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The year that Hell split open was an uncommon year. It was a year of kindness, and it was a year of fear.

Chloe Miller, a twelve year old girl from Newcastle, was the first to witness the ascension of the underworld.

The entire schoolyard shook as the ground broke open, spewing orange flames and a swarm of bats into the blue summer skies.

Demonlord Kel'Zuraad clambered out of the crack in the world, his black talons scratching against the broken concrete and astroturf.

The first thing he did was to stretch his monstrous wings that looked like owl wings if they'd been painted red and then covered in goat hair.

Chloe watched as the Demonlord clanked over to her and she dropped her skipping rope.

She made an attempt to run, but the demonlord caught up.

Specks of its armour shone in the sunlight amidst the gore, blood and rust.

It was too late for little Chloe.

The last thing she saw was the horrible talons of the creature reaching down, holding her skipping rope.

Then she blacked out.

When she came to, she was lying on her bed at home.

Her mother bought her a bar of chocolate and a comic book, and soon she was in high spirits.

Her parents both worried that she was traumatised by the experience, but Chloe spent the rest of the day napping, reading and watching cartoons.

When her father asked, Chloe said that she was unhappy she didn't get the chance to fight the demonlord and that its face reminded her of Josh from school. He was a stupid boy, but she guessed he was okay and wanted to hang out with him on the weekend.

Her parents settled down the evening news, where reports of "Hell on Earth" were breaking and updating every five minutes.

BREAKING

Imps and winged minions are clambering, in their millions, out of the thousands of chasms that have widened across the globe and they will fight us shortly.

BREAKING

The imps and winged minions are having trouble navigating around aircraft.

The imps are having beer cans thrown at them in Melbourne and teenagers have already begun daring each other to see how long they can stay on the back of an imp without being thrown off.

BREAKING

Megalodon-sized demons wearing crowns of nails and necklaces of bone have emerged from the oceans onto land and nuclear options are being considered.

BREAKING

The Megalodon-sized demons are touching the grass and seem deep in thought. Some of them look lost, and seem to stand stock still in stances of worry.

Two are looking at the night stars and crying.

The morning came, and the demons were still walking the Earth.

A few had sheltered under rocks, but the majority had moved into small flats and some of the more rural demons had built mud huts.

Fox News ran six back-to-back segments over how the demons were performing rituals in order to summon Satan.

Several interviewed demons told reporters that Satan had died long ago and asked in curious tones why humans believed that the evil prince had no natural lifespan.

Most kept themselves to themselves.

They grew root vegetables and cooked bats.

This wasn't too much of a problem for farming communities or environmental conservationists, because the demons had bought the Hell vegetables and Hell bats from Hell.

In fact, there were several episodes of food programs covering Hell food that found "Hell veg" to be a tasty and nutritious snack, easily microwavable and tasting similar to sweet potato and roast chicken.

The surge in Veganism was unprecedented.

By late April, American Congress had issued a Senator to be put in place for Hell and, against the wishes of The Republican Party, wanted a demon to speak for Hell rather than a member of humanity.

Scientists triangulated the first demon to break through from hell.

But there was only one problem.

He'd developed social anxiety.

On May 27th, Demonlord Kel'Zuraad walked into The Capitol Building with the help of Chloe Miller.

She had spent thirty minutes coaxing him out of the specially built van with a Mars bar.

Tal'vedric and Mar'kaard, his close friends, hid in the van from the throngs of paparazzi.

Her entire hand clutched a single talon as she led him, his sixteen-foot frame shuffling nervously along.

"They're laughing at me." said Demonlord Kel'zuraad. "Can't you feel them judging me?"

"My mum told me that you can't stop people doing those sorts of things, so it's best not to worry about it." said Chloe.

The Demonlord nodded and began to walk in the confident manner more befitting of an archduke from a place of eternal damnation.

The Demonlord didn't get much of a chance to talk during the senate meeting and, during the interview after, expressed his feelings that he was regarded as something of a novelty.

The interviewers usually responded by asking him for his favourite colour or favourite pop-singer.

A YouTube clip of Kel'Zuraad's suit catching fire halfway through the meeting garnered seventy million views.

His points of a higher wage for imps in temp jobs, sustainable energy from giant fire-breathing demons and funding for Hell Veg allotments were largely ignored for talks on oil, directing missiles at impoverished nations and cash for election campaigns.

Donald Trump himself took to Twitter regarding the meeting.

And then, one year later, the strangest thing happened.

The demons vanished overnight.

When Chloe saw the news, she told her parents that she was off to bed and headed downstairs to grab her bicycle in the hall.

It was dusk, and she'd only managed to get to the newsagents five minutes before it shut.

The last efforts of the sun made the smouldering crater glow a warm orange.

Kel'zuraad was climbing in when he heard her running over.

She held out the Mars bar and the Demonlord took it in a gentle claw.

"Thank you for being my friend." said Demonlord Kel'zuraad. "And thank you for teaching me to be brave."

With that, he let go and dropped into the depths of Hell.

The cracked ground knitted itself back together until it was as if the demons had never even arrived on Earth.

There remained nothing but an inch-wide crack.

Two years later, a small flower grew from it.

HELL YEAR

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