[ WP ] you are the last survivor of a group of explorers on what you previously thought was an unknown island . You 're locked in a room and something is trying to convince you to open the door . You have to convince it not to kill you .

*heavy pounding* 
 
 “ Abre la puerta!! ” Someone on the other side of the heavy steel door screamed. 
 
 “ No hablo espanol! ” I did my best…not even knowing for certain that I was using the correct language. Also, after what had happened. There was no way I was going to unlock the door. Everyone was dead…or at least missing. Well…except me. I also intended on keeping it that way. The pounding continued as I mulled over my options. 
 
 Everything was going great until Craig stepped on a landmine. A LANDMINE. It was an uninhabited island for all we knew. Who the hell puts a landmine on an island, and how hadn ’ t the native fauna set it off first?!? I saw a turtle on the beach the size of a small car, yet all 70 kilos of Craig managed to detonate the explosive device. My right ear, closest to the blast, still didn ’ t work and I still hadn ’ t managed to clean all of…well Craig…out of my hair yet. He was a sticky bastard. 
 
 Our cameraman, Pete, fell victim to a tripwire as we ran from the blast that killed Craig. As he fell a second tripwire, this one laced with razor blades and angled so that it had distance to slice rather than just trip, cleanly took his head off before his camera, or his body, hit the ground. The camera had maybe ten minutes of footage on it from when we landed and before we decided to chase a large iguana inland and then everything went haywire. 
 
 Laura stepped in a pit that resembled quicksand, but she kept screaming something about it burning her skin…and then she sunk neck deep and immediately went silent as her head slowly sunk beneath the surface. Dan was eaten by an incredibly large reptile of some sorts. I didn ’ t get a look at it, but it had a long green tail that resembled a Komodo dragon. Lastly, Roger, the “ on-camera ” personality almost made it through the door before something cut him in half horizontally as I tried to jimmy the lock. The look of shock never left his face even though the blood was mostly drained from his body. 
 
 There was more pounding and indiscriminate shouting outside. They thought that I killed everyone. Why would I kill my own team? On top of that, who was outside? They spoke Spanish, but this island didn ’ t show up on any charts dating back to the 1700 ’ s, although there was a very brief mention of possible land in this area by a French explorer in the mid-1600 ’ s, nothing was ever mapped, and the island should be a treasure trove of…untouched virgin land. Yet here I am locked in a room resembling a soviet era bunker, maybe, with no windows, one door, and nothing but two chairs, a table, and a locked filing cabinet. 
 
 The pounding abruptly stopped, but the shouting took on a fever pitch and resembled screaming more than angered yelling. That too stopped in short order. There was suddenly a very quiet knock on the door. 
 
 “ Hey, it ’ s safe. You can open the door now. ” I heard as I inched closer to get a better vantage point to listen. It spoke in English; this was very welcome as I spoke nothing else. 
 
 “ I…who are you…? ” I managed to stammer out. Suddenly I heard a loud thud and more frantic speech in a language I didn ’ t recognize. This was followed briefly by a gurgling sound and then silence. 
 
 “ Sorry about that. My name is Abaddon. I ’ m a demon. You ’ ve discovered the portal to hell. ” He said very “ matter-of-factly. ” “ Nah, I ’ m just messing with ya; that ’ s my office you ’ re standing in right now. The portal to hell looks a lot worse, fire, mutilated corpses, etc. not pretty. I tend to keep those outside my office. 
 
 I almost laughed. I figured at this point that he was going to kill me one way or the other, so I might as well get something out of it. “ Yeah, and I suppose you killed all my friends too, right? ” 
 
 “ Yeah…sorry about that too, you were actually supposed to go first, but Craig stepped in your place. ” As I wondered briefly why a demon would use a land mine, he continued. “ Also, just for the record, that wasn ’ t a mine; it was a soul catcher. The body can ’ t really stand the pressure wave created when they extract a soul, and it displaces air rather quickly, so the flesh tends to just…erupt. ” 
 
 “ So I suppose Pete was beheaded by a head catcher? ” I responded sarcastically. 
 
