To die - strangely, I hadn't expected it to be quite like this. As my eyes filled with tears for the last time, I smiled as the blurry faces of my loved ones drifted away into spirals of brilliant color. My body went cold for only a moment, and as the final string cut me away from this world, I felt my soul grow wings of fire, and soar away; breaking the ceiling of mortality. The universe was vast, and ahead of me raced the feelings of love left behind by the faces who still mourned me below. They lit up the cosmos in shades that lacked description. A pathway; a tunnel was cut through the skies of eternity, and the playful figures of purple and pink melted away into one holy light. It was a greeting that needed no words, but the palm of God was not open to me.

When I regained myself, I was no longer boundless. The contours of my body weren't exact, but still secure in their dimensions. I felt heavy; weighed down by the sudden awareness of my own sin that had once seemed detached, and inaccessible in the few surreal moments after death. I was then struck with shame and mortification at the supreme nudity I felt without the safety of my own skin. I could see nothing, sense nothing, as though I were drifting through a never ending limbo deprived of any reasoning.

Just as I began to succumb to this emptiness, an unbelievable pain came over me, and the walls of my personal hell began to shiver and writhe; thrashing about violently. My shape began to shift as though someone on the "outside" was molding my very soul into something different, and peeling away all that made me up. I clung to the remnants of my former life, and cried out for forgiveness. All that I had was myself... the thought of losing even that was beyond my comprehension.

I was acknowledged by a simple question: "Why are you afraid?" The words drifted towards me as though they were as benevolent as a calm, spring breeze. Each syllable caressed my fears, radiating through my very core, until it engulfed me with the knowledge; the inevitability of its message. There was no other way. In order to remember my true self, I had to shed my identity, and be reborn. To achieve ultimate purity, I had to forget what it meant to be "myself".


CHAPTER ONE


The heat was unbearable. It was everywhere; inescapable – clinging to her, pressing the whole weight of itself relentlessly against her, crawling down her throat only to wrap it’s fangs around her lungs, contracting… There was a constant burning in her chest that accompanied her no matter where she went. It was as though her head was masked with a foul smoke that she just couldn’t rid herself of. This was the matter-of-fact existence under which she did her daily work in Hell.

Sweating, Trixiɘ struggled to pull the last bit of inky-black sin from the warm soul it clung to. It’s resistance was amazing, even to someone who had done this process millions of times over. “What’re you afraid of?!” She screamed in frustration, slamming the damned thing a few times against the work desk before erupting into a fit of coughing and wheezing. When she’d finally regained what little breath she could stake claim to, Trixiɘ turned back to continue her work only to see that the stubborn vermin had finally been removed, but… “****!” It was missing.

The aisles were crowded with others who were hard at work doing similar tasks. If she wanted to reach the panic button on the wall, she’d have to try to maze her way around all the crap that people had carelessly tossed around their stations. Frowning, Trixiɘ glanced back at her desk just to ensure she hadn’t been mistaken before trudging through. At the moment, she wondered how the hell she was unlucky enough to have landed a spot smack-dab in the middle of the impractically long row that the workers here sarcastically called ‘home’. Also, why not have the panic buttons more easily accessible under each desk? Sure, they were subjected to tasks that thinking men would find horribly degrading, but were they really so stupid that they couldn’t be trusted with something so integral to their own safety?

As the frustration began to build up more and more, her own angry thoughts distracted her from seeing the long tail of her co-worker swaying along the ground near her feet. It wasn’t until she was swimming in the underbelly of Goopy Gordonna – the new Goo-demon who had travelled here from the more suitable climates of South Hell – that she realized how inobservant she’d become. With her rear-end sticking out and her arms dangling limp by her side, Trixiɘ didn’t have to hear to know that the others were laughing at her.

