To die is a strange and tragic thing: when most people think of death, they define it in all sorts of ways. They say that it is the moment when your soul leaves your body, when the electricity circuit that spins around your bodies axis- the spinal cord, the brain, the heart, the nervous system, every part of you that made who you were- happy, curious, excited, humble, greedy, selfish, destructive- becomes extinct, is swallowed into un-existence, is gone.

Death is a strange and hollow thing when you think about it. It is inevitable. Everything dies. Every emperor who claimed he was chosen by God himself, every prophet, every prostitute, every slave, even the smallest unicellular organisms on Earth carries an inherent flaw in its biological design- they all one day cease to function, lose their souls. One could not live life without the promise of it one day coming to an end.

People have all sorts of beliefs about the world that exists beyond the one they know. How could we not? How could beings that were designed to survive at all costs not think about it, when we have that power? That inherent understanding that when we go, our soul, the fragment of energy that runs through our bodies and is made of every memory and choice we have made... it is one of the measuring factors of the intelligence of any species on Earth, it is one of the many contributing factors that lead to our rapid evolution, our massive breakthrough to the top of the food chain. And yet, the price at which it carries is the price of insanity. The need to evolve that makes up most of our DNA begs us to ponder, what happens afterward. How could I possibly cease to exist? How could everything I've ever fought for not matter when my time here ends? How could everything that drove me forward die with me?

Some say that death is beautiful. The souls of our dead wait for us there, they call us to come back home to them, and the feeling of heaven is so exquisite that a mere human could simply not fathom something of that magnitude. They say that divine judgment awaits us, that Satan and God will judge your soul, cast you down to the rotting hell that looms ominously below our very feet, deep in the core of the planet- waiting patiently to devour the souls of sinners.

On the day that I die, I can feel the world stretching out from under me, I can feel my soul transcending from a mere circuit of electricity to the entirety of my being. It is a marvelous feeling, but it is the most excruciating experience I have ever had. I can feel the electricity turning into something... else. The emotions that follow in suit are all laid bare in front of me, there is no hiding from them in the way that most people do. There is no body for them to lurk behind anymore. And at that moment, I am a child being born, naked and vulnerable. Fear, exhilaration, curiosity, love, anger, sorrow, despair- these are the ones that I can tell for certainty are there. The rest merge together in confusing patterns that move too sporadically to correctly articulate into words.

This energy is hurtling me forward, twisting and pulling into thousands of configurations, merging with something of higher power but I cannot tell what it is. It occurs to me that my form is producing a bright white light and creating a sound that might be some new way of screaming, but I can't be entirely sure.

What I know is that I am overwhelmed, that I want it to stop, I want the journey to be over and to have lungs to breathe through again, arms that might catch me- for perhaps in a human body I might be provided the mercy of knowing that stopping is even an option.

And then, by some miracle, it does.

It is a slow descent, the burning quiets and hushes, some parts hissing in some vigil of stubbornness, before they start to fade away, too as if the electricity has worn itself ragged.

I am unaware of where I am going, but it seems less important than finding someplace quiet, someplace where I might be able to allow myself to rest.

The world-or what I know of it- turns grey. I can sense noises coming from somewhere but they are very far away and so it does not seem to be any of my business. I find myself curling inwards, and the energy around me takes the form of the body to which I was used to. The greyness around me encases my body, holding me as if it was made to surround my body at this very moment. It is humid, warm and it feels as if it is breathing softly- relief floods my being, and I make another strangled cry in the comfort of it.

I do not know how I got here. The environment has changed but I am too weary to puzzle out why.

And it is here that consumes me, swallows my being. I'm not sure where I am, where it is I am to be going, all I know is that I feel as though I have been running so hard that I have turned my entire being inside out, as if I was chasing something I could never quite grasp- and I know that this place isn't it, but I also understand that I don't want to leave.

Time passes, the measure of which escapes me. It doesn't seem to matter; I am too frayed to continue going anywhere in particular.

"Lane?" A deep but quiet voice asks, it sounds as if it is existing through the walls around me.

It will be okay. Right here I feel safe. I don't want to come out if it means experiencing that burning sensation again.

"Lane? I know you're there." It says again, this time I can feel its frequency vibrating around me more clearly.

Safe. that's all that matters. Safe.

"Lane, it's time to come home, dear girl. You can't stay up there forever."

Up where? I think to myself, blinking my eyes awake as they beg for me to keep them shut.

"Come home to me."

I manage to open my eyes all the way, although it is not through vision that I comprehend the world, but rather through wavelengths of energy. I can feel them unfurling around me in threads, wound and wound around me, around everything else that I might possibly be able to conceive.

I do the best that I can to sit up, but the greyness around me is sluggish and it's difficult to maneuver. After the realization that I might be stuck hits me, I begin to panic. Where am I? What am I doing here? How could I even exist after death?

What am I supposed to do?

I start to struggle, kicking and flailing in a furious attempt to free myself. I think about calling out to the voice below me, but I do not know who it belongs to. I do not know what they might want from me.

Eventually, the form around me starts to move along with my flailing, pulling me downwards, great waves of energy curling with mine to bring me to some other unknown location.

Finally, the energy seems to give way to something else... someplace large and empty and cold.

I drop to the floor with a grunt.

