I look to the stars and only see the darkness of the past seven years. 'It's funny,' I think as I look down at the pills in my hand. Really, it is. I can't believe people think that when they die, their life flashes before their eyes.

I mean, I guess if you squint your eyes and think about it, it sort of resembles that. But it isn't. When a person is about to die, in that limbo state between life and death, what goes on in a person's mind isn't their life, it's Clarity. Your mind clears, and in the first time in your entire life, you can think objectively! Clearly, with a pure mind, untainted by wants, desires, or personal biases. It's liberating. Enlightening. 

So, if you think about it, that's why, inevitably, your life comes up. After all, you can see your mistakes so clearly, can't you? In the end, you look, and you look, and you look, and you look back at yourself. Until eventually, you realize your life is just one big mistake.

As regret sets in your mind as you think, 'If only I did that differently!' That's when death finally kicks in, for one mistake too many.

I smile and shake my head. 'It's not like I've ever had that problem,' I muse to myself.

Because no matter how hard life has tried, I've never died. And it'd be a cold day in Hell before I ever let that happen.

*****

Finn stares at the pills in his hand, only to crane his neck ninety degrees and pop them into his mouth. He gulps with an audible noise. He lets out a sigh of relief as a cool soothing sensation envelops his head. He begins to calm, and his body stops protesting after getting what it was desperately yearning for.

'It's not as good as the usual stuff, but it'll do,' he tells himself. He rubs his heavy eyelids, maybe he can finally get some good sleep? Unfortunately, before he could do that, he has things he needs to do. Stuff that can't wait. He raises his arms as his back arcs into a catlike stretch as he yawns, tears welling up in his eyes. Steadying himself by holding a hand on the wall, he stands up from his crouched position.

With the hardest task being accomplished, not falling asleep, he sets out on his journey.

*****

Finn looks at the apartment building that Seda lives in. Big spiderweb-like cracks run through the majority of the walls, the paint old and nearly completely scraped off, revealing it's true color of faded red. Some broken up pieces of the bricks near the top of the three story complex fall to the floor as Finn opens the dying, rotten door, making his way inside.

His stomach cramps as his anxiety ramps up from just being inside the building. He always hates coming here, as the fear of the roof suddenly collapsing on him always rears it's head. What's worse is that he knows it's a very, very, very real possibility. 

He lets out a sigh as he climbs the stairs, making his way to the third floor. Finding room 308, he knocks on the door. Waiting a few minutes, a frown makes it's way onto his face.

'Please don't tell me she's so drugged up that she can't even stand,' he inwardly prays. With a bit more force than before, he knocks for the second time. 

Still nothing. 'One more try,' he says to himself.

His knuckles hit the old, scratched, and dry wood of the door with so much strength, that even the doorframe rattles, as if threatening to pop off. But, it doesn't, and instead, it finally does the trick, his hopes answering with a chorus of sounds. He hears the sounds of the bolts sliding, and the chain locks clink as they become undone.

The door opens a little bit, just a crack. A red eye peeks out from the slit. 

"Snow? Is that you?" Her voice nearly makes her words incomprehensible. Her sounding like she's constantly choking as she wheezes out words.

"Yes, Seda, it's me," he says loud and clear, making sure she understands him. After a moment of silence as the red eye stares at his face, the final chain lock comes off and the door opens widely. Finn doesn't fail to notice how the poor excuse of a door barely hangs on it's hinges.

"How can you live here?" he mutters under his breath as his eyes finally focus on the person in the doorway. Standing there is what appears to be a young woman. Seda's viridian hair is a sprawling mess, looking more like a bush, her eyes bloodshot, her face sunken and dirty. Her neck is awkwardly slumping forward, to hide the unsightly protrusion that's the cause of her vocal issues. No matter how many times he sees it, he can never get used to all the unique colors of hair down here.

"What do you want Snow?" She asks him. Finn, barely able to pull his eyes away from the rather prounouced bags under her eyes which make her look a bit like a skinny panda, states,

"I want a job." She straightens, before beginning to eye him up and down, looking as if she just sobered fifty grams of weed and six twelve packs of beer. She scratches her hair as she thinks of how to answer. Her scratches, though, only lead to feathery plumes of hair akin to a bird's feathers to fall out of her thick locks. Eventually, her hesitation dies after mulling over it enough.

"I... don't really have anything lined up at the moment," she explains the rather unfortunate news to him. Finn slightly frowns.

