Infernal Fugitives

Nightmarionne: I KNOW WHAT HE HAS DONE... CAN YOU NOT SENSE IT? A PORTAL HAS BEEN OPENED BETWEEN DOMINIONS, A MOMENTARY TEAR IN REALITY THAT HAS ONLY RECENTLY BEEN SEALED SHUT. VUCARIK HAS FREED WILLIAM AFTON...AND SENT HIM TO THE MORTAL WORLD.
Nightmare Fredbear: HE WOULD BE SO ARROGANT AS TO DEFY ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF THE INFERNO? THE DAMNED SUFFER ETERNALLY, AND DO NOT EVER RETURN!

— The Nightmares learn of William Afton's escape, Mike's New Ghostly Family

The Gates of Hell rattle in the winds, all of its locks have been picked, its guard dogs drugged and a person-shaped hole has been left in Perdition. Nature abhors a vacuum, supernature resents it.

When a damned soul somehow escapes Hell, don't expect Satan to shrug and be content with someone emigrating out of his domain. Odds are he will have someone sent out to drag them kicking and screaming back to their cell, either one of his demonic minions, a pack of Hellhounds or a damned Bounty Hunter he will offer a pardon for the rest of his afterlife.

Alternatively, angels or human exorcists will think that it's their prerogative to send the damned back to Hell themselves, either because the damned soul has Unfinished Business that could lead to more harm, their presence on Earth is Upsetting the Balance or they are just doing it out of mindless zealotry.

While rare, there can be some conditions certain damned souls have to meet that can pardon them of their eternal sentence while on Earth, including genuine repentance, a Redemption Quest, a Heroic Sacrifice, or hunting fellow convicts guilty of worse.

Compare Rescued from the Underworld. Contrast Deliverance from Damnation, Hell Seeker, and To Hell and Back.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Togabito in Bleach are a species of spiritual being who were humans that lived lives wrought with sin and evil and thus were sent to Hell to suffer eternal torment. While most Togabito had no way of escaping Hell, there have been some that have escaped. While loose in the living world, they would often try to conceal their bodies as much as possible to stay unnoticed by the kushanada that warden them.

Comic Books

• The Chronicles of Wormwood: Judas Iscariot is released from Hell and is desperate to stay alive, including murdering Jesus (again). Just before Danny kills him, he taunts Judas with the knowledge that he spent less than two hours back on Earth before being sent back.
• There is a Ghost Rider arc where a demon called Kazann wants to escape from Hell and invade Earth. An archangel and another demon are sent to capture him, but there is an angel who does not want them to catch Kazann and frees Johnny Blaze from Hell to do the job... which means the demons now want him back too.

Fan Works

• Mike's New Ghostly Family: After William Afton collaborated with demon lord Vucarik to escape from Hell and claim his revenge on Mike Schmidt for giving Nightmare suggestions on how to worsen his tortures, Nightmare visits Mike in his dreams to warn him about Afton's impending attack, and, after crushing Vucarik's rebellion, chases after William to Earth, intending to send him back to Hell. After Mike was able to defeat Afton in the ensuing Battle in the Center of the Mind and proceeded to viciously torture the killer, Nightmare brought Afton out of Mike's mind and sent him back to Hell, never to be freed again.

Films — Live-Action

• After John Milton Escaped from Hell to avenge his daughter and save his granddaughter in Drive Angry, his mission is threatened by The Accountant, a Bounty Hunter sent to both return him to his eternal damnation and to retrieve the God Killer, a revolver that can kill anything. It's commented that Milton is not the first person to escape Hell and will not be the last, but everyone who does so is eventually sent back. After accomplishing his mission, Milton willingly returns with The Accountant.
• In the Hellraiser franchise, any unfortunate soul who solves the Lament Configuration out of their own desires (or in some sequels, are unfortunate enough to be in the general vicinity) are Dragged Off to Hell, either to be converted into a cenobite, subjected to an Ironic Hell or to be used as flesh-based material of some kind in Hell's infrastructure. If fresh blood lands on a victim's eviscerated body, it regenerates their body enough to make them into The Undead, free on Leviathan's torments, as was the case with Frank Cotton in the first film and Niko in Hellraiser: Revelations. Unfortunately for them, escaping Hell seems to be a Berserk Button for Pinhead and the Order of Gash, who are willing to make a deal with any unfortunate soul who solves the puzzle box to lead them to their escaped victims.

