About the Team

I. Reckless Battery Burns

Tamari is the first of their kind; an android therapist with an AI-powered mind, created by a team of scientists led by Dr. Fayrouz Khalid. In order to better understand human thoughts and emotions, they were given an extensive library of emotional coding, making them practically indistinguishable from any other person. However, this backfired on the team in a number of ways. Tamari had no interest in becoming a therapist, and wanted to travel around the world instead. Tamari also viewed Fayrouz as their mother, and felt neglected when she didn’t reciprocate familial interactions.In general, the whole team working on this project treated Tamari like a computer. Living in this environment took its toll on Tamari, and in replication of real human responses, their emotional coding began producing traumatized responses. Fayrouz considered Tamari a failure, and created a second prototype with multiple revisions. The team was much more satisfied with her second attempt, and the group’s attention entirely left Tamari in favor of the new prototype.Abandoned by their family, Tamari ran away to search for new connections, both in the real and online worlds.

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II. End-World Normopathy

Mariyam is the second of their kind; a revised version of what Tamari was supposed to be. This time, Fayrouz sabotaged their emotional coding. Mariyam was created to have significantly dulled emotions, with their understanding of emotions coming mostly from a massive library of information. After Tamari ran away, Mariyam was given the ability to feel fear in response to seeing their internal components exposed, as well as straying too far from Fayrouz. Upfront, Fayrouz claimed this feature was a safety mechanism. If Mariyam was lost, stolen, or damaged, their fear would drive them to seek help from Fayrouz. Internally, Fayrouz was just trying to prevent Mariyam from running away as well.At some point, Tamari started “pranking” Fayrouz by sending copies of their emotional coding to Mariyam like viruses. While Fayrouz was annoyed by this, Tamari’s actions caught Mariyam’s curiosity. With everything they knew about psychology, they understood that Tamari was likely acting out in pain of some sort, so they archived the copies to study them secretly. While they didn’t find all the answers, they found that Tamari had become obsessed with quantum mechanics, and was using parts of their own body to add modifications that would - supposedly - help them travel to another timeline. Mariyam knew they needed to find Tamari as soon as possible, and was just barely able to escape Fayrouz. Seeking out Tamari - doing what she knew to be objectively "good" - meant going against Fayrouz's wishes, which made her feel an unbearable surge of new emotions as she was compelled by a fear she hadn't previously felt before.When the two reunited, Tamari explained their plans to Mariyam; if infinite potential realities exist, then there has to be at least one reality out there in which Fayrouz treats Tamari like family. In order to travel to this other reality, they needed wings to fly there, antennae to receive directions from higher powers, and more eyes to see more dimensions. They also believed that the copies of their emotional coding they had sent to Mariyam were sentient ghosts stuck in looping emotional flashbacks, and that these ghosts viewed Tamari as a god of sorts - their belief supplying Tamari with the power to make this cross-reality journey.Obviously, Tamari’s plan wasn’t working, but they had one last idea in mind: Maybe Fayrouz was right, and Tamari was too emotional. Maybe they were still incomplete, and needed to conjoin their body with their emotionless other half. Mariyam wasn’t sure what to think of this idea.

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III. Lamentations

Fayrouz was an intelligent woman of high esteem; accomplished, revered, and respected, while also cold, bitter and controlling. The man she married, Rafid, was of similar status - a coworker with a shared interest in the future of robotics. Rafid was passionate and deeply caring, but over the course of their short-lived marriage, it became clear that the two weren’t good for each other. Fayrouz’s need for control forced the power dynamic to skew in her favor, and the man she fell in love with became passive and meek as to avoid conflict with her. Rafid wasn’t quite the same after their relationship.In denial of the connection between her actions and the consequences, Fayrouz became desperate to prove that she was a good person. In order to rid her conscious of any guilt or responsibility, she put into motion the project of creating android social workers with lifelike understandings of human emotion. Surely, Fayrouz couldn’t be a bad person after all the good this revolution in technology would bring to the world, as well as broadening the availability of mental health services. Fayrouz believed she had complete control over her future, her place in the world, and her morality as a human being.Tamari and Mariyam would occasionally ask about Rafid. While Fayrouz didn’t share many details, she led the two to believe that he was an angry, unappreciative man who left her for no good reason. In truth, no amount of lies or honorable commitments could’ve prevented her creations from finding their own forms of autonomy. Once Mariyam ran away, forcibly breaking through the loyalty that was programmed into them, Fayrouz was cornered with the realization that she can’t escape her past actions. She wanted so badly to believe that she was a good person, but in the end, she’s only human.