I blink and take a look around, I can sense the energy at such a blinding rate that my surroundings look like puzzle pieces, and I am too disoriented to bother putting them together. I am in too much shock for that.

I let out a groan, leaning over and brushing what feels like my hands against what feels like my face, reaching to where my ears may have been and shutting my eyes hard against how overwhelming this new world is.

"It gets easier, I promise." That voice says, louder now, but not overwhelming in the same way the rest of the world seems to be. I recognize that the low, pulsing waves are pulling my energy forward, steadying how quickly my senses seem to be pulsating.

"Oh... ack. That's... much better, thank you." I find myself slurring out. I am not a nice person, I don't oftentimes find myself thanking people and for this reason, I am surprised at my reaction, surprised by how familiar this all seems to feel. Like I am catching up with an old friend rather than facing death itself.

I finally allow myself to look up and find myself face to face with a large grey man. There are no undertones of honey or amber or beige to his skin tone- he is humanoid in appearance, but he is completely grey. Neutral grey skin, a slightly paler shade of hair, darker grey freckles that spread like ashes all throughout his form- his most distinctive feature being the deep black eyes that stare back at me abysmally with some emotion I can't quite place.

He is the most strangely beautiful being I have ever seen before- ageless somehow- as if he could be as old as time or simply a young man slightly older than myself. His features are round but sharp simultaneously, and although I presume that he is male in origin he holds himself with a slight feminine touch that I'm sure most people miss.

I then realize that I am still hunched over myself on the grey, marble floor of a rather cavernous room. If it weren't for the man blinking down at me, I would assume he was simply a very strangely placed statue in a place like this.

I take a moment to look around... the room appears to be some sort of banquet hall or ballroom, with large, black marble pillars which seem to be engraved with images I can't quite make out, reaching to the ceiling that looms high above me. The ceiling itself appears to be some sort of ocean- an ocean that I realize as I squint upwards is moving in the way that an ocean does. I look closer at it and see that although it seems to behave like it's made of water, there are slight undertones of heaviness to make me doubt that it's water at all. As if it could be water as much as it could be mud or stone, in a place as stoic and strange as this.

"Where am I?" I finally manage to squeak out.

The man comes to a sitting position across from me and smiles so softly I wonder if his face has even moved at all, his upper face seems to be stoic, locked in place with the same curiosity he held before.

"Hell." He responds softly, but deeply, his energy still curled around me in a protective shield of sorts.

I blink back in confusion, wondering at the prospect. I had never been particularly religious- spiritual, sure- but far from the traditional Christianity I had grown up with.

"Hell?" I barely whisper back. "You're telling me I'm in hell right now?"

"Yes, Lane. You have been here before, but I hardly assumed you would remember. I admit that it does look a bit different than the last time you visited."

"How did you know my name? Who... what are you, anyway?"

"My name is Lucifer Morningstar, Satan, the Devil, Lord of the Underworld. I have many names, refer to me as whatever you like. They're all the same to me."

I blink back again, confused as to how my form of energy somehow feels like a mortal human one once more.

"Why... did my form change again?"

"Ah... you see, I am merging my energy with yours to help you better adjust to the shift between planes. It should look a bit more familiar to you in this guided way."

I chuckle darkly to myself, adjusting my position from a scared child to something more respectable. I realize after a moment that it wouldn't matter how I chose to appear, that he can still sense my fear. I decide not to let that realization keep me from the facade I have chosen.

"And you're really Satan? I've heard stories about your little friend upstairs all throughout my childhood and you are certainly not him."

His face shifts -once again- in such a minor way that I wonder if I even noticed it in the first place.

I realize that although he may not be who he says he is, I cannot deny that he is some sort of ancient being, someone powerful and that I should choose my words a bit more carefully.

"Apologies if I'm a bit rough around the edges," I say, trying again to adjust my vision so that I might be able to comprehend my surroundings in a way that might make sense, that might feel familiar.

"It's not every day that one finds themself... experiencing whatever it is that is happening to me right now."

This time, the change in his facial features is more distinct. He tightens his eyebrows slightly, his smile widening before his head tilts and he looks... almost sympathetic as if he has something important to say but isn't quite sure how to say it.

"Tsk tsk... hmm. I have a few questions for you, but I understand that you likely have more for me. I'll allow you to go first. Consider it a welcoming gift on my part."

"A welcoming gift to hell?"

"Yes." He smiles softly again in a way that might come off as alarming but is darkly tranquil.

I sit and run questions through my mind, there are so many that I couldn't possibly keep track of them. How long does he have? Isn't a being such as this busy with more important things? Not to mention if he really is telling the truth about being Lucifer himself.

An alarm pulsates through me, as I begin to unravel the gravity at which my reality has changed. What is time here? Does it really even matter?

I stare at my hands, the familiar feeling of the hands I never expected to doubt takes hold of my mind. I pool over the features- soft, delicate female hands which I had always secretly wished were larger to help me appear more masculine and intimidating- that I now cherish the sight of. My black nail polish is still slightly chipped in some places, and my cuticles are still torn to shreds from years of finger biting and tugging to soothe the nerves that always seemed to be on fire.

Finally, after a thorough examination of the hands in front of me, I manage to ask in barely a whisper: "Why are you grey?"

