Everybody knows the feeling of making plans for some time in the future and then being full of regret when it came to actually fulfilling said plans.

That was how I felt when some of the demons grabbed me for a party and forced me to celebrate.

I told them the previous night that we could celebrate the next day, and they were intent on holding me to my word after we finished work for the day. Two demons, both short with red bodies and small wings to keep them hovering in the air, were apparently already intoxicated by something as they grabbed onto my arms and dragged me toward the center of the camp where some extra space was cleared out.

Upon reaching the center, Thad saw them dragging me along and waved his arms at them to scare them off.

“Thanks,” I told Thad, probably sounding pretty out of it at that point. The pain I felt in my head spread throughout most of my body. No matter how hot it was during the day, considering we were in a volcanic region with a lake of lava next to us, I still got the chills every now and then and couldn’t stop my hands and legs from shaking. Though, I did my best to hide it and was fairly sure that I managed to go through the day without anybody noticing.

Or if they did notice, they kept quiet.

“Don’t be afraid to shout at them,” Thad told me. “Imps. Mischievous little fiends. They love nothing more than to cause trouble and pull others into their schemes. Good news is that they only wanted to pull you over to the festival here.”

“Festival?” I asked. “I thought we were just having a little celebration?”

“Hah! What, you expect us to drink some booze and talk around a fire or something? Please, we’re demons! If we’re going to celebrate, we’re going to have a damned good time doing it!”

I had to admit… I wasn’t good with parties. Or festivals. Or any other sort of large celebration with lots of noise and people, honestly.

I might have been raised by one of the manliest Americans to ever exist and did my best to learn how to be confident, but I always envisioned myself living in the middle of nowhere off the grid with nothing but a solid internet connection to keep me happy. Well, with a wife and maybe a kid or two. But that was it. I was never interested in things like parties or festivals. Or carnivals. The only good thing about carnivals was all the deep-fried food.

There was nothing more American than deep-frying everything we could get our hands on. Well, other than freedom and guns.

Even deep-fried guns were a thing.

As for the festival itself, it was pretty simple which made sense since they had to work with what few materials we had around the place. Some extra torches were set up, there was a large fire at the center with some demons linking arms and dancing around it, and a trio of women were singing to a small audience. The kind of song they were singing was… nice. It actually made me think of an acapella version of my favorite song from Earth. “Zombie” by The Cranberries.

It sounded like the meaning of the song was somewhat similar, too. Unfortunately, as much as I’d like to avoid war, I doubted that I’d be able to.

At least lives weren’t truly at stake even if the people fighting in the battles were real.

“Like it?” Thad asked, giving my back a pat. “Haven’t heard that song in a long while. The girls asked Enna earlier if they could sing it tonight. She looked pretty nervous about giving them permission, but she said you wouldn’t say no.”

“What’s the problem with it?”

“It’s a song of rebellion. They’re singing about some kids who thought it’d be a good idea to try and inspire others to rise up against Lucifer.”

I was too tired to correct him on it being Lucy.

“The kids started a pretty big movement. Made it big on the news and everything. Rallied everybody sympathetic to their cause up and marched on Lucifer’s tower. They only planned on protesting, but peace broke down quickly. It became an all-out brawl between the protestors and the city’s guards. By the time it was over, most of the protestors were dead and the kids were spared… only so that they could be publicly executed by Lucifer himself after making some grand speech about how all those lives would have been spared if they wouldn’t have fallen victim to some kids’ unrealistic ideals. Found out some years later that the whole thing was a trap from the beginning. He purposely let them and their ideas get popular, and even ordered the media to help them out. The plan was to get all the most devoted to their ideas—the biggest dreamers, to gather in one place and then wipe them out. It was orchestrated to crush hope. Remove the most dangerous elements to his society and crush the dreams of anybody else thinking about following in their footsteps live on TV.”

“What happened when people found out?”

“Nothing. They knew there was nothing they could do. What could they do? The closest thing to change within centuries was controlled from the start and used against those who believed in it. Deep down, I think everybody suspected that of being the case even before the prince leaked it. Nobody was surprised when it went from being a theory to confirmed. All it did was make them feel even more hopeless.”

“Given that they were rising up against somebody who is basically a god from what I know, I’m impressed they tried at all.”

“Nobody likes to be ruled by a king who sees himself as better than everybody else. Even kings with the powers of gods can’t dominate the desire for freedom.”

“That’s the most American thing I’ve heard any of you say. I like it.”

“Hah! I’m glad.”

The trio of singers finished their song and moved onto the next. The next song sounded much happier and more upbeat.

“Any meaning behind this one?” I asked.

“Nah. This is just some popular song that was big on the radio a few years ago,” Thad explained.

“Never would have thought that I’d hear demons talk about songs that are popular on the radio in Hell.”

“Where do you think you humans got it from?”

“You telling me that our ideas of pop culture come from Hell?”

“Members of the divine planes aren’t supposed to visit unclaimed worlds… but some folk sneak in every now and then to have some fun. I think one of them even became a pretty popular singer a few years back on your world. Made it on the news in Hell when she got found out.”

There was something incredibly fitting about knowing our pop culture was influenced by literal demons from Hell.