However, with the sudden comforting, cool gel-like insides of Gordonna’s body… Trixiɘ kind of felt a sense of relief – from the heat, from the smoke, from the annoying clangs of machinery that echoed in the warehouse workplace. She could’ve lingered for awhile longer, but unfortunately one doesn’t find it too pleasing to have another’s head lodged in their stomach. With a little help, Trixiɘ was tugged out, and placed back on the hard cement flooring. She went about plucking the green remnants out of her dark hair as the embarrassed Gordonna covered herself up for the whole minute or so that it took for her gooey insides to fill back into all the appropriate places.

The awkward moment was broken by the sound of a shrill scream. “A sin snake is loose!” The voice was easily recognized as that of Cordelia, the tall, beautiful daughter of the warehouse’s section chief. Her usual composure was broken by her bouncing about with an arrhythmic click-clack of her high heels as she frantically dodged the creature squirming about at her feet. This lasted only for a little while before she seemed to gain a maddening confidence, and turned the clipboard posed tightly in her fists into a weapon. The whole place seemed to pause as they stared fixated upon the blonde frantically smashing the board against the ground again and again. The silence didn’t fill her ears until long afterwards as she rose up, panting. The black sin who had wiggled so far from Trixiɘ’s grasp now lay muddied and in pieces at Cordelia’s feet.

“W-well!” She ahem’d, brushing a hand through her frazzled hair. “Someone has to clean up this mess! I’m surely not doing it!” Cordelia pushed the dirty clipboard into the hands of the nearest worker, and disappeared into her office. Trixiɘ drew her eyes away from the scene, and proceeded to mumble a variety of apologies to the large, or rather ‘plus-size’, Goo-demon in front of her before stalking away as quickly as possible. She could hear the whispered exchange of complaints as she wandered off, but really – what do you say to someone after such a thing? She might’ve offered her a meal or something, but she wasn’t quite sure what Goo-demons ate... and honestly, she didn’t want to find out just in case their appetite was a little more venomous then she knew.

Trixiɘ had her hand lifted to tap against Cordelia’s office door for only a moment before the sound of two voices bickering inside dissuaded her. There was an instantaneous pang of guilt. Lowering her hand to her side, she left to return to her desk just as the end-of-day bell rung deep reassurance throughout the warehouse. Everyone around her began to scatter without a moment’s delay – shoving the last few purified souls through the transferring tube on their way out of the building. With a sigh, Trixiɘ picked up the soul she had abandoned. It wasn’t often that she had the time to really study the white orbs that she devoted her life to, but at the moment she had the strange thought that they were rather beautiful.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Part Two

The warehouse that Trixiɘ worked in was one of many that housed themselves by the waterside and due to the connection – a tight-knit community was soon formed between the menial workers and those who came and left by way of the dock. The ‘passer-bys’, as they came to be called, had the job of shipping the newly sin-free souls off to some far away location past the horizon. She wasn’t quite sure what the purpose of this was, but she’d always assumed that they were disposing of them somewhere. After all, the important stuff was the sin.

Either way, she was relieved to finally get a breath of fresh air. There was a gentle, merciful breeze that caressed the residual sweat off her skin as she walked through the tall grass towards the water. There were only a few blissful moments before the semi-silence of night was interrupted by the sound of a sneeze. Trixiɘ couldn’t help the smile that crawled up onto her cheeks. Hurrying her pace, it wasn’t long until Bernard came into view. He was leaning against the small shack that he called his workplace with his nose submerged in a tissue. Even though it was wrong, as she knew he was miserable… Trixiɘ rejoiced at the feeling of excitement that bubbled up inside of her at the sight of him. It was one of the only pleasantries in her daily life, and so she indulged in it as one tends to do when in love.

“Bernard!” She called out, waving her hand in greeting. He was a fairly tall man, and probably would be even taller if it weren’t for his terrible posture. He loomed over her with such a lazy slouch that his arms seemed to grow impossibly long and his legs a tad too short. Honestly, he wasn’t the most attractive of men, but there was something special about how one person’s nose could so completely dominate their face. “How was your day?”

