A Second Chance// Book two of Dancing With a Demon

Chap. 7

They say dying is peaceful. Like Sirius Black once said, it's, "quicker than falling asleep." They were wrong. Dying hurt like a sonofabitch. It was what came after death that was peaceful.

My eyes were tightly shut, for I was too scared to open them. The ground below me was warm and I no longer felt any pain. I desperately wanted to open my eyes but I didn't want to know just yet where I was.

"Y/n?" A man's voice said. "Helloooo?"

"Go away," I groaned. "Let me enjoy my death in peace."

"So dramatic," the voice said. "They always are."

"Y/n, darling, open your eyes," another voice said. I know that voice.

"Peter?" I asked and opened my eyes.

"The one and only," he said.

I scrambled off the ground and into his arms. He held me close and kissed the top of my head while I snuggled my face into his neck.

"As sweet as this is," the man from behind me started. "Wouldn't you both like to know where you are?"

That's right! We're dead.

"That would be nice, thank you," I said as I turned around and brought my head up to look at the man.

That's when I noticed that all of this looked strangely familiar. The buildings, the placements of trees, the sidewalk. Wait... Storybrooke! We were in Storybrooke! But only this wasn't Storybrooke at all. It looked, ironically, dead. There weren't any smells, the colors of everything around us had a red hue to it, and nothing seemed to move. It was as if there was no air circulation at all. Nothing that showed life where life should be.

"Oh fuck, are we in Hell?" I asked.

"You're in... drum roll please!" We both just looked at him. "Ugh, you're so boring. You're in the Underworld."

"The what?" I asked.

"The Underworld. It's where most people go when they die," the man said. "I'm Hades."

"Hades..." something about that name sounded familiar. "Oh! I've learned about you before. So, is this where the... the bad people go?"

Hades looked at me weirdly. "You've learned about me so that means you must've learned about this place, right?" He asked and I nodded. "So tell me why you think this is where the bad people go."

"Hey, I never said I paid attention in class. I just said I've learned about you," I tried to defend myself. "It's your fault for assuming my knowledge."

"Oh shut up, you led me to believe that you knew about this place," he said. I felt Peter tense behind me.

"Don't talk to her like that," he said. I rolled my eyes but appreciated the protectiveness.

"No, Hades has a point," I said. "I'm sorry. So this is like- like Under...brooke?"

"Precisely," Hades said. "And for your information, no, this is not where the bad people go. This is where people with unfinished business go."

"What's our unfinished business?" Peter asked. Hades shrugged.

"That's for you two to figure out," Hades said. I deadpanned Hades and he grinned back.

"Very helpful," Peter muttered. I grabbed his hand from behind me.

"Well, I'll let you two wander around, find out where you want to stay, get any business buildings you want, all that jazz. All the buildings that have no owner will have an empty sign on them. As soon as you claim them yours, they will be in your name. However, one person cannot own more than one house and one business each," Hades informed us.