I look back up at the man squatting in front of me, a look of masked surprise echoing from my face to his. He laughs and covers a hand to his mouth in a way that seems almost childlike- as if he hasn't laughed in a very long time and has somehow forgotten how.

"Oh, dear Lane. You are still so full of surprises, aren't you?"

He adjusts to an upright fetal position, and I realize that he is mirroring my own posture, which I hadn't even noticed had changed.

"Well, Lane. I have to admit that I am not the hugest fan of colors. They overstimulate me, you see, much too bright for eyes such as mine, eyes that have bared witness to every sin of the world. I chose my form when I was cast down from heaven because it felt the most suited for me... the color grey is a combination of both white and black. White, which is traditionally the color of purity, innocence, goodness, and life. And black, which resembles sin, darkness, fear, anger, quiet, stillness, decay, famine, and death.

You see, when taken away from all the fancy metaphors mortals and conscious beings alike have assigned to them, they are simply light, and they are darkness. A being cannot comprehend one without also understanding the meaning of the other. If only day existed, the sun would grow too hot, it would starve this planet of water, of nutrients, of life itself. If only night were to exist, the planet would have no sun, no gravity, it would be cast into darkness where the cold vacuum of space itself would devour it all. Life could not exist without either, not one is inherently good, or evil. They simply are. As am I: I am not what humans presume me to be, I am not good, I am not evil, I just am. Do you understand, Lane?"

I stare back at him in response, kneading my brow and fully taking the sight of him in, doing the best that I could to understand the answer that he has provided. I notice that his clothes aren't quite what I expected, they are not extravagant and glorious dark robes but rather simple grey jeans, a darker grey shirt, black boots that seem dirty -and most notably- a large jean jacket that looks as if it is covered in soot. Strangely modern, the clothes of a working man.

"Why do the stories say that you're so cruel? Why do you preach about light and darkness as being just what they are when you are the ruler of the underworld, hell itself, where sinners are tortured for their crimes?"

"Ah..." He replies. "Well, you know how humans are. It's been so long since God and I were young since we established our existence boldly in our world. As time passes, the ideas become more and more warped- you see, religion is meant to be a guide to living a peaceful mortal life- but as a consequence, meaning is fractured into millions of ways, as numerous as the stars themselves. But... I suppose all in all the idea is to guide people against sin, towards a truth which they can comprehend with their mortal minds. If they fear a grueling afterlife, then they are more likely to take on a more righteous path."

The grey man looks down and smiles at the floor with that uncharacteristic softness, and I realize that I am brushing my hand up and down the cold grey marble in an attempt to soothe myself, which he once again decides to mimic.

"It's funny, you know. The idea that the Lord of the underworld does not wish for humans to detect his existence -that he might personally hunt people down himself- temptations filling their heads discreetly, luring them down to the darkness of sin. If I truly desired for this world to suffer, I wouldn't have warned humans of my presence. Chaos would spread much faster amongst mortals that way. Humans have souls made of energy- energy that makes up the entirety of beings like me, and like you are now. But their biological bodies are primal, and in that mortal plane, it lures them back into the beast that is the laws of Earth and planets like it. Lust, wrath, greed, pride, envy, gluttony, sloth- these things cannot haunt a being that is no longer capable of death. A being that was not truly capable of life. These sins would have their way with them if they had no reason to fear punishment, and so God and myself warned them of the hell that I created in an attempt to establish a middle ground, a steady list of rules to goals to keep them afloat in the tragedy of mortal life.

But of course, the mortal mind will warp this guide itself to suit their needs. They murder for God, the ultimate and supreme being, a beacon of power. And they do not defend themselves against evil out of fear for me, for the judgment that I might bestow upon them when they take their eternal rest. It's all... very tragic. Very human. There is no escape from the biology that exists in their blood, there is no one true guide that will aid them in life. We made more than one sacred text, and then more came after that, too, but still. Humanity always wins. The Earth will always let itself decay to make room for its many children. What can you do."

I find that I am leaning toward him, toward his energy, towards his voice. I am somewhat hypnotized by his words, by the sensations of mourning and loss attached to them, and with his energy pulsating towards me I can feel the way that he speaks, and I understand that what he says is the truth.

"Do you have any more questions for me, Lane?"

I sit and think about it for a moment, the more he speaks the more at peace I am with the situation, and the more assured I am that I will be okay and that although I am afraid, I will discover how to maneuver death with grace. I will figure it all out in time.

"How do you know my name? I mean... I guess as the lord of the underworld you know a lot of people's names. But why do you say it like that? Like it's familiar to you?"

He responds by looking up at me once more, pausing his hand from sweeping across the floor. He gives me one of those short smiles- as if to say that the answer to that question will come with time.

"I see. Okay, I think I'm ready for your questions now." I think to why he would even want to ask me anything at all, I presumed that Lucifer already knew everyone's secrets. But he isn't in any way similar to the way that he is scripted in the stories, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

Another soft smile, and once again I am appalled by how large and dark his eyes are. They remind me of a child's eyes, but they carry a weight that would be otherwise unfathomable to anyone else.

"You seemed rather haunted throughout your life, you were always plagued by something no one else could seem to understand. They oftentimes cast you aside and left you alone to deal with whatever darkness it was that followed you. And yet, you were good to them anyway, you always took great care in making sure that those who were close to you never felt what you felt, even when they couldn't understand you enough to treat you the same way. Why is that? Why were you so relentless about making sure no one else felt the way you felt even when you knew that they would never do the same for you?"

