"Haelan, are you up?!" My mother's voice dragged me slowly up from the depths of my warm and beautiful slumber. I groaned and rolled over, maybe if I didn't answer she would go away.

"HAELAN!" her voice was much, MUCH louder. I debated for a moment on what to do, my brain was still so foggy that I was abruptly worried I would be late for the bus. I desperately rolled over and reached for my alarm clock on my nightstand, no clock was to be found. That is when it slowly came to me that I was twenty-six years old. I didn't have a physical alarm clock, I had a smart phone. I groaned in relief and flopped back onto my bed. "In here!"

My mother stepped into my room, a thin woman with coiffed hair and wearing a floral print dress with the hem that went mid calf. Any higher and it would have been scandalous, bordering on being a harlot with bangles from the Bible "Haelan! This is astounding your apartment is actually clean." She made a big show of looking around the room with her hands on her bony hips. She leaned and craned her neck to to look at the rest of my sparkly clean abode. "You even folded the laundry." she added as she checked my drawers and closets. "I take this as a good sign."

"Not likely." I roughly rubbed at my eyes to get the sleep out of them. "I have a demon that wants my soul and I told him to clean my place."

"That's not a joking matter, Haelan. The devil will hear you and take your eternal spirit, and even if he doesn't, saying such things will bring evil entities in here." My mom really likes using words like 'entities' and 'not a joking matter'. She was also the definition of a religious church goer. She helped corroborate my thought as she pulled out her cross and started to pray the rosary to 'drive out the evil spirits' as she usually said.

"Stop making it a big deal." My father Bertrum rumbled as he stepped beside my mom. My dad on the other hand was lowkey and chill, he had been a rough and tumble fellow when he was younger (or so my uncles claimed), then he met my mom, had me and my sister Candace and became the stereotypical suburban dad. Where my mom hair had turned grey early, dad still had a shock of black hair that was so dark it had hints of blue at times. Both my parents had deep tans from working in the garden, a stark contrast to my own pale skin that would look more appropriate on a vampire. My dad was wearing his blue flannel shirt, which fastidiously adjusted where they had been rolled up to his elbows. He straightened them out to be more crisp. Mom was surveying the lack of dust on my furniture as she absentmindedly adjusted his collar where it had become askew.

"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, hoping that I could quickly fulfill whatever objective they had for coming and I could get them on their way. I didn't need them to be asking about--

My mother interrupted my thought by asking "How are you feeling with the whole Dustin situation, Haelan?"

That. She had to ask about that. I shook my head and got up to put on a shirt. My dad leaned over to my mom's ear and quietly rumbled "You know she hates that stupid name."

"You let me name her that." She hissed quietly back.

"You changed your mind on what she was going to be called right after giving birth, I tried, tried to get a word in edgewise but you gave me a look that would have killed a rhinoceros." My dad was a fan of exotic animals, ever since he went on safari with his boss for a week, and he used every excuse to bring up some type of animal's name into casual conversation. As sometimes happens his insertion of a random animal into the conversation rankled my mom and she poked his thick chest with her index finger "I told you to stop doing that, Bertrum."

"Stop calling her Haelan and start calling her Heather and I might stop." he quipped back, he saw her starting to purse his lips and added "And this is not the time to be unpleasant, dear!" he emphasized the 'dear' as if he were calling my mom a different and less letter word. I didn't have to see her to know she had shot him a glare, and to see him smile without showing teeth. They loved each other, they had also been together for almost thirty years, so they definitely knew how to irritate each other at times. Healthy relationships had that, the teasing and irritating, as well as the hugs and laughs. I thought me and Dustin would have that too. I wrenched my mind away from that thought so fast, I swear I had mental whiplash. I pulled on a black shirt that said Tomorrow with probably be better. it had a cute little cartoon dinosaur with meteor falling in the background, a bunch of other cartoon dinosaurs ran around in the background on fire. I turned back to the two of them pointedly ignoring each other, looking at different things in my immaculate room.

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I surreptitiously knotted the string holding up the chandelier twice, I did not need to give either of my dear parents a concussion. Mostly because them getting harmed would be horrible and partly because it meant they would stay much longer in my apartment. My dad still noted the movement and rumbled "I could get some supplies from Home Depot and make that chandelier permanently stay in place."

