The air smelled of smoke. Not of cigar smoke or of the burning of gasoline. It was simple firewood, burning a bit away, filling the room with warmth and its staunch stench.

But then again...

Smoke was always a risk, a possible threat. And so, Alexander's subconscious ordered him up, forcing him to sit up from the comfort of his bed. With his eyes barely open, he faced forward and at the source of the smell.

It was a simple brick-laid chimney, with firewood carefully stacked inside while it burned. That was the singular source, Alexander realized.

With that realization, that understanding of no threat, he let himself fall back and crash down onto the soft bed. He let out a slight groan and pulled his blankets over his face.

This whole time, his brain had been pounding and thumping from within his skull. His head burned with that pain, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it and sleep. Even under his closed eyes and thoughtless, murky mind, the thumping remained.

'Just let me sleep...' he begged himself, pulling the blankets over his face.

He was tired.

He was plagued with pain, each muscle fiber aching and each organ and tissue under stress. But the thumping in his pain persisted. And with it, thoughts began to take route, even as it only brought him pain.

Another order to rise burst into his mind.

And another groan of his echoed out, both aloud and in his head.

He gained silence with that rejection. Although only for a moment. It was right after that his headache reminded him, 'You live in Florida, Alexander.'

'So what?' he asked himself once again, struggling to find a parcel of peace.

'You don't have a chimney, dumbass.'

Alexander burst up from the cover of his sheets, eyes wide open. He wasn't home. Far from it, it seemed.

A bright strong flame stood across from him within the red brick fireplace, just as the entire room around him stood with those red bricks. His mind scanned each of his memories and found not a single recollection of this room.

Wherever he was, it was unknown to him.

A single doorway stood in the side of the red room. The entirety was practically empty other than the bed Alexander sat in. Furniture was sprawled throughout the room, with a nightstand next to the bed, and a table just a few meters away. There were no chairs near the table at all, only on the other side of Alexander's bed.

As strange as that was, he couldn't focus on that. His instincts drew his sight to the pair of swords on the wall, crossed onto each other. If worse came to worse, that could be his path to getting out of here- wherever 'here' was.

That idea came at the costly assumption that he would even be able to fight with all that afflicted him.

But before he could even think of that, he noticed a figure, growing increasingly near that doorway.

The sight of its shadow and the sound of their footsteps getting closer and closer. A woman entered the open room, her eyes widening as she was met with Alexander's confused gaze.

"Ah! You're finally awake!" the dark-haired woman called out.

She rushed over to him, her short, curly hair bouncing along the way. As she got near him, Alexander noticed her ebony eyes, just as dark as her hair was. Just as dark as Alexander's eyes were.

He had to move. He couldn't trust her or any of this, he told himself.

She met his confused stare with reassurance as she placed her hand on his shoulder and spoke. "Don't get up," she urged. "Your entire being is probably still reeling right now."

"I think I'm fine," he told her, despite his lack of situational awareness. He forced his feet onto the ground and forced his body up. It was only an instant before his vision turned to black as he lost himself, his weight, leaving him to fall backward and crash down into the thankfully soft bed.

The two of them fell into silence. "Alright," Alexander began to admit. "My entire being is still reeling."

The woman laughed and helped him sit back up, her black eyes shining brightly with joy. She wrapped her arms around his head and pressed herself against him. Her warm embrace brought some calm to the unease deep within him, but...

He pulled himself back and swallowed his dry saliva.

"Ma'am... Sorry, but... Who are you?" he managed to mutter out. Her energy- It was strange. The magic radiating from her body was far from human. Even as it brought some peace, some quiet into his soul, Alexander knew deep down. This woman was a demon.

"Ma'am?!" she screeched out. In an instant, her hands flew up as she pressed her fingertips against her cheeks. She caressed her own smooth skin, her eyebrows furrowed and confused. "I can't look that old! I'm not even 200 yet!"

Alexander clenched his jaw. He had no idea who this woman was or what he was doing there. All he could utter out this time was a simple, hollow, "Huh?"

"Miss!" the woman now yelled. "Refer to me as Miss from here on!" Her head drooped over while she kept her finger aimed at Alexander. "I'm not even old."

"Well... Miss... I was just trying to be respectful," Alexander said along with an apology. "But I don't know who you are. And I just need to know how to get out of here."

She looked up, her eyebrows furrowed. "Why do you need to get out? You're safe here."

"Yeah but..." Alexander said, turning his head to the fireplace. "Where is here?"

