Hellfire Cremation Services

20250805

Written for the "Kev's Odyssey" series.

“Can you believe we used to hide this?” Jezeksaa (“Call me Jess!”) marvelled as she lined up the latest body on the obsidian stretcher.
“Uh, yeah, because we used to stuff living people into the Soul Furnace.” Yakaskeel (“Kas is fine”) scoffed, shooting the younger demon an exasperated look.
“Oh. Right.”
“Yeah, yeah, before your time and all, but… eesh. Don’t you whelps get briefed on the history of the place when you sign up?”
“Errrr probably? But, well, it’s not part of the entry exam, soooo…”
Kas sighed.
“Why did we do that, anyway?”
“Because it produces FAR more miasma.”
“Oh. Then why did we stop?”
All of Kas’s eleven eyes rolled then fixed her with a scathing glare. “Because humans don’t volunteer to be burned alive, fool! Once we realised they’ll pay to be cremated, the numbers worked out even with massively reduced miasma per unit.”
“Ohhhh. Right.”
“And because we only need to charge for collection and whatever burial stuff they want, we’re able to hugely undercut humans.” Kas patted the side of the furnace. “Back in the day, we could barely keep one Hellfire burning in the mortal world. Now we’ve got one in most cities. Totally worth switching from cults to a business. Even with having to file taxes and all.”
“One Hellfire? Across the entire world?? How did the demons everywhere else manage?”
“…We didn’t.” Kas intoned patiently, though one of his eyes were twitching. “We could only manifest where that fire was. And had to keep moving it as humans tried to stamp it out.”
“Ugh!”
“Uh-huh. Next time us fogeys start grumbling about how you young’uns have it easy, this’s what we’re talking about. Now…”
Kas pushed the stretcher into the furnace with one tentacle and flipped the door shut with another. A faint ghostly moan whispered up the outlet valve.
“0.16? Niiice. Must have died with a lot of regrets to leave that much miasma in the shell.”
“Wait, wait, is the miasma measured in…”
“Fractions of an actual soul. Specifically, the average value of miasma produced by burning a living human in the furnace.”
“Oh.” Jess twiddled her claws and stared uncomfortably at the gauges.
Kas shrugged and busied himself printing out the labels for the waiting urn. “It was a different time, alright?”
“Couldn’t we… change the measuring unit, though?”
“Why? It works fine.”
“I… guess.”
Jess picked up the pamphlets that were packed into every shipment. The discreet, tasteful info sheets promised that the resulting ashes would be devoid of soul traces and so not attract ghosts or other spiritual elements; proudly expounded on the low environmental impact of Hellfire cremation; and offered discounts for various associated products and services.
It was kinda surreal, seeing the respectfully presented grieving humans in the pictures then looking up at a replication of death-by-torture machinery.
Well… it wasn’t like humans ever came back here, right? So… probably fine.
She was just glad she’d manifested now, not in that ‘different time’.

Prompt was “Ashes”