Darned to Heck

Commotion

"She doesn't look too good, you sure she's gonna wake up Skip?" a girl spoke.

"They always wake up Em, you know we can't die. No matter how severe the punishment is, heck I thought we were already supposed to be dead, I didn't sign up for this shit show I know that for sure."

"Look at the marks though, two already? And he used the Shrike. What do you think she did?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Ughhh holy crap I feel, I feel...ughhhhhhhh

I slowly opened my eyes to find myself encircled by curious onlookers.  A young girl, maybe only thirteen, a twenty-five year old tight arse guy and some old dude who looked like he was a miner straight out of the California gold rush back in the 1800's. He spoke first.

"Good going kid, how you feeling?"

"Like shit" I grumbled back, rubbing my forehead and trying to sit up, stopping when I felt a screaming pain shoot down the length of my spine "AGH FUCK SHIT WHAT JESUS." I yelled, tenderly touching the blistered skin of my back.

"Please control your language."

"Hah! Lighten up Vicar, I'd say she's got a pretty good excuse to be swearing right now."

"For the last time its Victor and you wouldn't catch me using that kind of language even if I'd been punished with the Shrike four times in a row."

"I call bullshit." The girl said quietly

The older man started hooting with laughter and the younger one looked extremely offended, I just sat there confused.

"Listen I don't mean to be rude but who the hell are you?" I asked

"You can call me Skip," the old guy said "This here little one's Em." He pointed to the girl, who nodded her head in acknowledgement "And this princess is Vicar."

"VICTOR."

"Yeah yeah, hush up Vicar. What might we be calling you then?"

"I'm Allie, nice to uh, meet you."

"Likewise kid, so what's your crime then eh? Murder? Steal the crown jewels?"

"My crime?"

"Why are you here?" Em asked me patiently.

"I didn't do anything, I- I have no idea why I'm here."

"Oh I see, of course, didn't do anything huh? You'll find that quite a lot of people here haven't done 'anything' either. Its nothin to be ashamed of you know. Everyone down here's a scumbag of one sort or another. Me I beat a man to death over a half bottle of whiskey, Vic's a filthy paedophile aren't you? Sickening what you did." Skip looked in disgust over to Victor before turning back to me "Course he'd tell you he ain't done nothing neither. And Em here, well she-"

"I killed my brother because he played with my Legos when I told him not to."

Jesus "Listen I know that a lot of people say that they haven't done anything but I mean it, I've never killed anyone and the most I've stolen is a pack of gum, I have no idea why I'm here."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE! GET BACK TO WORK SCUM!"

"whoops." Em muttered

"Look busy kid, less you want to be punished again." Skip retreated and all three of them melted away into the scenery of the place, I watched as they walked over to different spots at a massive pile of what looked like coal, they each dug their hands into it and grabbed as many pieces as they could before transporting them over to little wheeled carts that were being continuously pulled by more people into the distance and out of sight.

"I SAID GET BACK TO FUCKING WORK."

I rolled over onto my left side to see a white demon that looked just like Mersheas towering over me. I felt the pain in my back again as I rolled over. Which instead of reminding me to keep my mouth shut and do as I was told just reminded me of how pissed off I was at the fact that I had LITERALLY BEEN WHIPPED TO DEATH for kicking some stupid troll.

"Oh yeah? And what exactly am I supposed to be doing?" I spat back

It smiled and I saw the red shimmer colour over its black eyes. Which undoubtedly meant that I'd pissed it off.

"Well my dear." It wound its elongated fingers into my hair and dragged me over to the pile of black rocks. "You take this." It threw me onto the pile before picking me up again and dragging me over to one of the carts "And put it here." It threw me against the cart. "Got it?" it crouched down to where I was lying and brought its face to mine "Would you like another lesson?" it whispered menacingly, daring me to answer.

"Allow me Accius."

You have got to be shitting me. I looked over the shoulder of 'Accius' to see none other than Taureel, with Mersheas sniggering a few feet behind him.

"She's mine so I politely suggest that you retreat."

A low hiss escaped between the pointed teeth of Accius as he looked over his challenger. They communicated wordlessly for a second before Accius leapt over to Taureel, fangs and claws bared, uttering some harsh guttural language that grated at my ears and sent shivers twirling like snowflakes across my skin. I turned my head, it looked like this was going to get messy.

Just then I felt myself being lifted off the ground and seconds later heard the massive crash of Accius being thrown into the cart that I was lying in front of only moments before. I looked up to find that I was in the arms of Mersheas and we were moving at an incredible speed. Within an instant we were standing in front of the massive pile of rocks. He laughed at the look on my face.

"Well well well my dear, you do seem to be exceptionally good at getting yourself into trouble."

"I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING!" I cried out in exasperation

"That's not what your marks say." He replied, standing me up and inspecting the gashes on my back. "Seems Passus felt that quite a harsh punishment was required, probably to avoid the kind of situation we see unfolding currently." He indicated to the vicious battle between the two demons that was still raging in front of us, from what I could tell Taureel had the upper hand. 

"HE KILLED ME MERSHEAS." It was all starting to catch up with me and I was becoming rather embarrassingly emotional.

"Well you did deserve it dear. Within your short time here you have already caused more commotion that most new souls cause in an eternity. You reek of trouble, there's just, something about you. Not that I am complaining. This is the most entertainment I've had in centuries." His head snapped up and he inhaled deeply. "You'd better start working my dear, Passus is coming to see what all the fuss is. If he catches you in the middle of it he'll beat you so hard you'll be begging to stay dead."

I nodded and began stuffing my arms with the rocks, though small they were ridiculously heavy and cut into my arms as I piled them up. Mersheas slinked away from me and stood a few metres from the ongoing fight, even from here I could tell he was grinning, the sadistic bastard.