"You have my condolences for dying."

Flames burned in the background, overshadowing the two figures standing in front of me.

"God help me, I've told a lie." One of the...things in front of me let the silence settle a bit, then began cracking up, falling to the floor in a fit of laughter. Finally he got back up, his oddly-shaped hat slightly askew on his head and coming up into points. "I forgot that God has no dominion here."

I didn't react.

"Ah come on," the figure complained, "that was some good SNL shit right there! Louis C. K. himself said I had potential! Well, then he laughed and kicked my ass on the way out, but let bygones be bygones, as my dad always said."

His assistant (I'm assuming it was a man because he had a masculine voice, though for all I knew I could be talking to Caitlyn Jenner) cleared her throat. "Sir, you do not have a father."

The man cackled again, coughed and came to a halt, and began speaking normally again. "Anyway, this mere human standing before me apparently thinks I have no talent."

His assistant shook his head sadly.

The creature continued, "I'm sorry to burst your bubble, fool, but what I do is much different from what those idiots obsessed with Musical.ly do. Insulted as I am, I think I might try something different from the usual torture and eternal damnation."

He took a step forward. Though all of my surroundings were lit, it suddenly darkened, and the hair on my entire body stood up in the same instant. I shivered, my blazer now feeling useless as I tried to contain my body warmth by shrinking into my own chest.

Striding forward confidently, he lifted his hand. My entire body followed his movement, and I hovered over the floor.

I let out a yelp, pictured the look on his face, regretted my brief moment of weakness, and fell silent.

"Finally a reaction. Too late. You could have been whipped for an eternity here in Hell, but now I'm going to send you to a place so horrendous...you will wish you were dead."

His assistant perked up at that last statement. "Sir, does that mean you are sending him to a Miley Cyrus concert? Because I believe that is going to far."

"No, no," Satan stomped his feet, his hat, now so obviously a pair of horns, shaking.

"He's going to Anais."

IIII

My back broke.

Well ok, my back didn't exactly break, but with the amount of howling and shrieking I was emitting, you would have thought it had. The leaves were still drifting through the air, spiraling downwards in the path I had taken throughout my fall. Once I realized that the tree was relatively low off the ground and there was no pain, my cries stopped. A single green leaf landed on my nose, startling me slightly. I got to my feet.

{Well...I am really glad no girls were around me just then, because that would have been embarrassing. Not that I get along with them. But a man can dream.}

Sighing, I turned clockwise in a full circle to survey my surroundings, then with a shrug, began to walk forward in a random direction. The glare from the sun practically burned my eyes. My hand went up to shield them. And I realized that my skin was completely black.

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Now I'm not talking about Barack Obama black, though that would have been weird because, last time I checked, I was Asian. I'm speaking of a coarse, midnight black, dark as night with a metallic tinge. Some sort of scales encased my arms and hands, and when I looked down, my legs were similarly girthed with that which I could only categorize as armor. Or skin. {Both? For fuck's sakes, I can't even figure my own race. How am I getting out of here?}

That was when I realized that, though I knew every attribute of myself regarding my personality and body, I had no other memories.

Other than that of a really, really annoying Lucifer.

I heard a cough and turned. No one was behind me. Lackadaisically, I turned back around and continued on my way.

Throughout the earlier internal monologue, I had been strolling, but I finally reached a break in the trees.

I walked past the last tree trunk. My eyes were greeted by a wide expanse of tall grass, stretching as far as I could see, with really odd web-like structures littering the landscape. Despite myself my mouth widened slightly. I stood, taking in everything.

Then something whizzed past my ear and exploded.

My body was thrown thirty feet to the left, and it skipped like a rock across the ground, crashing to a stop against a rock. My head swam, and spots danced across my eyes. Voices, loud ones, echoed. The quality of the sound was slightly distorted. A trickle of some watery substance dripped down the side of my head, and I realized I was bleeding.

I tried to focus, but my body would not listen to me. I simply lay there in the grass, completely helpless and unable to move without a surge of pain.

Suddenly people were milling around me, having appeared out of nowhere. They were all yelling at each other and pointing, then one said a word or two, I couldn't tell, and began pushing another. A squabble broke out, which was stopped by another, bigger man. He brushed them aside and then directed their attention at me again, mouthing words.

My hearing cleared.

"-your arguing, then maybe we could get something done here."

{What are they saying?} I thought, puzzled. {Some sort of foreign language? That doesn't sound like English to me...}

The man finished his tirade with, "Maybe we should start by disposing of this pesky demon."

His finger was still trained on me.

That was I heard the voice for the first time. {You might want to put your demonic powers to good use, or I'll lose the only freedom I managed to steal.}

I blinked. {What?}

The voice chuckled. {Man, kids are so stupid these days. I'm saying, boy...that unless you borrow some of my mana, your face and that adult human's knuckles will become incredibly close acquaintances.}