"NO!" My mother and I said in unison. I shot her a half smile, and I was surprised to see her smiling back. This was a red letter day if my mom's mouth moved even a centimeter upwards. My dad caught her expression as well. "Are you feeling okay, Gertrude?" he made a big show of picking up a pillow and dropping it to the ground. "Yep, gravity is still working. So, not everything in the world has been introduced to entropy. Even if you're face is acting odd, I would almost say you are smiling?..."

"Me smiling does not indicate that the world has gone mad." She retorted, she folded her arms with such a serious drama that I would have compared it to an army declaring war by dropping some nukes. "Of course, dear." My dad said as he quickly crossed the distance, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. My mom abandoned her wrathful expression and again she had that hint of a smile as she blushed slightly, though her tone was still slightly reproachful even as she kissed him back on his cheek "You're an jerk."

"But I'm your jerk." he rumbled and smugly walked back into my living room with a bit of a cocky step.

The two of us watched him meandering around. Without looking at me my mom said "You need to get out more, you're as white as a ghost."

"Mom."

"No, I am just going to say it Hae--" she paused for a moment and then corrected herself, "I'm just worried about you, Heather." she made a clear effort to use my preferred nickname. At birth she had decided spur of the moment to not call me Rebecca (something my parents had agreed to call me since they found out my mom was pregnant) and instead call me Haelan; after the root word for 'heal' in old Germanic. True translation (and it was something my mom would always explain at length when someone mentioned the odd name) was 'to be made whole again'. My mom was not usually so impulsive but she had been on an epidural and it made sense at the time. This is the reason why we don't make decisions or drive heavy machinery while on drugs, kiddos. A momentary image of my mom driving a forklift while in a hospital gown ran through my head and my mouth quirked for a moment into a smile.

"I'm fine, Mom. I am just trying to figure out my next steps. You don't need to worry."

It was after my parents left that Aegemon appeared to straighten up my bed. Fastidiously pressing out wrinkles with an iron. This iron one was some type of hellish design that looked to be made out of a beetle and a horseshoe. For all its horrible creepiness it sure made the bedspread look crisp. "So, I heard what your mom said." he started.

"If you say one thing about me getting outside I am going to pour bleach down your throat." I threatened, I was pretty sure it wouldn't do anything horrible to him, maybe an upset stomach. But still, he had listened in on a private conversation. One thing to chat about my eternal soul and trying to tempt me into eternal damnation. Quite another thing to listen to the conversations with one's parents.

"Oh Hell no! I am looking for your soul, not looking to get you in the sunlight so you're all cheery like a dandelion, then you'd never take my offer." He looked visibly affronted that I had even made such a suggestion. He snapped his fingers and his hellish iron poofed away leaving behind a scent of cinnamon. "I was thinking maybe we could take a tour of the place below. It might help encourage you to join the cursed crowd and help me make my yearly quota."

"You said 'help' a lot of times in there." I noted, "not very effective word usage, usually you would want to switch it to 'assist', 'aid' or 'support'. It helps keep people engaged." I saw he was not going to rise to my baiting this time. "Fine, let's go to your place. But I have to be back in time for work. I get another tardy and Sean is going to write me up."

Aegemon looked at his nails thoughtfully as he murmured "Again, your soul for some cash..."

"Just get us to the land of fire before I hit you with a pillow."

"Very well." Aegemon snapped his finger nails, they sounded like flint striking stone, flames rushed up around us. A screaming chorus of eyeball things swarmed around us and formed into one of those old elevators that was made to look like a cage. There was even an elevator attendant wearing a burning bellhop outfit. He was three times too large for the elevator so that his legs were bent and his bum and feet against a wall of the mobile conveyance, he was bent over at the waist with his back pressed against the ceiling. He had his neck craned to keep it from snapping against the opposite wall. He had no eyes or nose only a giant mouth with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth (sort of like a leech). He turned his head towards me and said "Good afternoon, Miss. Thank you for choosing to ride with us today." His voice was pleasant, like one of those morning hosts where you just wanna grab a warm coffee, put on your fuzziest robe and slippers and curl up on the couch to listen to him speak. He had to awkwardly move his arms around to open the elevator door.

Aegemon didn't seem to notice the absurd size disproportion between the bellhop demon and the elevator as he stepped in. "Hey Lawrence, we are just going to take in the sights today. Heather here is going to be giving me her soul soon."

"Presumptuous much?" I asked, I still stepped into the rust colored contraption and we descended through my carpeted floor and into the realm of Hell.

"I guess I could count this as going outside." I mused to myself. I hoped that brimstone smell wasn't going to soak into my clothes, Aegemon had just gotten them smelling lemony fresh.