The question elicited a slow, disgruntled sigh. “Same as always, I guess.” He replied, shoving the used tissues in his jacket pocket. As he turned towards her, it was immediately apparent that the glasses he had recently repaired were already broken again. The lens on the right side had a huge diagonal crack stretching from the top to the bottom, and no matter what he did it seemed the frame would no longer sit evenly upon his nose. The brown eyes beneath them were tired with the first hints of shadow. Looking at him like this, Trixiɘ found herself feeling even wearier then before. “How about yours?” Bernard asked in return as he locked up the door behind him. It wasn’t likely that anyone would want to steal anything inside that dumb 4x6 box, but it was a procedure he obeyed dutifully day after day. After he was finished, he slipped his head through the string that carried the keys – wearing his burden near his heart like a necklace.

Trixiɘ laughed at the question. It was an awkward laugh that spelled out her unhappiness for her, but instead of leaving it at that she recounted her day to him in detail. She had been so consumed with her own story-telling that she hardly noticed when they’d finally made it to the railroad bridge. It had been left there for many years to just deteriorate into despair – stretching 1.5 miles across the water until it connected to the run-down terminal on the other side that was already half-covered in forestry and slowly disappearing into the landscape.

As they walked along the tracks, she could suddenly hear the familiar click-clop of Bernard’s hooves. Sometimes, she forgot the fact that they were demons of a different kind. “Hey,” Trixiɘ nudged him. “Are you even listening?” She couldn’t see his face very well in the darkness, and even if she could his horns were blocking the view. Ah – those horns… She admired them so much. They were so elegant! Ribbed with a slight curl, Trixiɘ had grown to envy them even more once the tip of one of her front-facing horns had broken off a few years ago. However, right now they weren’t what she wanted to focus on. “Bernarrrddd!” She nudged him harder. “What’s the matter with you!?”

“Sorry.” He mumbled. “I’m just… tired. Can we just walk in silence for awhile?” Even if he’d said it softly, those words seemed to blister and burn inside of her. Trixiɘ didn’t consider herself weak, but for some reason – and she mostly blamed her frustrating day – the tears began to well up in her eyes before her sadness had fully been realized. She relied on him too much. She realized that, but… there was nothing she could do about that now.

It felt as though miles grew between them in just moments, but she just continued walking. In the distance, the walls of the city began to come into view. It was an impending sight even from afar – a silhouette of black against a sky of dying red. The weak, broken moon hung so low that it seemed to kiss the top of the building before disappearing behind it. It was saddening to see how the world bowed down to that cocoon of concrete and walls. They followed the pathway of dead grass up to the entrance, and said goodbye in the middle of a hallway cluttered with filth and debris.

“****.” She grumbled, clutching at her nose as she made her way further down into the darkness. The smell here was the same as always – an overwhelmingly grotesque scent too impossible to become accustomed to or familiar with. It was bitter and raw like that of days old kill with a toxic layer of spray paint adorned on top of it. Fresh graffiti, Trixiɘ assumed. A gesture only those with flashlights would probably ever see, and even then… who cared?

The floor beneath her felt wet, but she didn’t want to think of it. She walked slowly… slowly, slowly… as to not trip and discover what the contents brushing against her feet felt like up close. Her lungs were pulsating against her ribs with a desperate need for air, but Trixiɘ couldn’t bear to take much more of the odor in. As she finally reached the end of the hall, her eyes were burning and the feeling of vomit shuddering up in her throat was hard to ignore.

She leaned heavily against the wall, and breathed in the clearer air in the open, in-between space that she’d found. She didn’t dare move until she regained herself, but rather stood frozen – staring at the face of a woman who stared back at her. Even after noticing Trixiɘ’s gaze, the stranger didn’t look away, but continued to look upon her with an even stronger intensity. Whatever the message was that she was trying to convey, Trixiɘ didn’t want to understand it.