 “ You could say that. I mean…he was beheaded by me, does that count? ” The demon sounded sort of worried. “ Listen, your team is dead. The other guys? That was a shipwrecked immigrant boat. They were headed to Florida. They weren ’ t gon na make it there either; I had a date with them scheduled for tomorrow, but, as you know, no one ’ s fate is set in stone and they decided to land here to ride out the small storm rather than trudge on through the big one. Hence they died a day early. ” I still got a sense of worry from the demon, though I didn ’ t understand why. 
 
 “ What do you want from me…? Why am I here? What is this room? ” I asked. I must ’ ve struck a nerve because there was silence for a whole thirty seconds before I heard him speak again. 
 
 “ Listen Dale, I ’ m gon na level with ya; you shoulda died years ago. Remember the lightning strike? Me. Remember the car crash when you turned into the oncoming truck and woke up in a ditch surrounded by debris with only a headache? Also me. That time your house burned to the ground in a matter of minutes, yet you somehow made it out only slightly singed? Yup. Yours truly. Dale…I can ’ t seem to kill you. I ’ ve tried directly and indirectly for years, and it ’ s been my assignment since 1997, but for some reason you just won ’ t die. ” The demon seemed to be getting a load off of his chest. 
 
 “ I was assigned the task after my predecessor couldn ’ t figure out how to get the job done in the early 90 ’ s. You were a stupid kid, so it should ’ ve been an easy job. You rode a scooter into a major cross-roads at age seven…and got a small cut to your forehead. Five people died in the resulting pileup. That was the one that broke him. He was competent to that point but melted down. At age three you drank a liter of mislabeled drain cleaner. You should ’ ve dissolved from the inside out. Yet, you complained of a ‘ tummy ache ’ and went to bed and slept it off like a champ. I could go on for hours, days even like this, but I don ’ t want to end up like Baal. He was a good demon, but you broke him. The filing cabinet behind you details every time you were supposed to die and lived. There ’ s tens of thousands of occasions, some major, some minor, most you probably never noticed. ” The demon seemed to be getting a load off of his chest. 
 
 “ Why are you telling me this? ” I stammered out as I drew closer to the door. 
 
 “ Because I ’ m going to let you off the hook. I ’ m gon na let Fate decide what he wants do to with you directly. In a few decades or so, when people finally realize you ’ re not aging, maybe they ’ ll catch on and then it ’ ll get more interesting, if they don ’ t, I ’ m just gon na let Fate figure it out. It ’ s ultimately his job, not mine; generally speaking, I ’ m the middle-man, but technically, he signs off on all this crap anyways. Let him make the call for a change. ” The demon sounded relieved. 
 
 I unlocked the door and stuck my head out to see. As soon as I did I immediately tripped and fell flat on my face. As I looked up there stood a creature clad mostly in black holding a sword shrouded in dark purple flames emanating directly from the blade. The sword was embedded in the bunker where my neck was fractions of a second prior. 
 
 “ See?!? That, every time. I figured it was worth one last shot, but I didn ’ t really expect it to work. I don ’ t know why…but I just can ’ t seem to get this one done. Tell ya what; you play your cards right and you might slip through the cracks. A few others have as well. Maybe you could join them. Most keep a really low profile, but a few are in the news every other day or so. Keep your head on straight, no pun intended, and you ’ ll do fine. But I ’ m marking you off my list. If Fate thinks you ’ re gone…well…it ’ s up to you what you do next. Good luck. ” The demon vanished in a cloud of eerie smoke and I stood by the bunker, and maybe thirty corpses, and tried to decide my next move. 
 
 Suddenly a purple portal opened to my left and Abaddon stuck his head out. “ One more thing; avoid the dinner rolls at the Yum-Yum house next week; I ordered them coated in a unique form of plague bacteria in advance and couldn ’ t get my deposit back or cancel the reservation, so they ’ re going through either way. Or don ’ t…I mean…it ’ s up to you now. ” With that he vanished again, and I slowly began to make my way back to the beach.
