I found a mask made of flesh in my grandpa’s attic. I put it on, and now I’ve become the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse.

Just joining us? I'd recommend starting at the beginning. It's a bit of a trip, quite literally.

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He snapped his fingers and a piece of floating parchment appeared before him. He swiped at it with a finger and I noticed my name was crossed off in a rather dramatic line of fire. “That’s all four. We’re ready to go,” he said.

“Ready to go?” I squirmed away from him. This was turning into full blown acid trip territory. Nothing made sense. The attic, I decided, must have been the source of the house's toxicity problems, and now I was having some kind hallucination from direct exposure. “Sorry," I said. "All four of what?”

“Horsemen," Lucifer said with a serrated smile. “We’re already running behind though, so if it’s alright with you, I’d like to skip orientation and get this apocalypse started.”

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“I don’t think I’d like the job.”

“Eh?” Lucifer looked a bit like I’d slapped him across the face. He squatted down in front of me, so massive that the pool of blood didn’t even reach up to his waist. “I don’t think you understand, Alex. We’re-”

“Andrew."

“Andrew. I don’t think you understand that we’re on the precipice of something big here.” He folded his considerable arms and appraised me with narrowed eyes (all four of them). “How familiar are you with the cosmic threats facing this reality?”

“Cosmic threats?” I shifted, rubbing my arm awkwardly. “Not terribly.”

Lucifer tutted and shook his head with a frown. “I thought humanity erected halls of learning centuries ago. You’re telling me they never taught you about the Lords of the Veil?”

“Lords of the Veil?” I was beginning to wonder when this hallucination would wear off. Truthfully, I never realized how imaginative my subconscious could be. “They’re a rock band, right?”

Lucifer’s head slumped. “What do they teach you?”

“Mostly math. Some English. A bit of science.”

“That’s it?” Lucifer said, his voice echoing around the vast emptiness surrounding us. “Nothing about Gos’sloth?”

I shook my head.

“Bartrise?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Her.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright, you’re new.” The devil rose to his feet (or hooves, I should say), shook some blood off of his goat legs, then began pacing around me in a circle. Waves formed in the pool of blood, softly lapping against my chest. “Surely you’ll have heard of Pri’deom though? He's made several trips to your world.”

“Who?”

Lucifer unleashed an ear-splitting roar. It bathed me in a blistering heat, so much so that I had to shut my eyes against it. The force of it threatened to blow me away, and it took everything I had just to keep myself standing upright. It reminded me just what sort of being I was dealing with.

“L-Lu?” I said meekly. There was a question on my mind, but it seemed borderline offensive and I wasn’t certain I wanted to provoke the devil after that display. Then again, this was all a hallucination anyway, so what did I care? “Shouldn’t you already know all this stuff?”

He stared at me.

“I just mean,” I said, my voice cracking with every second syllable. “You’re the devil, right? Shouldn’t you just be able to read my mind?”

“Read your mind?” He scratched his cheek, studying me as if trying to determine whether or not I was being serious. “How should I be able to read your mind?”

I shrugged. “Magic?”

"No such spell," Lucifer scoffed, as though it were the silliest suggestion he'd ever heard.

"Are you sure?" I said. "Because in Dungeons and Dragons--"

"Yes, I'm sure," he snapped. "I may not know much about current events but I do happen to know a thing or two about the occult."

Clearly I’d struck a nerve. Time for a slight change in subject. "Err, so why is it that you don't know anything about current events? I assumed the devil would be more worldly."

He heaved a sigh. “The truth is, I keep to my own domain for the most part. Not that I need to, but it seems like every time I pop upstairs something goes sideways and inevitably the blame lands on yours truly.” He put a hand to his forehead, rubbing it. “Honestly it’s….”

I wasn’t sure why my imaginary dream devil was confiding in me, but I figured it must be some aspect of my subconscious seeking to parley with my mind. I had heard about this sort of thing from a friend of mine who dropped acid on occasion. He called them mental breakthroughs.

Perhaps, I thought, this was me having one. Maybe this whole hallucination was just my emotional inability to accept the insignificance of my grandfather’s discoveries. I always had lofty dreams, but lacked the drive to chase after them. Maybe that was because I felt like if my grandpa couldn’t reach great heights, then how could I? After all, I respected him more than just about anybody, and all he discovered was a lousy old mask. It made sense that the devil, something I envisioned as powerful and accomplished would be expressing his vulnerability and signalling to me that it was okay to not be perfect.

“…which is why,” Lucifer continued, and I realized I’d zoned out in the middle of his monologue. “The only details I get about the over-world are the cliff notes. You know,” he began listing examples off his fingers, “This country’s committed a genocide. This guy’s killed enough people to make it into the ninth circle of Hell. This inter-dimensional monster’s broken through the fabric of reality to wage war on the planet. That sort of thing.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Right,” I pulled my phone from my jeans and consulted it. It read 12:04pm. That meant I’d been hallucinating for nearly an hour and a half. If I was lucky, somebody had already come upstairs looking for me over lunch and realized I was unconscious on the floor. Maybe I was even on the way to the hospital. That was a reassuring thought.

“Which brings us back to the apocalypse,” Lucifer said (which was a less reassuring thought). “We’re behind schedule, and it’s time to get this show on the road.” He snapped his fingers and quite suddenly I was no longer standing in the pool of blood. Instead, I sat atop a blue-black stallion dressed in silver armor, which stood in the pool of blood for me.

“Our reality is under attack,” Lucifer explained. “It’s been under attack for a long time, and quite frankly, it’s probably too late for it.” He approached my steed and gave it a pat on the side of its head. The horse whinnied its approval, flicking its blue tail in a swish of stardust. “Still though, I do hate to let a good reaping go to waste.”

He let the words hang dramatically as he drew back from the horse. His lips parted and he spoke a word in a language I’d never heard, and never wanted to hear again. It sent a shiver beneath my skin, scraping along my bones. Then, he raised his arms and the pool of blood began to bubble and gurgle.

A nervousness took root in my chest. The pool’s bubbling became more violent, and soon it began thrashing like mad, sending great waves colliding against each other and creating a storm of crimson rain.

This might just be a hallucination, I thought, but I really didn’t need it to get any more intense than it already was. I’d heard of people losing their minds from bad trips. It was time to reel in my spirit guide.

“What’s this obsession with the apocalypse?” I shouted over the chaos of the pool. The water sizzled and hissed and I realized it wasn’t bubbling. It was boiling. “After all of this concern over eldritch monsters invading, why end our world?”

“Oh,” Lucifer grinned, showing a row of jagged teeth. “I don’t plan on ending our world at all.” His eyes blazed with a searing intensity, their flames licking the corners of his face. “On the contrary, Andrew. We’re going to end theirs.”

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