Myzaroth was nervous.

This was his first job performance review and he wasn’t confident.

He nodded towards the others as he took a seat. There were three others seated waiting their turn to find out how they had done over the year, none of them looked like they were nervous he thought.

Two were engaged in a game of cards and the third was idly flicking through a magazine.

Myzaroth didn’t know how they could be so casual about it.

A lot rested on today, if the great lord Astaroth was happy with your performance then the chances of promotion into one of the higher circles were good, if not well anything could happen.

The thought of being cast back down to the lower circles was not an appealing one.

It was his first year as a tormentor and things hadn’t gone as well as he would’ve liked if he looked at things honestly. It wasn’t his fault; the wretched human just seemed to have a ridiculous amount of good luck.

When he was first assigned the job, he thought it would be a piece of cake. Drive the poor miserable wretch into despair, seemed an easy enough assignment. To start with he spent the first few weeks trying to ruin the fellows’ relationship.

But wouldn’t you know it, just a week after he had driven the man’s fiancé off, he met his childhood sweetheart at a coffee shop and as they were both single, they agreed to go out – one thing led to another and now they had got married last week.

To make it worse, the wretch was only in the coffee shop because Myzaroth had made him miss the bus, so he wouldn’t be on time for a big meeting at work.

Then not only does he meet the love of his life, but he misses out on being given a big assignment due to him missing the meeting. Naturally the assignment goes pear shaped and all who were working on it got sacked.

Then naturally the dirty louse was promoted to take charge of the entire department.

Bad luck, that’s all it was. Surely the lord would see it that way?

“Myzaroth to room 4, Myzaroth to room 4” the announcement brought him out of his musings, Myzaroth rose and straightened his tie. He had nothing to worry about he was sure. The Lord Astaroth was a reasonable being; he would see it wasn’t his fault.

The receptionist smiled at him as he slithered past, he opened the door to room 4 and entered. The Lord Astaroth looked up from his desk as he bowed.

“Myzaroth is it?”

“Yes Lord”

Astaroth pressed a button, the floor slid out from under Myzaroth’ s feet and he plunged into the yawning chasm below.

The floor slid shut with a bang, “not good enough young demon” said Astaroth “perhaps I’ll give you another try in a millennium or two”.