Oh. I hadn't expected a question like this... I had expected the man to ask me what my darkest sin was, what my greatest fear was, and what deadly sin drove my mortal mind forward. Not a question like this.

"Oh... umm... well, I guess that I also think about that all the time. It drives me crazy to think about, why I always treat other people like that when they wouldn't lift a finger to do the same for me. Sometimes I hate myself for it, sometimes I wish I wasn't like that. It's brought me a lot of pain to be more aware of others than they will ever be of me."

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I take a moment to think about my life. About how hard it was to survive. About the abuse I always endured from my classmates, from the neglect I faced when teachers would turn the other cheek. About the parents who were more like ghosts than human beings, always too faded and dissociated from the world to deal with their daughter. About the poverty, the brief time I spent on the streets and how afraid I was, how I became numb to violence, about once I finally got out, only to find myself living paycheck to paycheck with no foreseeable escape.

"I suppose I didn't want to be like them... I didn't want to be like the people who hurt me, I had to be better than they were to prove to myself that I was enough, that I didn't deserve the abuse I endured. And after a while I noticed..." I take some time to worry at the laces on my right boot, twirling them in my fingers over and over again until a familiar pattern starts to form- "I noticed that I wasn't like any of them. Everyone else seemed to be stuck on who they felt they inherently were, they built up these patterns of identity in their heads that they couldn't quite get out of. They would have walked the same path until their feet bled because they couldn't see that any other pattern might exist. They couldn't see outside their own perspective, they couldn't truly understand that other people were there, too. But I wasn't like that."

I take a deep breath, emotions surging forward, and I pull at them, manipulating the threads to weave tightly around me so that I might keep my composure a little longer.

"I was never entirely sure that I even existed. There were days that I wondered if I was dead but simply didn't notice yet, that I was an invisible ghost, wandering amongst the living. It was hard, I never really grew out of it, but it gave me time to watch. To observe. I could comprehend the lives of the people around me very deeply in the absence of myself. I analyzed them, picked them apart in my head, and devoured what their minds might be like. I wasn't trapped in who I was, like they were, but rather, who I wasn't. So, I selected traits that I admired in them for myself, traits that seemed to be useful or necessary, traits that would make me stand out. Traits that would make me different from them. Better than them, maybe. I was never trapped in the pattern of who I was, I chose who I became.

"Of course, it wasn't as easy as that," I add. "Of course, there were traits that I couldn't get rid of, but I analyzed those, too, and understood their positive and negative energies. What use I could make of them, and how they would hold me back. I always had a deep understanding of my strengths as well as my weaknesses, how to understand and utilize them in my life."

I pause, pondering his question once again, weaving it through my head and gathering what it really means.

"I guess... I guess that I just never stopped analyzing them. I never stopped seeing those patterns. Once I felt more complete, once I was satisfied with what I had, I couldn't turn that part of my brain off. I had transcended- once, I was a ghost, empty and incomplete. And then, I became a sort of... well, I don't know how to put it. An emotional shapeshifter, I suppose. I could see who they were, maybe not all the way, but I learned how to read the subconscious mind. I could deduct their main sources of drive, I could see their aspirations, their fears, their insecurities. It would unsettle people, when I made light of my knowledge, when I could easily see the parts of them that they were desperate to hide from the world. It always struck me as sort of strange... lots of people were like that, most people share the same roots, they just branch out in different directions. In that way, there was nothing that was truly unique- rare, yes. But unique? Not entirely. I didn't understand why they became so distraught when I showed them that part of my own core- the need to understand."

"In that way, I guess it was lonely. It's pretty rare to find someone else like me, someone who could see the world and understand it the way that I did. It always felt like my head was above theirs, they were swimming like schools of fish, without a need to look back, to see where they were and who everyone else was. I saw them from an ariel perspective, but they never looked up at me. I decided that if I was stuck riding that wave, I would do what I had always done. I would watch, I would observe, and I would choose to become the kind of person that I needed the most throughout my life. The kind of person I would have admired when I was fourteen years old and afraid. I had expected to meet others that were like me, and a few times I did. But... our paths never seemed to quite co-align in the way that I would have hoped for. And so, I became the person I would have admired most in some strange desperation to fill that void that existed in me. It was never enough. No one ever knew. No one could understand me or dote on how strong I had been. How strong I shouldn't have had to be at such a young age. No one could witness it, witness all I had endured and all that I would continue to endure. But it was the best that I could do."

I look back up at the man, who had given up mirroring my fidgeting and instead looked at me with a sort of somber expression.

At that moment, I felt so afraid of his awareness of my existence- his true awareness- that I look down and fight the urge to cover my face with my hands and beg for him to not look at me anymore.

"Sorry. I'm sure that my answer isn't as noble as you probably wanted. But it's the truth. I was selfless for selfish reasons."

He shakes his head slowly and gives me a sad sort of smile.

"No, dear Lane. Most people are afraid of giving an answer like yours, even to themselves. For that, you have my admiration."

I stare at him expectantly, waiting for his next question.

"Do you remember how you died?"