"Sorry," she meekly says after seeing his expression. Finn blinks.

"What? No, uh, you don't need to be sorry. It's not your fault," he assures her. She brightens up at his words.

"I'll continue to scour Hellnet for any jobs, Snow," she informs him. He nods affirmatively. 

"Great. Thanks a ton Seda, I'm gonna get going now," he announces with a lazy wave. Her expression freezes.

"Um, wait!" She practically screams, or at least her equivalent of it. The noise she makes sounding more like the ringing of a distant bell than any form of scream. Finn turns to her, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah?" 

"Would you like to stay over a bit? Play some videogames," she tells him with what's suppose to be a confident smile. He doesn't have the heart to tell her in blunt words that, 'I'd rather not die from a collapsing roof, thanks,' he thinks to himself.

"Oh, I actually have some things I need to do," he lies. She nods sadly, before quickly making that awkward, trembling smile again. Great. Now he feels bad. 

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"How about I come over next Yadrutas?" Her smile becomes genuine, rather than the obviously forced one she's been making this entire interaction. 

"Looking forward to it!"

As Finn hurries out of the barely functional building, his mind wanders. 'Let's just cut my losses for today, I'll look for more jobs tomorrow,' he decides.

Anyways, it's not like he's tight for money, since he's already paid his rent and bills this month. He just wants to get some sleep.

*****

Finn walks pass the cars parked in the parking lot of the two story U-shaped apartment complex. Walking up to the apartment, he watches the red veiny vines on the walls of the building as he steps up on the rusty, metal stairs.

'They've grown more,' he notes to himself. One vine even reaches out, making to touch him, he just slaps it away and continues on his trek up the stairs.

The metal creaks and groans as he travels atop it, eventually finding himself in front of room 207. His current home. He holds up his palm, and a small eye like slit appears in the center of it. A key pops out of the hole, and he doesn't waste a second as he shoves it into the door's lock the moment it does, the hole in his palm already closed.

He barges into the room with little care, though not forgetting to lock the door behind him. The key that was once in his hand now nowhere to be found. 

Finn collapses onto his bed, his eyes instantly closing as the weight of his tired eyelids makes itself apparent. The effects of five days without sleep hit him in full force.

"You know the routine," he groggily mumbles just before unconsciousness takes him within it's comfortable embrace. His body becomes limp as he near instantly falls into a deep, deep sleep. His mind finally being able to shut off.

*****

Unknowingly, as Finn sleeps peacefully, well, as peacefully as someone can down here, his right hand slowly slithers It's way up to his face. The hole reappears, and out comes a pink, moist appendage. The young man's face scrunches up as the uncomfortable sensation of a tongue licking his cheek made itself known, interrupting his nice sleep. 

'Wait. Tongue?' As if a bucket of cold water was splashed on him, the fog in his mind clears almost instantly, bringing him to full wakefulness. 

He moves his hand away from his face. "Stop that," he orders, and the mouth in his hand closes. It's as if it was never there. How he wishes that was the case.

Finn doesn't exactly know when he started becoming a freak. But after a few years since he had first entered Hell, he began to notice changes to his body. A mouth that can appear on any part of his body that he chooses is just one of those changes.

Jumping up off his bed, Finn sheds his clothes, kicking them into a dirty pile that he really needs to wash, and enters the bathroom. After a nearly two hour long shower, that was filled with intense scrubbing, he exits, puts on deodorant and new clothes, ready to start a new day. Or night, he doesn't really know.

It's hard to tell when it's day or night since there's no sun. The only tell is that the day has a dark red sky instead of pitch blackness.

Holding his hand in front of his mouth, Finn leaves his apartment as he yawns. He hears another door shut at nearly the same time as his does, and he glances over to the side.

"Hey Gale," he says. The younger girl perks up.

"Ah, Boss!" She animatedly greets with a salute. He frowns at that weird title but doesn't say anything. 

"Going to school or something?" he wonders, trying to keep his disinterest in a conversation unnoticeable. 

"Yup! What're you doing Boss?" she questions.

"I'll probably be trying to find another job. I hope successfully this time." 

"Gotcha! Alright, see ya later!" She tells him with a wave, before hurrying down the stairs. It really wouldn't surprise him if he later finds out that she was late for class. 

Finn rubs face as he thinks on what to do to get a job. "Whatever. I guess I'll just ask around," he utters to himself.