As Alexander turned his head back to face this woman, their black eyes met. She stared at him with a simple gaze as she mumbled. "Right."

She wanted him to ask himself those questions. He had to figure it out for himself. All she could do was watch him and ask him the question, "What do you last remember?"

She placed her hand onto his knee as his brain scanned his memories.

"Huh? I... don't know. It's just-"

Once again, the warmth of her touch ignited a firestorm inside Alexander's soul. And that blaze turned to a flood of memories in his murky mind and dense skull. Finally, he remembered.

Stolen story; please report.

He remembered the cold steel that tore his heart in two. He remembered the warmth leaving his body through his own blood. He remembered the moment his life left his body. And he remembered the feeling of emptiness of the bridge between life and death.

The moment after that, he was met with the sensation of the heavy blankets that still sat on his bed.

"I... I was killed. Stabbed through the heart?" he uttered out. Upon that realization, his hands surged with a flurry of motions as he patted his chest. There was no hole in his heart, and no cuts into his body and limbs.

He was okay.

"I'm alive," he mumbled with a heavy breath.

"I'm alive," he repeated to himself.

The woman lifted her hand from him and crossed her arms. "Well... Let's talk about that."

Again, all Alexander could let out was a hollow, "Huh?"

Right. He wasn't alive. He couldn't be. And so, his brain descended into a muddled chaos of overlapping, loud thoughts.

All he could focus on was the urge, the instinct to move. He had to move. He had to find answers. It didn't matter where he was or why, he wasn't done yet. There was still more out there.

He brought his feet to the ground, and he brought his body to stand.

Alexander wore nothing other than a long, white tunic, reaching down past his waist and over his black cloth shorts. The material was unfamiliar, yet comfortable, and nothing he wasn't opposed to wearing.

This time, he didn't collapse from the simple motion. Instead, he found his balance and could step forward.

It was then that he looked up from his bare feet. It was then that he met a man who stood in the doorway. He was tall, and visibly muscular at that. But the confusing part was how old he was. Alexander expected him to be nearing eighty years old, but only for a human.

This 'man'... was not a human, either.

Alexander could tell that much, just from the woman, and more so through the energy he gave off. The boy froze in his steps, just meters from the door.

But he urged himself to move, to prepare. He lunged to the side and pulled a sword off the wall. He twirled it in his hand and pointed it at the demon in front of him, forcing him to keep the distance between them.

The demon was particularly handsome, with white hair that fell down his back, combining with his long beard. He was dressed in a fashionable velvet suit and clad with a pale shirt underneath, tied together at his collar with a black ribbon and black leather shoes.

"Good to see you, Alexander," he said.

"Who... are you?"

The bearded man raised his hands. "Let's calm down a bit. Don't you know who I am?"

Alexander paused. He had heard this voice before-- back in his fight against Mammon. Right at the start of his 'Awakening'.

He kept the sword in the air and aimed right at him. "So... You're a demon. So what are you doing here?"

"What wouldn't I be doing here? This is my home. I suggest you ask yourself what you're doing here."

"You brought me here, didn't you?"

"Guilty as charged." The bearded demon smiled. "Because, in the end, I'm not just any demon," he said, letting his arms fall to his side. When he did, a wooden cane flew from across the room and flung into his hand. Alexander wasn't focused on it, only its owner, but it still reminded him of what Archibald used.

"My name is Furcas." The demon's lips curled into a smile with that proclamation. He continued. "But you can call me Grandpa."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. Because, you see... I'm technically your grandfather. As in, I'm your father's father."

"You... You're... You're that demon?!"

Furcas let out a light chuckle. "Well, I have a name, you know. How's Adam?"

Alexander let his sword fall to the floor. He spat out a sigh, his mind still spinning with each second he spent with these unusual demons. "I don't know," Alexander groaned. "Adam's just... Adam."

"Sounds like him," Furcas said with a grin. "It seems you met Jezebel."

Alexander turned around and once again met the dark-haired woman. She waved at him with a grand smile on her face.

"Yeah," Alexander nodded, raising his head to meet Furcas. "She's-"

"My daughter. So that makes her your aunt, y'know."

Alexander furrowed his eyebrows. This was too much for him to handle. He still couldn't maintain a single focus, even as his brain recalled where he had heard Furcas' voice before. The voice leaving that demon's lips was the same that echoed in his head.

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."

"You..." he muttered through his clenched teeth. "You're the voice I heard back then... Right when I transformed-- when I became that thing."

Furcas smiled and gave a slight bow. "That was me. And that 'thing' was you," he said, raising his body to smack Alexander's skull with his cane. The light whack echoed in the brick-carven room.

