Death at the Hazbin Hotel

Chapter Six

Death looked down at her robe, it was the nicest one she owned, it was a silky black material and had golden skulls atop the shoulders keeping it in place, it was in an ancient greek style, one of her favorites. She smoothed it out nervously for the hundredth time before knocking on the massive double doors before her.

The massive doors swung open with a loud groan. Death grinned as she was greeted with a familiar smiling face. Lucifer. His grin matched her own as he greeted her warmly, "Dede!"

"Lucifer!" Death cheered. "Thank you for inviting me! I'm so excited to meet Lilith!"

"Ah, about that, she couldn't make it to tea." He frowned.

Death tried to maintain her smile, was Lilith also afraid of her? Would she treat her like everyone else did? "Th-that's okay, maybe next time."

Lucifer's smile was somewhat off, "...yeah....absolutely."

Death detected the lie immediately but decided against bringing it up. Lilith didn't want to be her friend. Lucifer was the only one who'd ever wanted to be her friend in her entire existence.

Dee woke with a start, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been in that vulnerable of a state. She found herself in a large bed in a room that had a floor to ceiling aquarium as two of its walls, another wall was consumed entirely with monitors and the final wall had three doors. The bed was atop a platform in the center of the room.

"Thanatos?" She called fearfully as she realized the plush backpack wasn't within reach. She bolted out of bed and scanned the room frantically, "Thanatos?!" Dee raced for the doors along the wall and let out a yelp as she was electrocuted the moment she tried to open one.

There was a faint crackle behind her and Vox appeared in a flash of electricity leaping from one of the monitors, "Dee, you're awake, how are you feeling?" He approached her with a light smile.

"Where's Thanatos?" Dee asked with no trace of light in her eyes or any sign of her usual smile. Her voice was eerie and devoid of any of her former bubbliness.

"He's fine, he went nuts when you collapsed, we had to sedate him." Vox answered carefully, observing her closely. There was a shift in her demeanor and it was starting to affect the room. The monitors along the wall were darkening, almost as if they were cowering. The sharks in the aquarium suddenly took off in a panic, fleeing as far as they could from the girl. Shadows began to creep away from the girl, curling into themselves, trying to flee.

Dee reached for the door again, not caring if it electrocuted her. "Dee, wait let me disar-." Vox's words fell away as she wrenched the door open, even the security system on the wall seemed to shrink away, it didn't put up a fight.

Vox followed after the suddenly terrifying girl. Her body was also starting to shift. Her skin was taking on a darker gray pallor, the bones beneath were starting to become more prominent and it seemed like she was very subtly beginning to grow taller. Her nails began to elongate and sharpen.

"Dee?" Vox called her name again. "He's okay, he's resting, I'll show you where he is."

Her form paused for a very brief moment, she cast a sideways glance in his direction that would have stopped him stone cold dead if he were human. Her eyes were terrifying. They were no longer human looking at all. They were entirely black with glowing hellish blue flames for pupils. They flared angrily as she turned her gaze to him.

Everything inside of him told him to run. The end of his human existence kept flashing through his mind's eye as he stared into those hellfire eyes. His body moved on autopilot, his hand extending toward the terrifying girl, he gently dropped it atop her head. He didn't know why his body had moved as it did when he was trying to run away but he held his breath and felt something within him stutter as the horrifying transformation froze and in an instant sweet Dee had returned. She stared up at him with big tear filled eyes.

"Sorry. Did I scare you?" She asked morosely.

Vox offered her a smile, "not at all, I'm glad you can handle yourself if you need to."

A faint blush spread across her pallid cheeks, "o-oh." She gripped the edge of her skirt, balling it nervously in her hands, "o-okay." She stammered cutely.

Vox let out a sigh of relief, "come on, I'll take you to Thanatos." He gently took one of her hands in his to stop her from her fidgeting.

The blush on her cheeks began to spread, "o-o-okay." Dee stammered looking at their interlocked hands in awe.

Vox chuckled softly and pulled her closer still trying to grasp how on earth something this sweet could be that horrifically terrifying. Once they got a little closer to where Thanatos was resting, there was suddenly a loud explosion of darkness followed by a plethora of panicked screams. Before Vox could run to see what happened the terrifying steed appeared before them in a flash of hellfire and shadow. It reared back with a terrifying grunt that almost sounded like a snarl.

"Thanatos!" Dee cheered happily and threw her arms around the horrifying horse. "I'm so happy you're okay. Were you nice to our friends?"

Vox stared blankly at the mismatched pair and scowled as the horse nodded. It absolutely had not been nice to them, it nearly killed Val. If some psychotic cowpoke imp with a enough tranquilizer to put down an entire herd of elephants hadn't been there, they'd probably all be dead.

Dee giggled, "thank you for being nice to our friends Thanatos." She gently stroked his neck.

Thanatos nuzzled her affectionately before popping back into his plush backpack form. Vox looked thoughtful. They had a range of connection where he could magically teleport to her. He could reach her as long as they weren't separated by more than four stories of a building.