A Slice Of Life IN HELL

Plot Bunny; In a World where God is not a Reasonable Authority Figure (by modern, post-WWII standards) and sends non-believers and pagans to Hell, including otherwise perfectly decent people, as well as other transgressors for Values Dissonance rules (people who've had abortions, who don't ever pray or fast, who use profane language, who have same-sex relations, and so on). Hell not being a Fire and Brimstone environment, but a Crapsack World where causality itself is out to get you and Finnagles Law is turned Up to Eleven; it's basically Real Life on Super Hard Mode. And you can't die (though I've yet to decide whether it's a resuscitative immortality, where you die over and over, or a regenerative one, where you keep healing).

While having its fair share of horrible or even just mediocre people (following those rules won't save you if you aren't also a good person at heart), the more proactive among the good in that world seek to resist their fates as much as their will can bear, by being extremely cautious, taking a methodical, rational, thoughtful approach to everything they do, and taking great care of each other. Given that this is a Crapsack World out to get them, there's a lot of Yank the Dog's Chain and Bait the Dog involved, and the usual Cruel Twist Ending, but they do have eternity to acquire experience and wisdom, and get to really know each other. Thus we have a perpetual source of conflict, and Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is avoided by making the Hell-dwellers very, very sympathetic.

Probably better as an anthology than as a single story. Literally a post-apocalyptic scenario, so comparisons to works taking place in such, like The Road, or Fist of the North Star, might be in order. May qualify as Religious Horror. Comparisons to Crapsack World such as Berserk or Warhammer 40K might also be useful. Hell being infinite, the technology and economy levels could have a great degree of variation; see Punk Punk, and especially Cyber Punk.

Now that I think of it, Italian author Dino Buzzati made a speciality of such stories in terms of tone, but had pretty much exactly one such setting for a series of short stories: Viaggio agli inferni del secolo. Hell doesn't need to invent suffering, when it can copy that of modern life and turn it Up to Eleven.

Te original idea was to use Islam's characterization of Hell as blueprint. Satan is just Hell-dweller being punished, and most certainly has no authority over the people he tempted into his nightmare..So, none of that "better to reign in Hell" or "hierachy of Demons". Humans go to Hell for a bunch of reasons, mostly for disbelieving and getting in the way of the propagation of Islam. 

Various groups of people described as being in Jahannam include: disbelievers, [35] hypocrites, [36] polytheists, [37] the People of the Book who reject the truth, [38] arrogant rejectors of truth, [39] sinners and criminals, [40] tyrants, [41] the unjust, [42] transgressors, [43] concealers of God's revelations, [44] persecutors of believers, [45] people who commit suicide, and murderers.[46]

The punishments are crude, brutal, and very, VERY fiery; no mind games, just plain pain. No mind games, no Dantesque Ironic/Poetic/Karmic, tailor-made punishments.  It's all at God's discretion, though, in all his "wisdom and knowledge", which means you might not spend an eternity in there, or any time at all. This is no Constitutional Monarchy; God is not bound by his own rules, and whatever he decides, goes.

After some thought, I decided to soften canon up a little bit. The work intends to be satiric ("What are these decent folk suffering so much for?"), but if they go through seething, burning, gruesome Cold-Blooded Torture, then there's just no way of taking it in that direction; either you're pants-out terrified and immediately prostrate yourself before the LORD, or Willing Suspension Of Dibelief is completely broken and you find yourself either laughing at the grotesqueness of it all, or tossing the whole thing down the toilet in disgust and contempt. Plus, that kind of torture negates all opportunities for storytelling; even Torture Porn tales like And I Must Scream and The Passion and Cupcakes give the characters pauses to stop and reflect on the horror they're going through, or playing mind games, or, you know, storiable things besides screaming silently, vocal chords long torn apart. 

Additionally, God's absolute power to do as He sees fit is a bit of a narrative impasse; it renders the whole "these rules are unfair and these are decent people getting a disproportionate retribution" premise moot. Or perhaps not. Perhaps one could successfully invoke the feeling of beaten young children who are lashed and screaming in pain for disobeying rules that they don't quite understand, set by an all-powerful, all-knowing, inescapable authority figure who claims to love them, and who punishes or forgives or even cajoles in patterns that don't seem to make sense. 

... To be continued.

Man, this is a disturbing topic to examine.