The boy rubbed the point of impact, leaving his eyes focused on the floor.

"Even in that transformation, you were still yourself. Still Alexander Lane, still a Human-Born."

"Human-Born?"

He nodded. "A devil born of a human. I suppose it's the same as what you call a Demon-Born, only inversed. That's just how we think," Furcas said with a light chuckle.

Alexander forced himself back on his feet to look Furcas in the eye. Hearing that he was a 'Human-Born' brought him some solace, to say the least. But there were still questions to be asked. That was the very least he could do now.

Still...

"Come with me," Furcas commanded, as soon as Alexander found himself standing. He turned away and walked off into the corridor.

Alexander brought himself to carry on and to follow behind his 'grandfather'. As they trekked through a simple redbrick hallway, Alexander spoke. "So can all Demon-" He paused and asked more clearly. "Can all Human-Borns transform the way I can?"

Furcas froze, and with his back still facing Alexander, he smiled. "Of course not," he said, his grin still plastered on his face. "Most demons cant do so either. I'm simply one of the few that can shift between appearances."

As he spoke, a wicked energy began to arise from his body, filling the room like a foul stench.

His magic turned dark, just as his skin did. That shadow spread throughout his body and turned his skin into a ghastly black, with scales covering every inch. His muscles grew distorted and stretched as his entire being grew entire inches in size. Furcas' teeth formed into fangs, just as black horns began to force their way out of his head and through his silver hair.

His black limbs bore long talons, grown and shifted from his nails, tearing past his leather shoes.

And most notably of all... His eyes turned into starlight, into white glows that burned their gaze into Alexander as the demon turned to face him.

Alexander's body forced him to take a step back. He spat out a nervous breath and began to stammer. "Jeez, Furcas, you could've given a warning of that before," he said with a light chuckle.

The demon smiled. "I suppose so," Furcas said. His teeth began to shift back into the brilliant, normal smile he had before, while the horns withered into the air. His claws and talons burned away, while his very skin shifted back into the humanlike appearance. Back into what Alexander now had to accept as his grandfather.

"So about the transformation-"

"Don't stress about it. I only communicated with you because I was able to. There wasn't any meaning or power behind what I did. It was just to talk to you," he said with a grin.

He led Alexander into what seemed to be the demon's dining room, a simple room with a circular wooden table in the middle. "We must discuss your future. There's a reason why you're here, boy, but in any case, your future belongs to you and you alone."

"Sit," he ushered Alexander, who did as expected and sat himself down at the round table.

Alexander went quiet.

"I'll give you your options. Are you ready? Focus up here, boy."

Alexander placed his palms on his knees. Of course, he wanted to consider the options, but the problem remained, he didn't know what the possibilities were for. His mind was still wrapped up in his death, on his arrival to the literal UnderWorld.

"You're plenty strong enough as you are right now, so you could stay here in the UnderWorld if you wanted to."

That alone explained a lot. If Alexander was hearing correctly... There was a chance he could make it out of here.

"Although that must come with a warning," Furcas told him. "Over time, with each day you spend in this place... You'll slowly become more and more of a demon, eventually becoming a complete devil, just like I am. You'll live a long, long life, but one where you won't be remotely human. It's not the best, but it's not the worst."

The boy swallowed his dry saliva. That was only the first option. "What's... What's option two?"

A sigh left Furcas' lips. "Yeah, you really don't want that, huh?"

Alexander shook his head. And Furcas only spat out a chuckle. "Fair enough," he said with a shrug.

He held up a pair of fingers. "Option two. I release your soul and you head for the OverWorld. You're a good person with good deeds, so there's a high chance you'll end up in the Heaven sector. Probably one of the highest levels of it, if I'm being frank, or maybe even Valhalla. ...Since you died in combat and all."

Alexander's eyes met Furcas'. "I see... Well, what about-"

Furcas smiled and interrupted.

"You haven't heard the third option yet."

This time, Furcas raised three fingers. "Allow me to explain a bit first." He stared at Alexander. "Right now, your physical body isn't here. What you are right now is a manifestation of your soul, which I am in possession of. And so, if you reach the Gates of Death, and make it past there, your Essence will return to the World. You will return to your body."

He repeated: "If you make it past the Gates, you go back to being alive."

All Alexander could do was silently stare at Furcas.

Furcas smiled. He understood what was running through Alexander's mind. "There are still things you have to accomplish up there, right? Alexander Lane... You're not finished yet, are you?"