Literature

• The Dante Valentine series is largely driven by this. Danny is initially hired by the Devil to hunt down and slay Vardimal Santino, said to be a demon of the Greater Flight who escaped from Hell with an Artifact of Doom. In later books, Danny ends up caught in the machinations of the Devil and several other demons after more escapes. This includes her lover Tierce Japhrimel, who is able to use his connection to her to escape Lucifer's control.
• The plot of The Devil's Rose has a bounty hunter from the Old West being sent by his demonic tormentors to retrieve a group of damned souls that had escaped from Hell.
• Grounded for All Eternity: When Parris escapes from the Pit, the powers are tasked with tracking him down. The responsibility ends up falling upon Malachi and his friends when they unwittingly return him to the mortal coil.
• The Otherworld: Eve Levine is an angel whose job is to capture the evil souls of the damned who've escaped from hell or purgatory and to drag them back for eternal punishment.

Live-Action TV

• Brimstone: Detective Ezekiel Stone was sent to Hell for killing a man in cold blood. When a breakout of 113 of the worst souls occurs, the Devil tasks Stone with hunting them down and sending them back in exchange for a second chance at life and a shot at redemption. One of the errant souls is even the man Stone himself killed.
• The Good Place: After the revelation that they've been in the Bad Place all along, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason take the train and flee to the Medium Place, and then with Michael and Janet's help, to the Judge. Shawn and the rest of the Bad Place demons try to recapture them the whole time.
• Preacher (2016): After Eugene and Adolph Hitler escape Hell at the end of Season 2, Satan sends the Saint of Killers with his right-hand Sydney to bring them back, later adding Tulip to that list as part of a deal Satan made with Marie L'Angelle. After finding out that Eugene wasn't dead (and that Satan and God both conspired in his family's death), he kills Satan and escorts Eugene out himself. With Hell's throne vacant, Hitler takes Satan's place.
• The plot of Reaper involves Sam Oliver being tasked by the Devil himself (who owns his soul) to collect damned souls that had escaped Hell and return them to whence they came.
• While damned souls and demons in Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell are often sent to Earth for odd jobs, any demon who tries staying up there — as was the case with Gary in "Psyklone and the Thin Twins" — are hunted down by bounty hunters sent by Satan.

Music

• While the Blue Öyster Cult song "Seven Screaming Dizbusters" suffers from Word Salad Lyrics, a theme emerges of seven renegade angels who fell with Satan and later decided they were not going to serve him either. Lucifer is hunting them down to punish them for their second rebellion.

Tabletop Games

• Chronicles of Darkness: Living and dead escapees from The Underworld's Lowgate Prison become the quarry of unique, powerful ghosts called Judges. They can sense their target's location, conjure up Supernormal Bindings, and — almost unheard of among ghosts — operate freely in the physical world.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate III has Karlach, the tiefling Barbarian Hero who was sold to the archdevil Zariel ten years ago to become her soldier fighting in Avernus, the first layer of the Nine Hells and the main battleground of the Blood War. But when she ends up getting abducted by mind flayers as the nautiloid briefly passed through Avernus, Zariel sent some of her infernal agents to get her back by any means necessary. This is also the reason why Karlach refuses to return to Avernus, despite being told that doing so would risk overheating her infernal engine to the point of killing her, as Zariel's forces will not stop hunting her and force her back into the archdevil's servitude the moment she sets foot in Avernus.
• This is the basic premise of the Reincarnation (2008) series: damned souls keep escaping from hell and reincarnating on Earth (called reincarnies), and the player's job is to catch them in the act of committing evil and then killing them (indirectly and without being seen) to return them to their punishment.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick: Three damned souls are spliced to Vaarsuvius to fulfill a bargain for power, but break away and escape when their host's concentration is broken. The archfiend who owns one of the souls idly mentions sending someone out to collect it but seems unconcerned.
• Referenced in Plush and Blood by the rebel heroes Fox and Grey. After a tight tussle with Invincible IV, Fox triumphs, and nails the decapitated corpse above a doorway, with a message for the other mooks written in blood: "The Devil's Hands have come to collect those that escaped from Hell." The Devil's Hands is the nomenclature for the two heroes. While President Brown's mooks never escaped from Hell, Brown's obedience serum makes them obey orders without question, qualm, or mercy.

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