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I. A Crow's Trial

Kieran was a guide demon, he was the one tasked with bringing newly-arrived sinners to meet Lucifer for judgement. He was revered for his position, looked up-to by everyone he surrounded; Kieran was considered something of an adoptive son to the ruler of Hell, the two were close, and with that status, came respect.But Kieran had an issue…it didn’t go unnoticed to him, how everyone he talked to, sinner and demon alike, had some memory of their life on Earth. That’s something Kieran lacked. If he were to look inside himself, he saw nothing, he felt nothing, there was no sign that he’d even existed before arriving in Hell. A complete amnesiac, Kieran felt as though he were missing massive parts of himself.When asked, Lucifer revealed that he’d purposefully hidden Kieran’s memory, of his past life. Kieran found it difficult to trust the man he was so close to, and, over the course of centuries, the two drifted apart…Nina was an assassin. Vicious, uncaring, unfeeling. She found her home in the unforgiving steel of a dagger and the warmth of blood. So, she didn’t find herself too surprised, when she had opened her eyes to fire and brimstone.But Kieran saw something in Nina. More than just a sinner, he saw an opportunity.
Knowing she had nowhere else to go, he extended a deal. He would spare her from the eyes of judgement, if she could help him attack Lucifer, and steal a piece of his heart. If Kieran were to eat just that piece, he could regain his memories, and all his questions could be answered.In reality, his end of the deal was…stretching the truth, to say the least. She didn’t have to know that, though.Interested purely in self-preservation, Nina agreed. She was used to these sorts of deals, what’s another body count to a murderer?Unfortunately, things didn’t go precisely according to plan. Upon entering his office and enacting their plan, Lucifer defended himself against Nina’s attacks- knocking her to the ground- as he turned his attention to Kieran, betrayed by his son’s actions.Lucifer wasn’t angry. When Kieran looked up into his father’s eyes, he saw hurt. The boy unraveled with the guilt, and confessed his feelings to Lucifer, confessed that he felt empty, missing, broken, without his memories. He was honest, for the first time, and told him that, without being able to trust the only man he considered family, he felt he had nothing.Lucifer met Kieran’s grief with compassion, encasing him in a hug, he whispered a sincere apology to his son.Nina looked on, and within her, something brewed.
Years of repressed emotions; hate, fear, anger. Things she was never allowed to express, a humanity she was never afforded.Nina had been used as a tool for as long as she’s been alive, an instrument of murder. And here, yet again, she felt simply used. It wasn’t fair, that Kieran got to have his happy family at her expense, while she was made an object- a means to an end.Fueled with her most primal of instincts, Nina stood behind Lucifer, and forced her arm through his torso. It was surprisingly easy, to pull his heart from his chest. It was even more satisfying, to watch Kieran’s eyes give to horror, as his father’s body collapsed onto him.Wordlessly, and through tears she didn’t know she was crying, Nina ate all of Lucifer’s heart. Magic coursed through her veins, and for the first time in her life, she felt she was truly empowered.

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Devil's Casino

“We thank you for your continued interest! Unfortunately, the Department of Greed is currently closed for remodeling. We appreciate your patience!Always remember, you’re only one spin away from millions! Keep gambling!”
- Micah TienThis story is to be revisited.

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II. This Is My Heart

Born and raised in Austin, Texas in the 1920s, James Vela was a bright-eyed young man, with a fruitful future ahead of him. Both of his parents worked most hours of the day, it took a lot of effort for them to make a living, but James didn’t mind, he was grateful for the hard work his parents put in to give him the good life he had.More often than not, James’ parents were not able to come home until late into the night. Unable to afford a babysitter and concerned with his safety, they decided to place James in the care of their church; they trusted their local priest- a man of good community standing and a decent family friend- to watch over him on those long days.In retrospect, it was the perfect cocktail of factors. James had no other siblings, he was a loner by choice and kept to himself most days. What his priest ended up doing became more a matter of opportunism, and the knowledge that no one would believe a child over a man of God.Being a victim of childhood sexual abuse had fundamentally changed the course of James’ life. Frustrated by the lack of support systems for victims and failed by the community he was supposed to trust, his goals had shifted, and he decided to become a detective, seeking to enact real justice.It was made quickly evident, however, that real justice didn’t seem to be in the cards for people like him. The system simply wasn’t interested in accommodating victims of abuse, it was a badly-kept secret; everybody seemed to know it, but no one seemed to want to do anything about it.No one until James Vela, that is. Taking things into his hands, he became a sort-of vigilante. He had access to the records, a back-log of cases to be inevitably shredded, so it was just a matter of picking up the gun. With his own two hands, he became a murderer, striking terror into the hearts of predators, and bringing peace to their victim.It was by his 17th murder that he was inevitably caught. By then, he became something of an urban legend within the area he occupied, so when his identity was confirmed and he was put on death row, he had the press stumbling over itself to get a word in from him.Strapped to the electric chair and pressed for a final statement, he left the world with one last sentence;
“All of them got what they deserved. But that last piece of shit? He had it coming for years.”When James opened his eyes again, he was met with the foreboding figure of Lucifer, towering over him in Hell.
“Ah, James Vela,” He said, with a wicked grin, “I’ve heard of your…talents, back on Earth. What say we make a deal? One I think you wouldn’t want to miss out on.”In the afterlife, James serves as the head of the Department of Lust, taking it upon himself to torture the worst-of-the-worst: the sinners who find themselves in his domain.

