, imagine that. But, hey, sure you wouldn't have enjoyed this business side of things with her? Have you even ever tried?"
She smirks, with effort.
"Business really doesn't interest me in the slightest. It feels like pointless fighting; forcing others to suffer for a small gain."
Maddie moves behind Mania and begins giving her a back massage, helping ease the tortured muscles.
"I really think you ought to reflect on that. Business is made up by humans and ultimately ends with humans. It won't come with you to Heaven, you know."
"The gains aren't that small. But, regardless, maybe you'd lend yourself nicely to one of those weightless non-profit organization since you're so obsessed with helping people that aren't you. At least you'd be playing pretend like a kindergartener with budgeting."
Maddie sure knows how to work the aching flesh when she wants to even with the tight crevice to the wall. The demoness moans.
"Thanks. I take business wherever I go, though. For example, did you know many of the greatest works of art in history are commissioned? 'The Last Supper,' for example. 'The Birth of Venus.' And don't get me fucking started with Andy Warhol..."
"Well, artists have to eat too, you know. Just because someone gets paid for their work doesn't mean that they are greedy like you. I'm not the best at drawing but I do a bit on occasion. Usually I draw girls. Lots of girls."
Maddie continues the massage, giving Mania a gentle kiss on the neck.
"I think you're overthinking this, dear. Think about something else other than money while you're down here, okay?"
Mania shivers from the kiss.
"I-If it means I'll be able to do anything other than wait here—sure, I'll think of something. There's always later to discuss business, isn't there?"
Sneaking back into Hell from Heaven, for one such opportunity.
"Anyway, greedy like me... You're awfully cute talking like that. What are you, a homosexual, drawing a lot of girls and flirting like that? Good for you. They taught me when I was a human that that was a sin too. Times have changed, haven't they?"
"The times never changed. People just started saying it was a sin as an excuse to spread hatred. And speaking of girls..."
Maddie stops massaging Mania, and puts her face in front of the demon's. She leans in and lovingly kisses her on the lips. The angel released the kiss after a moment and steps back.
"You're very beautiful and I've drawn you more than a few times."
They exchanged kisses before and particularly during her cursed sexual episodes, but Mania's toes and fingers curl this time. She manages a raspy chuckle.
"Think everything they ever teach humans about the afterlife is a crock of shit? It's sure sounding like it, Secretary. I know I'm beautiful, but sure, thank you—any chance I could see those drawings?"
Maddie smiles excitedly and steps away from Mania before reaching into her purse. She pulls out a painting of two women kissing, bordered by an elaborate golden frame. One of the women has red skin and horns, the other has a halo and cat ears. Maddie realizes which painting she's taken out and her face flushes red with embarrassment. She shoves it back into the purse and then pulls out a picture of a woman with large breasts holding an equally large shark plush.
"I hope you like it..."
Mania would rub the back of her neck if she could. Which furniture store has she seen that thing?
"I do. You know, Maddie, nobody else has ever painted a portrait of me—you'd think at least one lousy human artist would have been inspired by me. A realist or something."
She furrows her eyebrows.
"Anyway, it's not as if I would pay a dime for that. What would be the fucking point, getting my own damn picture hanging in my office?"
She then pauses, though. "Whatever. I don't want to make myself angry."
"Well... is there anything you want me to draw? I could bring it down here and show it to you. I could even sit here and draw, just to give you something to look at."
Maddie slides the painting into her purse, a physically impossible display of angelic magic.
"Draw in front of me whatever else you want. Let's cut the chitchat for a while again, and take as long as you need. Maybe I'm curious what it'll be."
She tired herself out with all of this effort. Working twenty-four hours a day was easier than this.
Maddie begins sitting down on nothing as a stool appears beneath her and an easel appears in front of her. She begins drawing, slowly and carefully. Quietly, over the course of a week, she draws a near-perfect rendition of Mania as she was in life. Dressed in a classy outfit fitting of Mania's era, the woman is both beautiful and unremarkable. Just a normal person, nothing like the demon chained up in the cave.
"So, what do you think? Do you like it? It was a bit rushed, as I didn't want to bore you."
The demoness has been amused by her assigned angel's art process. The final product, however, flirts with Mania toxically. It's as much a masterpiece as it is making her stomach churn. It's nostalgic and it isn't.
"Maddie, I-I don't want to look at that anymore. Got it? Please?"
She ignites a flame at the end of her fingertips and frowns.
Maddie gives her a look of surprise mixed with disappointment.
"O-oh... I'm sorry if you didn't like it. I'll put it away now. I'll do better next time."
She slides it back into her purse, the mood of the room having been plunged into an awkward silence.
"I think I'll get going now, if that's okay. I have things to do up in Heaven."
Her head bows.
"I did like it. It's really great. Just feel a little fucking stressed. I need a break again."
Every word was careful. She folds her fingers into her palm, extinguishing the yellow heat. There's still a faint light yet burning in her eyes.
"Sorry, Maddie. How about... you go play that mini golf course you were so excited about for us? You've earned it."
Maddie turns around and sighs dejectedly.
"No, it's fine. I don't really think I want to play it now. What's even stressing you out? It's pretty clear that all you have to do is sit here and wait, anyways."
"Do what you want then. I'll be here in the meanwhile, just waddling in misery. I'm used to it."
Mania doesn't have a clean answer for her uneasiness. She would maybe describe it as that she feels less important, somehow.
"One more thing," She probes. "Do you tell your little winged friends about me?"
"I've told a couple of them. My old mentor and his partner, who was once a lot like you. I'm sorry if you didn't want anyone to know, I really just wanted help and advice."
Maddie starts walking towards the exit of the cavern.
"Please be patient, just a little longer and you'll be able to relax as long as you like. I love you, okay?"
"No, dear, I really appreciate that you told them about me. Everyone should know about me. It's dreadful I'm still ignored at all."
She used to find it fun to mock Maddie and her professions of love and care. It hadn't even been long ago. If something hadn't been wrong with Mania before, something is now.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll work on it. Just come back sometime... You're really fucking important to me too lately, Jesus."
Unbeknownst to Mania, Maddie blushes as she walks out.
"You're important to me too, okay? I'll be back soon."
With that, she flashes into light and vanishes as she exits the cavern.
More soon.