He then looks at Gale as she walks, he watches her figure become smaller in the distance all the way until she disappears from his view by turning a corner. While it might seem a little stupid for there to be a School in Hell of all places, but it's needed.

If it wasn't for the connection it has with Earth and Heaven, Hell may very well be considered a completely different planet. There are three types of Schools in Hell. One for the progeny of Imps, Succubi, Incubi, Hellhounds, Vampires, and all other manner of native Hell creatures. Another one for people who come here after they die, to catch them up to speed in this underworld society. And the third, the ones for the Demons/Devils children. Basically, the third one is a private school for nobles, as only Demons have noble titles, which is the one Gale attends. And while Finn would like to say that he had attended one when he first entered Hell, and often does just that, that wasn't the truth. By the time he learned of the schools, he had already missed his chance.

He glances at the apartment building, and then in the direction his younger neighbor left in. 'Just what is a demons child doing living in such a shitty place?' he asks himself. It's by no means the worst place to live, but it was no place for nobility to sta.

Shaking his head, he focuses. He has more important things to do than speculate about where Gale comes form, or her situation. All he needs to know about her is that he should tread lightly around her. Which in all honesty isn't that much different than what he usually does. 

After all, who knows when a Devil is in disguise? He certainly doesn't no matter how much he wishes he did.

*****

Finn waves at a Hellknight as it walks by him. The four meter tall, dark armored clad skeleton with little fiery wisps in place of eyes nods in turn at his gesture.

Hellknights were made by one of The Rulers of The Three Hells himself, Lucifer. Lucifer rules over Circles one through three of Hell, collectively referred to as Sheol, or more commonly called by it's residents, The Dead Hell. At least, that's what Finn has learned in hsi years here. The Hellknights purpose was to keep order in Sheol.

Finn looks around the street, seeing many people sleeping against buildings, druggies, homeless people. All looking more inhuman than the last. He nearly snorts.

'Yeah, "order,"' he thinks pessimistically. Hell literally can't be farther from something called order. It just doesn't mix, no matter how hard Lucifer tries. It certainly makes the Hell he resides over the nicer of them all, but that really isn't saying much.

Scratching his arm, Finn snaps himself out of his musings as he notices just the person he does wants to see. "Hey, Damien!" he shouts with a wave to get the older man's attention. 

Damien looks rather unassuming compared to most "Sinners." Sinners being what native Hell Residents called humans who die and get sent to Hell. If someone ignores his pink scarred skin, lack of hair, absent clothes, holes where his nipples should be that leak yellow pus, and oddly shaped genitalia out for all to see, one could even call him human. 

Damien is... one of the many people that Finn knows who took coming to Hell in stride. He's okay by Hell's standards. Which meant if he was on Earth, Damien would've been one of the worst people he had the displeasure of knowing. Except he wasn't. And even a, "slightly," friendly face is something he's unable to take for granted.

"Hey Snow, how's it hangin'?" he greets in a genial tone.

"Good, you?" Finn asks, holding back the urge to violently circumcise him. While Damien is friendly with him, and as mentioned before, "okay," by Hell's standards, he's still one of the more disgusting individuals Finn has to interact with. Especially considering his hobby involving couples that starts with a N and ends with an R.

"It's going great my man! Actually, I think I might have a job for you." 

'That's... alarming,' Finn thinks, suspicious. The very first person he comes to see for a job has one for him?

"Really? How good's the pay?"

"Three months," he declares confidently, greed shining in his eyes. 

"Who's the employer?"

"Unfortunately... I can't tell you Snow. All you need to know is that they want to meet you at the nearby warehouse on Monstale street." 

Finn's expression instantly switches. His face becomes blank, as if seemingly processing this information. He just stares at Damien, making the man shift uncomfortably. 

Eventually, Finn let's out a deep sigh. "Oh well, you weren't that useful anyways. Plus, I hate looking at you, so it honestly saves me the headache," he mutters to himself.

Damien can't even react. All of a sudden a knife slips into Finn's grasp, as though appearing from his palm, and he shoves it into Damien's throat.

'I'd like to kill him until he can't remember me, but this'll do for now. May as well see who he tried to set me up with,' he muses to himself. 

This wasn't the first time someone's tried to lead him into an ambush, and it most likely wouldn't be the last.

'I need to let off a little steam anyways.'