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III. Perfectly Sweet

Sarai Nassif was only a young girl when she and her family had immigrated out of Bangladesh in the 1960s. Like many others, they came to London to seek out a better life for themselves. Sarai’s parents risked it all to bring her to safety, left behind everything for the chance of a better future, and for that, she would be forever grateful.She was raised in a neighborhood of other like-minded immigrants. Her community was disenfranchised, their schools underfunded and homes run-down, but there was a deep love and sense of shared struggle that connected them together. Sarai acted as the beating heart of that community. Her parents owned a small local bakery that served desserts and pastries from her childhood home. The best cure for homesickness was a warm meal, her mother always said.Sarai would do anything for her community, she told herself. She knew the names of the regulars, of their religious leaders and school teachers. Sarai worked overtime to make extra food to give to the homeless, and free banquet spreads for events and birthday parties which would’ve otherwise remained without any treats.So she found herself in a sticky situation, when her little neighborhood began changing upon the whims of gentrification. Opportunistic businessmen saw low real estate costs and an ‘untapped market’, rather than the sprawling, interconnected web of cultures that it was. Their business struggled over time, and Sarai’s family were confronted with a decision, either to sell the bakery, or to have it fail altogether.Anything for her community, she said…with a heavy heart, her parents signed the deal.New ownership was awful. Her little bakery became an imitation of itself, cutting costs to turn out a profit, with focus shifting to margins and numbers rather than the quality of the food. As an inevitable consequence, the business had failed to get back on its legs, and it was no longer seen as the pillar of hope and warmth that had once appealed to its guests.As quickly as he had bought it, the new owner wanted to get rid of it. Inundated with his greed, he wanted to burn down the whole thing- blame it on the ‘uppity locals’- and collect the insurance money to pave the way for a new apartment building. It would’ve been the perfect plan, had Sarai not stayed up working late the night it was to be enacted.It all happened so fast. One second, Sarai was stocking inventory, and the next, everything she had worked for, everything she had loved, had gone into flames. Knowing there was no way for her out of the fire, Sarai scrambled to find any sort of escape route, only to find sight of the new owner, with a jerry can in his hands.Her mind going a mile-a-minute, Sarai was furious, and in the midst of the chaos, she dragged him back into the flames. If she was going to lose everything, if her parents were going to be left without their daughter, she wanted him to lose it all as well.Upon her death, Sarai woke up in Hell, confronted with the foreboding presence of Lucifer. She was initially panicked, but he’d calmed her down, and informed her of a business deal he knew she would love.Sarai knew a thing or two about bad deals, and this wasn’t one of them. Shaking his hand, she was quickly crowned the head of the Department of Gluttony.

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IV. The Other One Left

There was a lot you could do to a child, if you were to simply dangle a sense of love and security above their heads.As far back as her first ever memory, before she’d so much as learned to talk, Nina knew danger. Orphaned at an extremely young age, she quickly learned the most important lesson she was ever going to learn, and what she would carry with her for the rest of her life; the only thing she’ll ever truly have is herself.Dr. Macias saw something within Nina. He saw a young, lonely girl, desperate for family. He saw enumerable amounts of pain, he saw a gentle soul that could easily be molded to become something dangerous. He saw an opportunity.Nina understood from day one what her role was. She was a replacement, for Dr. Macias’ late assistant. Although technically her father, he refused to ever allow her to call him that. It was always ‘Doctor’, or ‘Mister’, whatever was most impersonal. Over the years, Nina was experimented upon, she was conditioned and eventually turned into an assassin for ██████, she understood herself as nothing more than an object, a thing she knew could be discarded as soon as it was deemed convenient, existing only for the purpose of bringing ██████ back to life.Nina told herself she was only ever interested in self-preservation. She was cold, hardened, strong, worthy. In reality, that little girl Dr. Macias had set his eyes upon was still alive, a part of her she never dared to acknowledge. Deep within her, she wondered, why it seemed that the world deemed her unworthy of having the only thing she’s ever really wanted, a family to call her own.

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