Helluva Distraction

Chapter 1

You dug your fingernails into your perpetrators face, gouging deeply until crimson blood leaked into your fingerprints. You snarled deeply, grunting as the mugger continued to plunge the blade of their pocket knife deeper into your stomach. The pain was unbearable and you were barely able to catch your breath, but you continued digging, kicking, punching, and gargling as your mouth began to fill with blood. You turned your head and spit, your saliva dripping down your cheek before you returned your focus onto the stranger on top of you. He continued to hiss beneath your grasp, twisting his knife, prying the life out of you.

"If you're going to..." you wheezed, "fucking kill me...", wheeze, "I'm not going without..." wheeze, "leaving a fucking mark" you felt your blood ooze through your teeth as you continued to claw at your opponent and with one final jerk of energy you forced your face upwards and bit into their cheek, clenching your jaw until you felt their flesh pop beneath your teeth. With a blood curdling scream, your vision began to blacken and your head smashed back down onto the cement.

It was a weird feeling to die, you thought. Everything went from intense pain to numbness in a matter of moments. The agonizing feeling of the blade in your stomach disappeared as quickly as it had begun. You weren't sure how long you'd been unconscious for but when you woke your entire body flung forward gasping for air to refill your lungs. You placed your hands on your face, then your chest, then your legs. You could feel them, you were here, wherever here was.

"Welcome to hell!" a chipper voice echoed through the room. You pushed yourself off of the cot that you were laying out on, your body still feeling weak.

"Hm? What?" you ran your hand through your hair.

"Welcome to hell!" the voice called again, coming from behind a desk. It was a girl sitting there, a wide smile on her face. Her eyes glowed a menasing yellow, her skin a deep cherry red, small black horns adorned her head. You caught your breath at the sight of her.

"I-um-I" you began to mumble.

"Please step forward to the desk, Y/N" her smile somehow widened, you did as you were told, "you may be wondering, where the fuck am I? What the hell happened? And I am here to answer all your questions! You've died! And now you're in hell!" she pushed a black folder across the surface of her desk, "your file, everything that you need to know is in there. If you have any questions, you are welcome to come back to the entry gates, but we here at hell would prefer it if you'd just fuck off!" she tilted her head menacingly.

"T-thanks? I guess?" you grabbed the folder and in a daze walked back across the room to an empty chair. You let yourself fall into it, your fingers trembling at the corner of your file.

You opened the documents. They held every detail about you, your name, your eye color, your birthday, the day of your death. Your old photo ID was printed in the left hand corner and at the very bottom of the documents read, "cause of death". Beside yours was written, "homicide/ robbery gone wrong." Your mind flashed back to the mugger coming up behind you, pressing the tip of his pocket knife's blade onto your back and whispering, "don't fucking move." You gulped hard trying to maintain your composure while simultaneously breaking down into a million pieces internally.

"Where...where do I go?" Your voice was barely a whisper, but the echo of the room carried it toward the service desk.

"Wherever the fuck you want!" the cheery little demon smiled before slamming a divider down over her desk, blocking you from her view.

You looked around the room, your reflection staring back at you through the waxed floors. You looked like yourself in some ways, but drastically different in others. Your hair had turned a blinding white, your skin a cherry red. Your eyes stared back at you, an icy blue. You gently lifted your hand to your head, patting at the surface until you felt the two sharp bumps protruding from your skull. You could barely believe it, but the black and white striped horns in your reflection truly were growing out of your head. You gave yourself a smile, your teeth just as sharp as the girl at the desks' were. You gulped and looked away from yourself, it was a lot to take in.

You forced yourself to stand, clutching your file to your chest, and walked toward the door labeled with a large exit sign. Through the glass doors you could see into the sky that shined a deep blood red, a pentagon sun blazing down onto the surface of hell. Beings of all kinds walked just beyond the doorway, some demons, some creatures, some hellhounds. A part of you was terrified to interact with such creatures, another part of you was trying to accept the fact that you were one of those creatures.

Gently, you pushed open the heavy door and felt the warmth of the sticky air grapple onto your flesh. Sweat started to pour from your forehead, your body radiating. You took a glance down at your clothes, they were the same ones that you had died in. A large rip was in the center of your stomach exposing your skin, you felt your stomach, perplexed as no injury was in sight but instead a white spot was in its place. Your dried blood still was coated on the fabric, a sudden wave of embarrassment flooded you. You pulled your jacket over your chest, zipping it quickly, and continued to make your way through the crowd with no destination in mind.

You stuck to the sidewalks and close to the buildings trying to keep as much space between you and any other beings in sight as possible. There had to be somewhere for new devils to go...right? You stared around at the sky high buildings that blocked the blackened sun, billboards adorned many of them. You stopped and fixed your sights on one of the closest billboards you could see. It proudly read, I.M.P, Immediate Murder Professionals with a large arrow pointing toward a tall building across the street. You were murdered and figured it was a better lead than nothing. You gulped loudly as you clutched your file harder to your chest and quickly made your way toward the business.