The memory of my death seems far behind me, perhaps it is hiding in fear of how I might respond to such knowledge. When I knock at its door, I remember the impact of my soul leaving my body, reaching for something else. I remember how deeply it burned, how it was so painful that I couldn't see in front of me, I couldn't even comprehend that I was screaming. Shuttering a bit, I relent from the memory, knowing that what I may find there will not bring me any peace at this moment.

I have all of eternity, I realize. Time is not as important as when it was when the biological clock was ticking down. It will be important to understand sometime else, but for now, I choose to rest.

Staring back at the man, an ardent expression takes over my face. "It's not important to know right now, I think. I would rather move on to something else."

"Hmm... interesting response, my girl. Alright. Do you know why you're here? Why you would be in a place that has been introduced to you as hell?"

I look back down and start picking at my nail beds again. I can feel some sort of emotion taking its rise, begging to claw its way out of me. And still, I keep it wound.

"I think so," I reply, my voice sounding more broken than I had aimed for.

"Do you wish to explain yourself?"

I blink back tears, if I responded now, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from crying- so I let the aching silence between us carry the conversation forward.

"I see... well I'm sure that the answer isn't quite what you expected. If I am to explain it to you, I am going to have to show you some memories that won't be pleasant. Are you okay with that?"

I blink back up at him- I am surprised at the new information, but somehow more so by the tone of his voice, of his asking for my permission. I'm not sure why I am still weary of his kindness. He isn't human, he isn't trapped in the biological web of Earth, as he might say. But still, I suppose mistrust is a difficult habit to break.

I nod in agreement.

"You see, when you were young, barely more than a babe, you made a deal with me."

My vision escapes me, and the room around us shifts until we are sitting on the floor of an apartment, one that I was told I lived in around that time of my life by my parents.

The grand room itself seems to be shifting to this new perspective: the large, cavernous walls narrowing in on themselves, the oceanic scape on the ceiling shifting and molding into the shape of something a little more normal looking. I can feel the energy of the room shifting, and it is like I am back in that apartment back when I was still alive- and yet, somehow, I can still feel the presence of the grey room as if it is peering over my shoulder, keeping me stable and grounded, breathing all around me despite not being able to see it.

The new room is filthy, with strange stains everywhere from the carpeted floor to the ceiling above. Furniture is sparse, with only a couch at the far end of the wall and a little table in front of it which is covered with filthy residue. There are newspapers cast all along the floor, bundling against the feet of the couch, all of them stained and dusty. The windows are covered with bed sheets as if no one wishes to be watched from the outside.

I see a woman, on the couch with needles cast around the floor. In the background, I see men wandering around the apartment, vaguely there, as if they are ghosts that are imprisoned in their minds, maneuvering their bodies as if they are only half-attached to them, mouths agape and eyes rolling to peer at the ceiling which they likely can't even see. Throughout the whole scene, the stench of rot filtrates upwards, so unbearable that I cannot help but gag.

I see a child, a young girl on the barren floor. She is only a toddler, and she isn't moving. I step with a certain fragility closer to check if she's breathing. Her eyes are on the ceiling, her arms flayed to the side. A smell- something like rot, like human mess- wafts off of her tiny frame as if she hasn't been washed or changed in weeks. Tentatively I move closer, peering over her face to see if there is anyone behind them. Large dark eyes stare back at me -eyes that are a stark reminder of Lucifer's own- they are vacant on the surface, but I can feel something deeper exuding off of her. Some tiny thread of energy that is reaching out, fighting to hold on. Fighting for a world that might be better than the one she is trapped in.

And then I hear it. A tiny voice, trapped in that minuscule spool of thread, as faint as a ghost but distinct as a flame: "Please, someone... save me, take me away from here."

I start walking backward away from the child, closing my eyes tight and stopping once my back hits the wall, right next to the couch. I cast my head upwards towards the ceiling while crossing one arm over my chest, while the other covers the lower half of my face. I cannot be here. I do not want to see this anymore. I do not want to remember.

Because the girl is me.

"You will want to keep watching if you wish to truly understand," Lucifer responds, his voice seeming to come around from all directions.

"I don't want to" I respond so quietly that I am surprised he can hear me.

"Oh, Lane. You know that you do."

A deep breath escapes me. I keep my eyes closed long enough to count to five until I can steady myself enough to look once again.

I see Lucifer sweep in. I cannot tell if he has been here with me this whole time or if this is simply him in the memory, but I suppose it doesn't matter. He is squatting over the child, peering into her large eyes that look too much like his own. Eyes, as he put it, that carry the weight of having seen too much.

I can feel his energy shift, curling outwards, like smoke- it moves around the child in a protective shield, and it is then that she twitches slightly- as if she can better understand his presence. Like she can see him.

Another faint figure emerges- one that I can tell is ethereal, like ours- but it seems to be distanced, its own hum radiating at a higher frequency than our own. Faintly, I can understand that it seems to be communicating with the grey man at its opposite- they seem to be in the midst of trying to figure the situation out.

"Let me take this one, please. You know I'm better at these cases."

It starts to communicate once more, and Lucifer responds with "Ha, well you know I can be gentle with her. My reputation lies, you know that."

The other form hesitates for a moment and starts to move forward: peering for once last time at the girl, a brief movement of light seeming to reach down and touch her cheek. It communicates for a final time before it backs away and is no longer in the scene that lies before me.

