After making sure that my door was locked, I walked out of my room and into my outdoor garden.
The pale white flowers made me feel a sense of calm, but that's not my purpose here.
I looked around and found a window just big enough for me to slip through, but small enough that no one could enter or leave my garden without breaking it.
Moving the flowers to the side, I began opening the window so I could get out of the castle and explore the Pride Ring.
Once I got the window open, I checked the surrounding area to see if anyone was there, and once I made sure no one was watching me, I jumped out the window and began falling towards the ground.
My room was rather high up, but unfurling my wings, I began to slow my descent and landed softly on the ground.
Looking around, I was now in a rather large garden, and in the middle stood a singular apple tree.
I polymorphed back into a worm to look around and sneak out, but three seconds later, a pair of boots landed in front of me.
Looking up, I saw Dad smiling at me.
"Hey champ! Whatcha doing here?" he said, looking down at me.
"Uhhhhhh… nothing?" I said, not really knowing what to do in this situation.
"Is that a question or an answer?" he said with a smile on his face.
"Uh… yes?"
…
We both just stood there in silence… well, he was standing; I was a worm lying on my belly.
"You were trying to escape, weren't you?" Dad said with a mocking smile.
"Noooo?" I turned my head slightly to avoid his gaze.
"Haha! Oh man… you're a terrible liar. Well, I think I know why you decided to go all Nathan Hale on me."
"Really?"
"Of course! You wanted to hang out with your old pop!" he said with jazz hands.
"Yeah… that's why I left my room."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go," he said, picking me up from the ground.
He then revealed his rather large wings and began flying up to one of the towers.
While he carried me, I looked down and saw just how much of the castle I had yet to explore.
Once we finally reached our destination, he flew inside through a window, and once inside, I saw the ungodly amount of ducks scattered around.
They came in all shapes and sizes, even having different species of ducks.
Dad then placed me on the ground and finally noticed something about me.
"Hey… were you always… a worm?" he asked, holding his chin.
To answer that question, I simply returned to my original form, and his eyes sparked with intrigue.
"Ohh! That's so cool! You can transform just like me," he said, clapping his hands really fast.
"Yeah, I learned it a while ago," I said, patting the dust off my belly.
"Wait… look at this!" Dad said before quickly turning into a floating snake.
"Pretty cool, right?" he said with a smug smile on his face.
"Yes, that is pretty cool," I said to him as he floated in the air.
He giggled with joy and quickly turned back to his original form before picking me up.
"So, son, what else can you do? I mean, if you want to, of course—I don't want to force this on you," he said, looking almost a little nervous.
"I can show you, but you have to put me down first."
"Oh! Of course." He quickly placed me back down.
Once I had my feet firmly planted on the ground, I began unfurling my wings slowly for dramatic effect and revealed my three pairs of wings.
They had a light glow to them and even shimmered. Dad looked absolutely… happy?
He began touching and feeling them, and I didn't stop him since it actually felt nice.
As he continued to feel my wings, he turned to me and asked,
"When did you get wings?" he said with a big smile on his face.
"I've always had wings," I said in my deadpan tone.
"Well, you should have told me earlier! I could've been teaching you how to fly like a mother—father duck!" he said with a slight blush on his face.
"You never asked, and I already know how to fly."
"Ahh." He looked rather sad that he didn't get to teach me how to fly.
So, not wanting to ruin the moment, I spoke.
"But I'm not really good at flying yet, sooo maybe you could give me some pointers?"
Dad quickly looked towards me, and with a big old smile, he unfurled his wings and began walking toward the window.
"Come, son! We fly!" he said in a rather serious voice.
I walked towards his side, and holding my hand, he slowly began to flap until eventually, we jumped out the window.
He held my hand as we slowly flew around the castle, and Dad occasionally gave me tips on how to fly better.
"Now remember, never use drugs while flying—it's bad for your concentration," he said, trying to do a serious voice.
They weren't really good flying tips, more like general tips on what not to do in life.
But as we continued to fly, I got a better view of the city around us and… was it on fire?
I stopped mid-flight and simply hovered in place to get a better look at the city, and found that… yup, a lot of buildings were on fire.
Dad noticed me staring at something, and flying closer, he saw what I was looking at and simply sighed.
"Ah, those sinners are causing trouble again. Well, the exterminations are coming soon, so I guess they're panicking."
I looked towards him and asked,
"Exterminations?" I didn't really know what it was for—were they exterminating an insect infestation?
"Why don't we go inside first… then we'll talk."
Following Dad, we went back inside the tower. Once we were inside, I walked behind him and asked what the exterminations were.
"Well, son… the exterminations are Heaven's way of… cleansing the filth."
"Which is?" I asked, wanting to know more.
"You know, you ask a lot of questions for someone so young. Well, if you must know…" He sat down on a chair and patted his lap.
I walked over to him and jumped up toward his lap.
"Well, the exterminations are, in a way, Heaven's solution to keep Hell in line."
"Why's that?"
"Hell has a lot of bad people trapped here—obviously—but Heaven feared that one day Hell would become too powerful and someday begin a war with Heaven."
He conjured a piece of paper and showed it to me.
"This here is the official document of the monthly exterminations that Hell will be receiving."
"Why is it monthly?"
"Well, that—pardon my language, son—asshole Adam wanted to thin out the sinners so there's no way a war could start."
"Why didn't you stop him? You're the King of Hell."
"I could, but that would be admitting that the sinners are a threat to Heaven. Spoilers, son—they're not. Sinners don't have the ability to escape the Pride Ring. Any attempts to leave this place would simply place them back here."
"So they're just trapped here forever?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
I looked at the piece of paper Dad was still holding and grabbed it. I began reading the details and found just how ridiculous this all sounded.
"Why can't it be yearly? I mean, if they keep killing the sinners, your kingdom won't be able to develop."
"I don't think killing sinners is slowing down the progress of Hell, son."
"But it could be. Constant fighting and destruction would make it more difficult to develop a city that's constantly on fire."
He thought about it for a moment and placed me down.
"Even if I wanted to change it, what makes you think that Adam would agree to this? He's like the first misogynist."
"I don't really know how, but after all the time I've spent here in Hell, seeing how much demons fight one another, maybe it's time for a change," I said, giving back the piece of paper.
He looked at the document before looking back at me and smiling.
"You know, you talk a lot like my brother."
"Thanks?" I said, confused since he didn't say which brother.
"Okay, I'll go talk to Adam and try to change the agreement… and maybe you'd like to come with me to see how your old man does business," he said, doing finger guns at me.
"That would be nice."
"Cool! Now let's go ask your mom for permission," he said, teleporting us.
We were now inside Mom and Dad's room, and there, doing her hair, was Mom.
This should be easy—just asking if I could tag along with Dad to meet a genocidal lunatic.
What could go wrong?