Some people have the privilege of knowing how it feels to look at their own death in the face before they go out. And the ones who escaped death have always said that their entire life flashed in front of their eyes for a minute. But for Ace who was presently staring at a pair of beautiful yellow reptilian eyes which were looking back at him with yearning, it only took a moment to go through his life's memories. He was a couch potato, he didn't need more than a small fraction of a moment to remember that.

"Kiaaa!!!"

'So would I go to hell or heaven? I bet 10 bucks that grandpa's in hell.'

No one can really blame him for those useless thoughts, he was at his wits end. He used his 3 remaining precious brain cells to cook up a plan to get on that train, and that was a near miss. He was bleeding, with an all time high vertigo, and a headache which he would skip his lunch for just to collapse on the bed.

"Hnng!"

"Ahhhh!"

The thing in front of him was perplexed at his sudden outburst, it didn't even attack him yet. He was yelling as if he was hit with a baseball bat in a spot no man would ever want to be hit on. A splitting headache on top of the hammering headache he had, if a demon god really existed, he was definitely having some fun with Ace right now.

But there's a catch, the universe historically always balanced itself, if there's darkness then there's light. Ace was in a lot of pain, and a little more pain in a different location didn't seem to attract his attention. His left hand's little finger started to burn inside a dazzling bright yellow flame.

'The third rail...wait the third rail!'

The third rail on a subway train track is an electrified rail which can potentially fry a person to the right amount of crispness to put him in between life and death. For Ace to come up with something even in this scenario, perhaps his brain was not for just show. He ran and jumped on to the tracks in front of those yellow eyes.

"Let's play tag again, shall we!?"

Sassy till death, and that's Ace for you. For someone who was sharp enough to come up with the idea of electrocuting a demon to death, he hadn't noticed a bright yellow bulb glowing on his pinky. His vision was already getting groggy from the blood loss, he was out of stamina, and breath. This was his last shot at life. And luck plays a huge factor in this, because the third rail was generally covered with insulators on the top, so this demon has to come in contact with the sides of the third rail.

Ace's legs were moving into the tunnel as fast as it could, but they weren't even half as fast as they were when his mom found his report card, who even fails in art? He ran in a way that the third rail was right between his legs. A small mistake in his step and he would be as done as a crispy fired bacon.

'Come on...One misstep!'

Things weren't looking too good, he was already gasping for air, his vision too blurry to see the tracks in front of him. And the fire on his pinky slowly got brighter, started burning hotter, and shrunk bit by bit into his little finger.

Thud

He fell down on all his fours, this was the end of his little run. He sat down and looked back so that he could at least stare at his death in his final moments. It came to a halt right in front of him and slowly opened it's mouth, which just kept stretching open until it's jaws were at a perfect ninety degrees, interesting physiology. Then his gaze was drawn to the thing's left toes which were an inch away from the third rail. And Ace made a discovery at that moment.

'This bastard is missing his left little toe that could be touching the third rail given where he stood. Oh, for god's sake!'

A useless discovery, and so, he made up his mind. If he's going down to hell then he was taking this thing with him. He put all his remaining strength into his right leg to kick its foot towards the third rail. An honorable end for him, or at least should have been. His kick was so weak that a 5 year old toddler could have kicked harder, just pathetic. It was over for him, so he took a deep breath and just lied down as he looked at the thing's mouth that charged at him.

"Kiaaa!!!"

"Damnit!!"

"Choooo!!"

And that last one was a subway train to New York which was right on schedule. It went right above a flabbergasted Ace whose head cleared up as he clenched and sucked his stomach in for the love of god. If he just stayed still, then he would live to tell the tale, not that anyone would believe him.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Why don't you try to Kiaa Kiaa that! You damn reptile!"

Ace shouted on the top of his lungs with ecstasy and closed eyes. Another classic case he was going to learn today, 'Never count your chickens before they hatch'. He finally opened his eyes and there it was in all it's glory. The same darned thing standing in front of him, it hadn't budged an inch from where it was. Ace's body froze, his heart skipped a beat, and the bulb of light surrounding his little finger disappeared into his pinky making it glow mysteriously.

drip

The black blood it was drooling slowly slid down onto his face. His heart beat turned normal all of a sudden, and his left arm felt warm filled with a nostalgic yet mysterious feeling. His eyes lost focus for a moment, and he moved like lightning to land a left jab straight on its pitch black chest.

BOOM!

An explosion of bright yellow light consumed both of them, it tore the thing into pieces right in front of him. It was over, it ended just as fast as it started, but Ace was done too. He was blown back onto the middle of the tracks a few meters away. His head was buzzing as if a hand grenade went off right by his ear. He managed to regain his senses just enough to pull himself off the tracks and onto a small hole in the tunnel which had a door for subway personnel.