"What do you wish for, dear girl?" The man asks.

And once again, the small voice that lies deep in her energy peeps up: "Make it stop. Take me away from here."

Lucifer sweeps his arm over her, and the ashes that lie on his coat dust over her in a small sprinkle.

"Wait... one more thing..."

He pauses, looking down at her with a mere gesture of surprise on his face. "Yes?"

"Make me better than them. Please, I want to be good... I want to be better than them. I want to fight for something good."

Again, he is still, staring at her with an emotion I can't quite place.

"Yes. Of course." He eventually responds.

"You know, I am the devil. I will have your soul when you die in exchange for our agreement. Are you sure about this?"

And her voice changes- what was once small and pitiful lowered in pitch, sounding almost deep and guttural. "Your hell cannot be worse than this place, sir."

A soft chuckle escapes the man, and he lays down next to her, covering her eyes with one of his hands in a protective shield.

"Yes, dear girl, you are right about that. But I promise that it will be worse for them- for the people who did this to you. I'll make sure of that."

She turns her head slightly to the side, with her mouth still agape, as if the minor movement of her neck is all she can take. "What about Mommy? Will she be okay?"

Another pause, and another minor shift in facial expression- he looks as if he's debating with himself. He takes a deep sigh before looking up at the woman on the couch, squinting for a while.

"I suppose that will be up to her. She is safe from me for now."

The girl sighs softly, so as not to disturb any of the men who are wandering aimlessly around her.

"Okay. I'm ready, Mr. Devil."

He chuckles softly, seemingly surprised at her formality in the situation.

"Please, call me Lucifer. That is my name after all."

"Oh. Okay... Mr. Lucifer. My name is Lane."

The memory shifts again, and it is like I am watching the movie of my life, but it is stuck in forward motion- slowing down at certain segments, as if the Devil has watched it a thousand times and edited it so that he could deeply savor his favorite memories with more time, but speeds through at a quicker pace past the more blasé parts.

I see myself being taken away by CPS, escorted to some house that is crowded with other children. The scene switches a few times as I am transported to different houses, and then finally settle into a home that seems more permanent. I see my adopted parents, a man and a woman, who are both constantly busy fussing with phone calls and paperwork, and I see a younger me- older than I was when I was in the rotting apartment- frolicking around a large yard, one with a garden. I see Lucifer in the woods across the street, watching from far away; he creates pink butterflies and sends them my way, laughing as I try to catch them. I can no longer see him, but I can sense the energy he leaves behind and I chase it into the woods, desperate to find its source. Desperate to feel his deepness again.

I see myself later, in elementary school, watching outside the little glass window of the classroom door, as I sit quietly and draw in my notebook. I feel his energy spark from me to the girl sitting next to me as if goading me on to introduce myself. I watch as I exist throughout grades K through 5, bouncing next to my best friend and chatting excitedly.

I watch myself move on to middle school, where life takes a darker turn- I am popular by no means, for I am far too childlike and innocent, and the others are hell-bent on being as adult-like as possible- which for them means cruelty. I watch as my innocence and bubbly nature fade away, and I start wearing darker colors, watching silently over the others- desperate to see something they all inherently understood but that I could somehow not grasp. I see the girls giggling at me as I walk by, the boys leaning forward and mocking me. Some days they just laugh, poking fun at everything I do because it is always somehow wrong. Sometimes, it's more than that. A boy would slam my head into the lockers as I walk by, and I pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head to keep from being seen. Sometimes, they corner me and reach for my chest, and I see Lucifer standing in the background, his presence heavier, darkness curling off his body in a heat of anger. He lurks forward and takes one by the head and whispers into his ear- the boy, who cannot see him, backs away with numbness in his eyes and decides that the others should follow him to some unknown destination.

I watch as the cruel game they used to play emerges: Lane is practically a ghost, so let's all pretend like she isn't there. And suddenly, no one says a peep to me, they pretend like I no longer exist to the point that I myself start to question it. So, I start to draw more, and withdraw into myself. And again, Lucifer is there, watching from the back of my class, reaching out and touching the cruelest girl on the head. She turns around as if she can sense it -but not quite enough so she shifts back as if nothing happened.

I watch as I transition into high school, still introverted and picked on, but numb to it still. I carry myself with a different posture, once immature and curled in on myself, but now with my head held high. I had decided that it was enough, that I would not let others define me. I became strange and abstract, with a distinct style for darkness. I continue to draw relentlessly, hell-bent on being the best artist that I could possibly become. In one of my sketchbooks, I see what looks like a vague representation of Lucifer's face looking back at me. He notices as well and smiles softly.

I watch as I abruptly leave home at 17, deciding that I would not deal with my parents developing drinking problems and isolated tendencies. I could not pinpoint what had been so disturbing about this situation at the time, but now I could see Lucifer's energy guiding me out as if he had some foresight that I could not understand. I watch as he walks down the road and to a friend's apartment, with me numbly trailing his path of energy behind. I live on their couch for the continuation of high school until I graduate, and afterward, I feel so guilty for expending their recourses that I decide to leave.

