Imp

Imp felt the world spin around him, and blacked out.  When he regained consciousness, he was lying on what seemed to be a gigantic heart surrounded by barren land tangled with weeds.  That,s odd, he thought, I,m supposed to be in the suburbs of New York.  Blearily, he got up and surveyed his surroundings.  There seemed to be a definite absence of buildings, cars, and various other signs that were normally associated with humanity.  Upon closer inspection, there appeared to be no food about the place, either.  While Imp technically couldn,t die, his body could, and if that happened he,d be up for a couple thousand years back in hell trying to grow a new one.  And, knowing the new management strategy, he,d be taking a rehab course entitled -how not to lose your body-. 

Maybe Qualthar sent me here as a joke. Imp, thinking about Qualthar,s sense of humor, and disregarded this idea.  No, he thought, Qualthar wouldn,t want to see me starve.  He,d want to see me chopped into little bits by some monster.  Scrambling through the weeds and tangled vines, Imp reflected on how he had gotten here.  Qualthar had murmured something about multiple realities.  Then he had murmured something about Imp being -just an imp.-  Then the portal had opened, and he was sucked through.  Imp was beginning to get nervous.  What if Qualthar had made a mistake? 

Just then, a commotion caused imp to leap behind a boulder.  A party of green men carrying a flag with an ornate -K- and numerous sharp spears were heading toward the heart, with a murderous expression stamped on their cruel faces.  Imp was glad he had hidden, there seemed to be many of them, as well as a huge being made out of what appeared to be water.  Catching sight of the heart in the center of the land, the leader of the group gave hushed orders, and the green men crouched behind the boulders.  Imp only saw one head straight toward his hiding place after it was too late to run away.  

- is punctuation

, is apostrophe when not a comma 

Prologue to the prologue: 

This story isn,t about me, Silent Sword/Steadfast Shield.  It,s about Illyriad, and an imp that gets sent to the wrong set of dimensions, and the Havoc/-K-T-/=EOQ= war.  And yes, this is fiction.

Prologue

They say that hell is other people. 

They are wrong.  Hell is me, or at least I,m hell.  A tiny, insignificant part of hell condensed into a six inch red body with overly large ears and a bad suit.  They call me Imp. It,s not really a name, more of a job description, although it,s used quite a lot by my demon superiors.  -Imp!  Get these files down to the department of worldly sins!  Imp!  Go infect this mortal,s brain with evil!-  You should hear them shout.  Of course, hell used to be a lot more fun.  No one ever noticed you, and since most of the demons were busy pushing mortal souls into lakes of boiling blood, there were no files, or departments, and you could basically do what ever you wanted.  Then the Devil heard about corporations, and decided that giving people a cubicle full of a never-ending pile of trash was a lot worse form of eternal punishment.  And we changed from Evil Spawn of the Netherworld to Devil, Beelzebub, Death, and associates.  Presumably I,m an associate. 

Anyway, I,m what you would call a -grunt-.  Actually, that,s what you would call my superiors.  I,m definitely at the bottom of the pecking order.  And now I,m being sent to the overworld to watch over this mortal kid, I think his name,s Johnny.  Or something.  I,m supposed to make sure he doesn,t become a hero, or something.  Shouldn,t be hard, given that humans are easy to manipulate.  Well, I hope that Underdaemon Qualthar, the portalmaster, doesn,t send me to a gristly death for fun. I heard he did that once.  

(There will be more)