Pre-Mortem

Chapter One

Running late. Again. Ren knew they wouldn't get away with it this time, yet they still walked calmly, too calmly, ignoring the lump in their throat. They put their hand in one pocket of their oversized sweatshirt while the other held a cigarette, burned almost to the filter despite only being lit for what felt like a moment. As they opened the door to an old, run-down shack they swallowed harshly, tossing the butt away as they slammed the door behind them before being engulfed in an all-too-familiar flash of light.

"Renata." A tall man with black eyes stood immediately in front of Ren-- who, despite being previously calm was now trying to hide the fact they were shaking a little. His eyes lacked not only sclerae, but also emotion, and his mouth was nearly always locked into a frown, but Ren had a special way of knowing when he was mad, and he was.
"Hello, sir."
"Late again. Can't say I'm surprised." The tall man reached out towards Ren, causing them to shudder a bit in fear.
"Sorry sir, traffic was slow"
"Ah, yes, I've heard the traffic can be quite bad in the middle of the woods at three in the morning. Do you take me for a fool?" Ren let out a nervous chuckle at the man's words. The man scowled and Ren felt another shudder as he put his hand on the small of their back.
"Silence! Walk with me, child. I have a special task for you today."

These 'special tasks' were nothing foreign to Ren, who -- despite never following orders -- always seemed to be good at completing them.
"What is it now? You want me to find another escaped Damned? All I'm saying is if you put up some walls, or even a pit of fire-"
"SILENCE!" The man's voice boomed and shook the ground below he and Ren. "This isn't about the Damned. I need you to find one of the living for me. You need to bring her to me."
"Is this why you dumped me in the Overworld for a month?"
"I needed to know if you'd be able to survive so long out there. You blend in far better than I."
"To be fair, you're seven feet tall, and literally Satan." Ren laughed a bit, staring into the seemingly infinite landscape of the Underworld.
"Can it. Can you do this for me? Or will I be putting you on watch duty again?" Ren hated watch duty. It was like being a kindergarten teacher, they thought. Anything but that... Please...
"Fine. I'll do it."
"Good child. Now, her name is Naomi Cohen. Age twenty-three. Lives in Ogden, Utah."
"Oh great. Love me some good old Utahn air. Smells like racism." Ren snapped. In the Underworld, they looked like anyone else; charred skin, horns, black hair. But in the Overworld, they present much differently. In life they were indigenous to Southern Canada, and definitely looked it. Not dark, persé, but clearly not white either. And Utah was, well, Utah.

Ren swallowed harshly once again as they listened to Satan drone on and on about the rules of the task, the same ones as usual; no gambling, no partying, no joining the church... and then froze up as he uttered one last rule that was new for them:
"...and do not -- under ANY circumstances -- fall in love with the girl. She's mine. Understand me?"
"But what if--"
"She is MINE."
"Yes, sir." and Renata picked themself up and continued on back towards the entrance to the Underworld, proceeding back to the familiar light and through the door to the cabin in the woods, where it was now some five in the morning and the sun began to rise.

Ren caught the first train out of town that morning. It would be longer to get to Utah that way, but they weren't a big fan of flying, and quite frankly they didn't give a shit how long it took. If Satan wanted this done quickly he should've just done it himself, they thought. As they got closer to their destination, something felt different about the air; it was soft and warm even within the confines of the train, almost pillowy, and no one else seemed to notice it. Ren anxiously played with one of their long black braids, wondering what would come of this little excursion of theirs. They hadn't been this excited for a trip in a while, and had begun wishing they'd taken the plane. This was odd because Utah was, after all, Utah.