I move to a shelter in the nearest city, and on some nights when there are rowdy people when they start to get aggressive or ask me to offer pieces of myself to them, I can see Lucifer once again guiding me away, seeking out a decent shelter under a highway or in the forest to rest for a while. Even when it rains, even when it snows- he is there, sometimes joining me as I warm my hands over a makeshift fire pit.

My biological father runs into me at some point -a brief trail of Lucifer's energy wafting off of him- and he offers to let me stay in his apartment for the foreseeable future. Once I'm in a safer place, I am able to find a decent and respectable job at a local coffee shop, and although by this point, I am plagued with demons from my past, I am able to move up in the world. I take a few community college courses in an effort to one day become a psychologist.

I am not a very nice person and oftentimes offend people who come into the shop by being overly defensive or too snappy, but overall things are starting to get better. I always go out of my way to ask my coworkers how they are doing, and I always mean it authentically. Sometimes we'll talk about their life, and I can give them an outside perspective, but most of them never ask me back. After a while, that small lack of effort starts to bother me, then a while after that it weighs me down. And still, I ask them anyway. Because I would have loved to be cared for in that way, and in doing these small acts of kindness and others like it, I can prove that goodness still exists in the world.

And sometimes the acts are more daunting than that. Sometimes I feel Lucifer's trail, guiding me to some mysterious and unknown destination. We have come to a point in my life where I don't doubt that feeling he gives to me, the call that lures me away. Once, it was a girl on a balcony, who I talked to and eventually laughed with for hours before she agrees to come back down. Another time, I buy an old man a coffee and sit to talk with him for a while, only to discover that it is his birthday but none of his children remembered.

I am not a nice person, but I am a good one.

Eventually, the images start to change, and I am not looking into the city I lived in, but someplace else. Someplace far away, in the country. I realize that I am not peering into the memories of my own life, but rather, someone else's.

There is a large house in the suburbs- one with white walls and a black roof. The garage holds two expensive cars in it, and there is a garden out front. I see a woman there- presumably the matriarch of such a place- who is planting pink roses out front. She is beautiful, even with her older age- with pale skin and long dark hair that frames her face in waves, like mine. She wears tasteful robes and simple yet elegant jewelry, and yet her hands are covered with soil. I walk closer to her, taking time to admire the flowers, grabbing one with my hand.

The woman is humming softly to herself, a melody which I can faintly recall at the back of my mind, at the furthest reaches of my memories. A melody that she may have sung to me at one point or another. I am listening to her softly while admiring her work, strumming the petals of the rose between my fingers. And she stops abruptly, looking in my direction.

"Lane?" She says, in barely a whisper.

I am surprised, and I slowly make my way toward her, leaning down to peer into her face. She has aged well, and from afar she has anyone fooled. But when I take a closer look, I can see where her crow's feet dance across her skin. Her eyes carry the same weight as mine, as Lucifers. Somehow, she feels more haunted than I anticipated, and I can see that although the house and her garden are beautiful, some part of her is still trapped in that apartment that she will never escape.

Once my gaze drifts downwards, I still notice the scars and track marks on her forearms. They have been healed for a long time by my guess, but I can still feel a faint and yet distinct burning feeling that exudes off of them. The burning of guilt, perhaps.

I reach out to touch her face- hesitating to make contact, worried that I might mess with the balance of things. If I were somehow to merge our souls to speak for her, I wouldn't know what to say.

"I hope you can make it out of there, someday. I can see it burning so deeply that parts of it escape you, and it probably makes a mess in the threads around you... I hope that someday you will be alright, that you will understand that fire like that is not always helpful." I whisper to her. I have so much more to say, parts of me reel at the sight of my mother, begging me to drag her back down to the hell she created in my head. For all the despair I have ever felt. But she is just a woman, I tell myself.

She was my mother, but she is just a woman.

Her stare lingers over my presence a little while longer, and tears make their way down her cheeks. Her eyes then shift to the scape around me, at the rows of varied plant life that surround us. There are pink flowers strewn in everywhere.

"Pink was always your favorite, back when I knew you. I hope that somewhere out there, you're doing okay. I wanted to reach out but... I didn't know how to show my face after what I did. I didn't want you to suffer anymore at the sight of me."

She speaks as if she is singing a soft melody for a young child- it’s almost as if she is praying. I squat down next to her for a while, taking in the sight around me in the sacred moment between us- a dead girl and the mother who gave birth to her. And eventually, I come to understand that the garden is for me.

I see Lucifer making his way to the edge of the scene, taking it in with me. At this moment, I am glad that I asked him to spare her, even if the bitter part of me isn't.

"Her life isn't over yet. It is up to her to make the final decision." He responds, sensing my thoughts somehow.

"Yeah, I know."

After another moment, I add "However, hell already exists in her head. I can feel it, running so deeply that it radiates from her body. I hope you keep that in mind when her day of judgment comes."

He smiles again to me, in that soft and all-knowing way. I suppose it isn't up to me, but I am satisfied in knowing that I did what I could.

We sit in the tranquility of the scene for a moment longer. The sun is setting and casts a brilliant orange light over the world. I'm glad that one of my last glimpses of the world was as beautiful as this, with the trees blowing gently in the wind and my mother's lullaby rolling faintly across my form.

"Do you wish to see how you died?" He asks, sitting next to me now. "I have to warn you, it is somewhat of a tragic story."

"Oh yeah? I'm surprised you didn't guide me away from that, too."