In the woman’s arms, her child began to scream and violently thrash about, and Trixiɘ took that opportunity to rush past her up the staircase. Even once at the top, her heart seemed to continue pounding. It was fairly rare for those in Hell to live in family units. She’d always wondered if perhaps her life would be just a bit easier if she had relatives to rely on, but the sterile, cold look of that mother in the stairwell led Trixiɘ to reconsider. It had been a long time, since she’d thought of it… of family. She could hardly remember much about her own at this point. Even though she believed that was for the best, a lonely feeling still cropped up as she dug her key into the lock of her tiny apartment.

She reached into the darkness, and with a brief nudge of her fingertips against the switch the lights flickered on over her head. The whole place was sparsely decorated with only the necessities. In this case, a bare mattress pushed into the corner, a single cracked mirror, and a wobbly chair accompanying a card table was home. It was all rather unassuming, but that was how she liked it best.

In the mirror across the way, Trixiɘ saw herself for what felt like the first time in quite awhile. Her long black hair was uneven, unkempt, and sadly enough – perfectly in unison with the rest of her appearance. It wasn’t that she was unattractive. It was just that she was unremarkable. Her skin wasn’t so much caramel as it was the color of dirty, brown carpet, and unfortunately her eyes were much the same shade. If that wasn’t bad enough, there were a thousand other details to grumble about like that damned broken horn of hers or the fact that her fingernails – and the fingers themselves, really – had been mutilated through years of grinding them down between her teeth. Disgusting.

She was fully consumed with disparaging herself now, but she couldn’t help herself. She noted that even a relatively positive feature, like her slenderness, was still overshadowed by the ill-proportioned wideness in her hips. There was just no way to win against the mirror. Sighing, she walked over to the mattress, and slid off the worn bag that hung dutifully from her shoulder. At least there was one positive thing that she could take from today… even if it had, technically, been the wrong thing to do. As she sat down, Trixiɘ dug down inside the belly of burlap, and removed the precious content inside. The soul!

It was still as beautiful as it had been earlier. Trixiɘ knew very well that she shouldn’t have stolen it, but she couldn’t stand to think that such a marvelous… thing… would be destroyed or abandoned somewhere. She reassured herself that in all her years of work, she’d never once done anything out-of-line. Didn’t she deserve some sort of compensation for all the crap she had to put up with at the warehouse? Well, she certainly thought so. And, anyway – “It’s not hurting anyone!” Trixiɘ told herself, and lifted the soul up to admire it up close. At just that time, the faulty lighting in her apartment gave way, and the soul in her hands suddenly glowed.

/end of chapter one




I am open to both comments and constructive criticism, as well as just plain opinions about what you were thinking as you read. Thanks in advance!

I do not read original fiction very often (or is this an otaku senshi?) but I must say, your vocabulary is wonderful! I love the descriptions that you use and the way you word things.

This is wonderful! Very descriptive and original; I was like "Wait, what? Are we... are we in hell?! .... we totally are and it's awesome."

I really loved what you did with the whole thing - the sin snakes and how they're harvested, the demon's lack of interest for what happens to the purified souls - you made such wonderful and original things sound so mundane in Trixie's eyes (I can't do the backwards e x_x sorry) and it added so much to the world you've created. I like Trixie's flaws and her attention to them, and how you you downplay or don't even mention her strengths - it's very realistic and relatable. Her internal voice is normal, yet captivating.

I really liked it! I can't wait to see what she does with the soul and am rather curious about the soul itself!

Thanks so much for all of the positive feedback! To be honest, I lost interest in this piece for awhile as I flip-flopped between ideas, and as life got in the way... but I think knowing that there are people out there who are interested will keep me interested as well! One of my biggest concerns was that people would be "confused", and be unable to get past that confusion to appreciate/explore with me as I wrote, but I'm happy to know that doesn't seem to be the case.

@Sailor Jupiter, thanks so much for your compliments! This is definitely 100% original though, so unfortunately no otaku senshi will be found here. ^^