Asmodeus played on. The rain stopped. The only sound in all of Hell was that sad, simple, perfect little gap between two notes. And in that gap, Asmodeus was the loneliest being in creation.
Asmodeus, however, found his escape in the music. He practiced for an audience of zero.
Tonight, he was perfecting a new piece. He called it "Lament for the Morningstar." It had no fire, no fury. It was slow. It was sad. It was the sound of a prince realizing he had won the rebellion and lost everything else. sad satan ost
Belial stared at the piano. The single, repeating interval echoed off the empty walls. For the first time in a thousand years, the fallen angel felt a shiver that wasn't from the cold, but from a terrifying truth: they hadn't won Hell. They had simply built a smaller, lonelier prison.
But that was before the Silence.
He placed his claws on the keys. Not to summon fire, or to break minds, but to play the Nocturne in C-sharp minor . His fingers, built to tear spines, moved with a gentleness that would have shocked Heaven.
A century ago, God stopped listening. The prayers of the faithful grew hollow, then stopped. Without divine attention, Hell lost its purpose. The torture became boring. The sinners stopped screaming and simply stared at the walls. The other demons grew fat and lethargic, their malice curdling into a deep, existential boredom. Asmodeus played on
"I remember when you used to make popes weep," a gravelly voice said.