I’m not really a religious person. If you asked me if I believed in God, I’d probably just shrug and say I’m on the fence. That was, until last night.

My friends love wild nights. Parties, a bit of fun, maybe some late-night texts. I enjoy a drink, but clubs aren’t really my scene. I prefer a quiet pub, a drink in hand, just chilling.

So when my friends wanted to go out clubbing, I agreed. I stayed for the first club, nursed a non-alcoholic beer, and tried to have fun. But seeing them grinding on people and talking to potential dealers, I decided my job was done. I wasn’t needed. The night tube was running, and I could find my car the next day.

That’s when I decided to find somewhere a little more low-key. A place with a different vibe.

A Dive Bar Called The Ragged Feather

I ended up in a bar called the Ragged Feather. The name wasn’t great, but the drinks were cheap. Most of the people there were middle-aged men watching football highlights.

I tried to act like I hadn’t just come from a loud club. I fixed my hair, grabbed my phone, and walked to the bar. I ordered a double whiskey and drank it fast. Just because I wasn’t at the club didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy myself.

I sat at the bar alone for a while, scrolling on my phone. I pretended I was doing something important. I listened to the guys on the sofas. They got loud sometimes, especially during the football highlights. They were really into their teams.

I got another whiskey and just faded into the background. It was a good place to people-watch.

Unexpected Company

Stragglers from clubs are normal in places like this. Soon, some dressed-up women stumbled in, laughing and pointing. I saw a guy walk in with his friend slung over his shoulder, completely out of it. He dropped his friend on a worn-out sofa and asked for two pints of water and all the peanuts the bar had.

The bartenders looked amused. Some of the women were taking selfies and ordering shots, getting ready for the next part of their night. A couple of guys came in with takeout curries. I even saw someone eating a Big Mac outside.

It was a night for the young and drunk. My mind, dulled by whiskey, was happy to just watch the characters without getting involved. That is, until someone sat down next to me.

“Do I look like a girl with daddy issues?”

She was average height, but seemed shorter because she was leaning heavily on the bar. She was slim, with short, incredibly bright red hair. It framed a round face that was messy with smudged eye shadow and lipstick. Her makeup looked like it was melting off. A chip was stuck in a curl of her hair near her forehead.

The drunk part of me almost reached out to pick it out. The girl was clearly drunk. I looked around the bar, but couldn’t figure out where she came from. She didn’t fit with the selfie crowd or the guys with the passed-out friend. I hoped she wasn’t with the older men. I tried to look out the window, but it was fogged up from the heat inside.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She pointed at me. “Answer my question,” she slurred.

“Uh.” I wasn’t sure what to say. I just stared at her awkwardly, my face showing my confusion.

Her lips curved into a drunken smile. She snorted, covering her mouth with her hand, which only made her lipstick smudge more.

“I do,” she said, pushing herself up. “Have daddy issues, I mean. In case that wasn’t obvious.” She gestured to herself. Her clothes looked like a mess. She had stains that looked like old food. Sticky stuff was on her neck and shoulders, clearly from a spilled drink.

“What happened?” I asked.

Her hair had curled around her neck, sticky with the same substance. She looked like a wreck.

“I got in a couple of fights, no big deal,” she said, shrugging. “Didn’t start any, of course. But my father…”

“Your dad did this to you?”

She smiled brightly. “In a way.”

A Strange Request

“Do you need me to call someone?” I already had my phone in my hand. The girl looked like she was in her early twenties. She might have been dealing with abuse. Childline wasn’t quite right. The police? Was I really going to deal with cops tonight? My friends were doing drugs just down the street.

The girl firmly pushed my hand down. She was already shaking her head. “No,” she told me. “I don’t want you to call anyone.” Her expression changed. It wasn’t a flirty look like I’d seen on other drunk girls. It was open and engaging. She wanted something from me, and I felt like I had to give it to her. “I want something else.”

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To tell you a story,” the girl said, glancing at the bar. “And for you to buy me a drink. The universe is a pain sometimes, and I think I lost my wallet.”