"Ah, dear one, I'm afraid that there was nothing I could do to prevent something like that. I did my best, but you are stubborn. And... it fulfilled your wish, so there was no need to take higher force in a situation like that."

I take one last breath, counting to five once more to savor the moment.

"Alright then."

The scene shifts, and as we are pulled away, I turn around and reach out to my mother one last time, desperate to sit in her presence a while longer, desperate to feel her touch. The feeling was fast to sneak up on me, and yet I am whisked away too quickly to act upon it.

And we are at the coffee shop once more. It takes me a moment to adjust, to let the presence of my mother go, but after a while, I come to terms with the scene displayed before me.

I can see myself working the milk station, a somewhat intimidating expression on my face as I am lost in thought over the steam wand. I ponder over to stand in front of myself, stuck in the surrealness of the situation.

The cafe looks to be functioning as it always does- Adri, my favorite coworker and someone I had truly thought to be the most pure-hearted and beautiful person I had ever met is at the register. She was the only one who asked me if I was doing okay, the only one who wasn't afraid to hear about the darkness that lurked under my skin, that haunted my mind. Our manager, Johnny, a large man with a hard and sarcastic outer shell with a sweet and gooey center, works the espresso station.

Customers are bustling about, it's busy enough but not overwhelmingly so. And still, my slightly irritated expression darts over the faces- rapidly judging their characters in a desperate effort to remind myself that I am safe.

Our city is not known to be the safest. I was at one time one of the homeless, and I met a lot of good comrades in that way: but I also know that in the hood there are shady characters who have corroded away due to childhood neglect and the survival that they found. We had a history of disturbed fellows who would come in and act strangely, but they were peacefully dealt with in an easy enough state of affairs.

But I suppose today is different, and I watch as a sunburnt and disheveled man walks in the front door, carrying his body with his hips as his shoulders hang loosely with the sway of his movement.

He approaches Adri, and Johnny and I are already one step behind her, watching her back. From an outside perspective, I can feel the heat of raw survival emanating from me. It is something I had discovered in life that others could feel, and, I suspected, was part of why they felt so off-put by me. In that way, it was a sort of safety blanket, a warning to those who might try and have their way with me. But this man is too far gone to notice, too far deep in the need for something else to truly comprehend the circumstances. To feel the life of the people around him in the way others could.

And before we know it, he has a weapon pulled. From my abstract position now, I wonder how he had even gotten hold of such a thing, but my mortal self has already been prepared for this moment. Had already lost too much in her life to worry about it being taken away anymore.

Johnny tries to react, but I am quicker, pulling Adri behind me just before the moment of impact before I could reach for cover myself.

It hadn't mattered. The idea was, I suppose, to pull her away and then duck for shelter myself- but the moment was too fast. There was no way I could have saved both of us. But it didn't matter, because Adri had proven to me that she was good. Good in the way that I had always craved, good in the way that I always needed proof of.

She wasn't like me, she hadn't waded through the darkness to find the light, she always had it. The weight of knowing what lurked in the shadows would never drag her back down to it, in the way that it had done so for me. And that was something that was worth dying for. It was what made the darkness truly go away.

My body falls into Johnny's arms before he lets go to deal with the perpetrator. I can't help but let out a stifled laugh at the sight of such a clumsy fall, but I understand that he was preoccupied. There is screaming all around as everyone understands the gravity of what has happened. Adri leans over my body and holds my head in her arms, too desperate to cling to the idea that I am still alive to let herself accept that I am not. She huddles for safety with me still in her lap, sobbing in big heaving breaths. I move forward, and try to touch her back again so that she can sense that although I am no longer with her, I am okay in the same way that I did with my mother- but the situation is too drastic for her to comprehend that kind of presence. I frown, distraught at the realization that although my life was taken for her sake, she will never be the same. Some of this darkness will stay with her forever, the same way that it did for me.

But I have no regrets. I couldn't have taken the pain of it being the other way around. I had accumulated enough darkness already.

The scene comes to a close, time seeming to move faster as I watch the man and my body away, Johnny holding Adri in his arms as she continues to sob until the tears run out. The sun sets again, and the cafe is dark. I always loved the early shifts, when the sun wasn't out yet and the building was dark. It had always seemed peaceful then. But now, the whole place is covered in police tape, and there are still flecks of my blood on the countertops here and there. And yet, there is a strange sense of tranquility here. Lucifer kept his promise, I died for something more than myself, and I don't have to fight anymore. I can finally find my peace.

I once again, find myself wandering around the scene, brushing my hand against the espresso machine and savoring the last moment that I would see it. I turn back to Lucifer, who is standing behind me.

"Thank you," I tell him. Any other words I could say escape me, there are simply not enough.

He once again smiles, taking a few steps in my direction.

"I always did the best that I could. I had always wished I could give you more."

"I understand." There are worlds between us now, worlds that he and I can both see, the gravitational pull threading us together. In a time like this, not many words can be said.

"Thank you for the hardship, too. I wouldn't have been who I am now without it, I wouldn't be able to see it all so clearly. I wouldn't have been able to meet you halfway in the fulfillment of our contract."

He reaches out a hand. I can feel the energy of the environment shifting once more, the pressure pulling me forward and under, blowing my hair around me as I take his hand.

"let's go home, Lane."