'Hnng!'

Another painful attack. But this time strangely the pain was in his heart. He leaned against the door, and that's all he could manage, he couldn't move another finger anymore. His consciousness was blurring out. Perhaps this was the end of the line for him, or so he thought as he closed his eyes to take a nap, possibly an eternal nap.

****

"Wake up son...as it is time for you to do so~"

A soothing yet alluring voice nudged Ace's sleeping consciousness. The last thing he remembered was being chased by a demon trying to take him home for dinner. And that memory was enough to jolt him out of his nap. Ace opened his eyes wide open, and his breathing became abrupt.

"You are finally awake son~"

Ace was lying on the ground and in front of him was a delicate blonde beauty with a mysterious bright light emitting out of her. She smiled at him gently as if she was trying to cradle him back to sleep.

"Where am I?"

He asked in a soft voice, she felt a bit odd to him. But he just couldn't help but be gentle in front of her.

"You are in heaven, son. And I am the angel sent to bring you home."

She extended her hand out and gestured him to grab onto her with his left hand. A gentle smile bloomed on her face as he tried to grab onto her with a sigh.

Sigh

"So I did die after all."

"Yes, now let me take you to heave-"

BAM!

"KIAA!"

"What the in the goddamn hell!?"

The top part of her head burst open from a swing with a twig as big as a baseball bat. Her bright light disappeared into nowhere and the rest of her head and body turned into hundreds of screeching black worms ,and started falling apart.

"Heaven my foot! You bastards didn't even change your opening lines!"

A youthful angry voice came from behind the pile of worms that were starting to fall off. Ace immediately backed off to avoid the falling worms, and got on his feet. The man in front of him seemed similar to him in age, with short black hair and black eyes, and stood at 176cm approximately with nice brown textured skin.

"What the hell was that!?"

Ace yelled at the man in front of him as he looked at the pile of worms trying to dig their way back into the earth.

"How on god's green Earth would I know?"

"You clearly knew that thing was not a real person!"

Ace was already in a punching position, not that his punches would hurt. Who can blame him for being cautious after the circus he went through before he took a nap and woke up wherever he was right now.

"Yeah well a similar one almost sent me to heaven a few minutes ago! Now stop yelling already."

"It's just one thing after another..."

"I am Shree, you are?"

"Ace."

Shree held his hand against Ace. And understandably Ace was a bit skeptical on taking someone's hand given what he just saw. But he shook his hands in the end, seriously this man trusts people too easily. At least it didn't seem like Shree was a bad bet. Ace looked around as he talked to Shree.

"I really hoped this was heaven, I could have finally got some rest."

"This is more of a hell than heaven. Where in the heck are we?"

They were standing in a dark swamp, filled with black water that stunk like a cross between the smell of a dead rat and sewage dump. Twisted dark trees with dark grey leaves grew on the patches of land above the swamp water. Shree looked at the pile of worms that had almost disappeared as he sighed.

Sigh

"I would have preferred it to be hell. At least we would know where we are and where to go."

"How did you end up here Shree?"

"You are not gonna believe me if I tel-"

He stopped speaking mid-sentence. These two almost got killed by a pile of worms dressed like an angel who promised to take them to heaven minutes ago.

"A demonic gorilla of some sort, which had no skin and it's organs were dangling on the outside. It had black eyes with a blue tinge."

"It chased me all the way home, and crushed my right arm. I remember punching it out with my left arm for some reason. And the next thing I know, here I am."

"A demon gorilla huh...the organs dangling really creeped me out too."

"I know right. What about you?"

"It was kinda human...ish, but with reptilian yellow eyes, and everything else was same about it with yours. And it was damn fast."

That was a lie, have you ever seen a couch potato run fast? The demon he faced was just as fast as the gorilla, it was just that Ace couldn't run faster.

"Took it down the same way, I vaguely remember punching out with my left. And then you know how I woke up. When did you get here?"

"10 min before I hit the home-run on that pile of worms that tried to kiss me and you good night forever."

"That's not really a good description. What do we do now, any ideas?"

Shree looked around the swamp to find any clues to what they can do now, while Ace finally dusted himself off.

"Kiakiakiakia!"

"Kikikikikik!"

"Pipipipippi!"

Distant screeches that sounded like a mix of metal scraping and a horrible laugh. A sound that these two have really vivid and unforgettable memories of. They looked at each other, and they could see that the one looking back knew exactly what kind of entities were making those sounds. Their heads cleared up, and both of them took a deep breath followed by a slow exhale.

"Fuck!"

"Fuck!"

Fuck.