I laughed. I didn’t know this girl. My nights were usually about getting drunk and making sure my friends weren’t in trouble. I was used to being hit on, but this wasn’t like that. This girl had no intention of flirting. She just wanted to talk.

I guess I was okay with that.

“What’s your poison?” I asked.

Her lips quirked. “Appletini.”

The bar had a very small cocktail menu, but somehow I ordered her an Appletini. I ordered a cider for myself, suddenly aware of how this night could go. I’d given this stranger more alcohol, and she’d clearly had a rough night. My old protective instinct kicked in, the one that made me check on my friends. With only the bartender aware of us, I realized I was responsible for this drunk stranger.

The girl held her drink, running her finger over the rim. “This takes me back,” she said kindly. She looked at me suddenly, her green eyes sharp. “You know what this was called originally?” She smirked before I could answer. “An Adam’s Apple Martini.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before.”

“Of course, it wasn’t actually an apple,” she continued, looking back at her glass. “The texts translated that part wrong, mostly because you people don’t have a word for it anymore. The fruit was incredibly exotic and, honestly, it doesn’t exist in this world. Only Eden.” She laughed dreamily. “And Eden’s long gone.”

I stared at her. “Are you… okay?” It was more honest than the last time. I was starting to feel a knot of dread in my stomach.

“Of course,” the girl said, grinning widely. “Why do you keep asking?”

“I mean,” I stuttered, “I just, now, don’t take this the wrong way or anything but… you look…”

“Like someone poured their drink over me?” the girl asked. “Like someone else threw their kebab on my dress and another unpleasant chap littered me with his fish and chips? That I have been hit, slapped around a bit and left in the gutter for the rats to find me?”

She held my eyes for a long time before breaking into a grin. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t they?” the girl shot back. “People aren’t that great, and alcohol makes them worse.” She shrugged. “Sometimes makes them better. Nicer, a little looser in the sack… but mostly just annoying and a little smelly.”

I looked at her. I watched her finish her drink. She had a smartness about her, knowing how ironic her words were, but she didn’t seem to care or apologize.

The girl looked at me again. “You bought me a drink. Now you can listen to my story.”

I nodded without speaking.

She smiled, pointing at the bartender and then at her drink. The bartender was already making her another.

The Devil's Introduction

“Eden,” the girl said, repeating her earlier babble as if it were new. “They always blame me, you know. For why Adam and Eve got kicked out of their perfect little nudist paradise.” She gave me a knowing look. “Only in Eden can you sit on the grass butt naked and not get a pine cone stuck in your crack.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not following.”

“Sorry,” the girl said. “My story won’t make any sense without a proper introduction.” She reached out her hand. “Hello. My name’s Lucifer.” She winked. “But you can call me Lucy.”

There’s an uncomfortable heat that spreads through your veins when you first feel fight or flight. Adrenaline rushes through your blood, and all you want to do is get up and leave. It takes over everything.

A lot of things made sense when the girl told me her name. For starters, that she was crazy. She had to be. She looked like she’d been attacked multiple times tonight, and I hadn’t understood how until now. Behind the messy makeup and dirty clothes, she was actually attractive, and her attitude wasn’t rude.

But if she’d been going around telling people she was the devil? That gets a reaction.

I suddenly found myself looking at her wrist, then down towards her ankles. Did she have some kind of restraint from a mental hospital? Had she escaped from a hospital after hitting her head? Was any of this even real?

I really needed to call the cops.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the girl, Lucy, said. “You’re thinking I’m crazy, that you need to leave. Maybe you even think I’m aggressive.”

“Are you?” I asked.

“Would I be here with you, drinking Appletinis if I were?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Would you look the way you do if you weren’t?” I shot back.

She grinned, toasting her new glass. “Touché.”

Without thinking, I clinked my cider against her glass.

Then I frowned.

She chuckled, leaning closer. “Let’s have a little wager,” she said. “Let me tell you my story, and if you believe me when I’m done, you can’t try to get me locked away somewhere.”

I stared at her. “If I ended up believing you, then why would I do that?”

She smirked.

The

Story of Eden

“Because,” she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “if you believe me, you’ll know that locking me up would be like locking up the wind. It’s impossible. And it would be a waste of your time.”

She took a long sip of her Appletini. The sticky residue on her neck caught the dim bar light. “So, Eden,” she began. “It was a nice place. Very… green. Lots of fruit. And, of course, no clothes. Nobody cared. Nobody judged. It was perfect.”

She paused, her eyes distant. “Adam and Eve. They were the first ones. They were happy. They had everything. But they got bored. They wanted something more. Something… exciting.”

“They didn’t want to just be. They wanted to do.”

“So they ate the fruit,” I said, remembering the basic story.

“Yes,” Lucy confirmed. “But it wasn’t just about eating. It was about knowing. Knowing good and evil. Knowing shame. Knowing desire. They wanted to feel things. All the things.”

She took another sip. “And I encouraged them. Of course, I did. Why wouldn’t I? Life without challenges is boring. Imagine a game with no difficult levels. No enemies to fight. No risks to take. It’s not fun, is it?”

“So you *wanted

• them to get kicked out?” I asked.

“I wanted them to grow,” she corrected me. “To experience the full spectrum of existence. To learn. To struggle. To love and to hate. To build and to destroy. Without the fall, there is no rise.”

The

Nature of Temptation

“People always think I’m the bad guy,” Lucy said, swirling her drink. “They think I’m the one who corrupts. But really, I just offer choices. I present the path less traveled. The one that’s more interesting.”

She looked directly at me. “Think about it. If everything is easy, and good, and predictable, where’s the thrill? Where’s the learning? Where’s the story?”

“So you’re saying you’re a good influence?” I asked, trying to process this.

Lucy laughed, a surprisingly clear sound. “I’m saying I’m a *necessary

• influence. I’m the spice. The challenge. The thing that makes you question. Without me, humanity would be a flat, dull line. Forever in Eden, never truly living.”

“But people do terrible things because of you,” I argued.

“People do terrible things because they *choose

• to,” she said. “I might show them the door, but they have to walk through it. And sometimes, the things they find on the other side are wonderful. Sometimes they are horrific. That’s the risk. That’s the point.”

She finished her Appletini and held out her empty glass.

A Bet With The Devil

“Another?” she asked the bartender, who nodded and started making it. “You see,” she continued, turning back to me. “You think I’m here to trick you. To make you do something bad. But I’m just telling you my story.”

She leaned in conspiratorially. “And you’re here, listening. You could have walked away. You could have ignored me. But you didn’t. You’re curious. You want to know what happens next. That’s the same spark that got Adam and Eve into trouble, you know. Curiosity.”

I looked at my cider. It felt suddenly very ordinary. “So what happens next?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Lucy’s grin widened. “Ah, now that’s the question, isn’t it? What *does

• happen next?”

She took her new drink. “My wager is simple. You listen to my whole story. You hear my side of things. And then, you decide. Do you believe me? If you do, you let me go on my way. If you don’t, well, then you can do whatever you think is best.”

I thought about it. The girl, Lucy, looked like a mess. She claimed to be the devil. She told a story about Eden that sounded… plausible, in a twisted way. The whiskey had definitely worn off, replaced by a strange mix of fear and fascination.

“And if I *do

• believe you?” I asked.

“Then you’ll understand,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “You’ll understand that being the devil isn’t about being evil. It’s about being the catalyst. The push. The one who makes things happen.”

She took another sip of her drink. “So, do we have a deal?”

I looked at her, this strange, disheveled, bright-haired girl who claimed to be the most ancient being in existence. My friends were probably still in the club, oblivious. I was here, in a dive bar, about to make a deal with… who? It felt insane. But also, strangely, right.

“Deal,” I said.

Lucy smiled, a genuine, almost happy smile. “Excellent.”

She then started telling me about the fall of the angels, about humans’ first steps into the wider world, and about all the times she’d been blamed for things she’d only encouraged. It was a long story, full of twists and turns, and I listened. I didn’t know if I believed her, not entirely. But as the night went on, and the bar emptied, one thing was clear. My understanding of good and evil, of temptation and choice, had changed forever.