She’s hell on wheels.

Know what I’m sayin’?

A girl who hurts and gets hurt. Burns everything and everyone. A fajita platter that’s hot no matter when or where you touch it. Destructive with a dastardly personality. But I’ve never liked the “princess” type. Those cute ones that look like kicked puppies when you challenge their ideals, ideas, individualism? Not my type.

She’s y when she’s mad.

And she’s mad at me almost 24/7.

For the sake of it rather than actually meaning to hurt me, I think. She doesn’t burn me on purpose. She injures others when she’s in pain. The reciprocal backstabbing gives her comfort. She likes being comfortable. She’s just like that. She’s just like that.

I like her like that.

What’s the point in hiding how you feel? Humans like to answer this question with excuses. One of the many golden rules dictates: If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. What kind of high-and-mighty, Mother Theresa type has been reciting this bull to mankind’s most unstable generation to date? As though the stress of it all weren’t enough already, now a five-year-old can’t express their dislike for the boy who hit them during recess using the words that come most naturally?

Feelings shouldn’t end at being felt.

Taking action on ‘em makes ‘em worth being felt.

“ you.”

Park Sora tells me. 

I’ve heard it before. I’m used to the burn. Concise articulation of her fleeting feelings is her strong-suit. She comes out swinging when she has to. She drops to her knees despite her pride.

“I’m sorry.”

Park Sora gets me.

Life is too precious to waste keeping things bottled up, no matter what it is. The afterlife is too honest to give you a “grace period” before you get burnt. And she doesn’t waste time or mince words or even stops to think twice. 

She lives in the moment.

She’s so incredibly y and she doesn’t even know it. 

I guess that’s the main weakness of humans, isn’t it? They don’t know anything. 

“Bang Yongguk!”

Being woken out of one of the most peaceful sleeps I’ve had in awhile by the sound of a screeching teenage boy left me, quite obviously, more than a little irritated. Apparently, Oh Sehun was a screamer. Judging from his immense lung capacity as he banged upon Mrs. Kim’s door at nine in the morning, anyway.

But, then again, I’ve been woken up by less pleasant things.

Far less.

I should be glad my afterlife has led me to my current situation. But, I can’t be. Not when I was having such a pleasant “dream” — if you can call wayward thoughts with your eyes closed "dreaming." Unfortunately, Oh Sehun, the prime practicer of doing much about nothing, hadn’t dropped by to give a pleasant morning greeting. My first thought was he dropped by to gloat instead. It was hard not to notice the fact that he went into Sora’s house yesterday afternoon and never came out.

I most definitely may have been watching for the good half of the night. 

Imagine my surprise when I came down the stairs in response to Sehun’s urgent call for me and the darling Ms. Kim said, “He disappeared late last night, hon. Is something wrong?” I’ve been around long enough to know that wasn’t a good sign. Especially when she turned, looked directly at me, and added, “It’s a bit odd, too. He was in the kitchen one moment and gone the next. They all were, in fact."

But what did it all mean? That's a popular one with humans.

The last time I had to actually expend energy to be seen by humans was when good ol’ Park Sangmin released me from our contract. 

No wonder I slept so peacefully. Last night, I was released from my tether to the Park Family after a long generation of service. The first thing I did that auspicious morning was laugh. The next was I woke up the boys and told them that Miss Hell-on-Wheels had done it again. Rebelling against us just like I knew she would. 

They didn’t share my happy-go-lucky sentiment. 

Himchan said she went too far scratching her name from our contracts. Jongup felt the betrayal similarly, not saying a word as he followed me right through the closed front door of Ms. Kim’s abode. Zelo shared his silence, a grim looking tower that dragged his feet across concrete in a noisy fashion. Youngjae couldn't be bothered by it until he finished the morning crossword. Daehyun looked positively livid with her new attempt to block his advances.

I’m a demon. 

Lust is an emotion I’m well acquainted with. Jealousy is another. But enough about me. More about exactly what our eternally-pissed Park Sora had done this time.

She had burnt it all in a small candy bowl. The flimsy pieces of paper that bond us ashes among melted sugar. Our spiritual link to her ardent soul snipped without us even realizing it. Her herself? Gone. Any connection that could have helped us find out exactly where she was? Gone. 

She burnt it all. 

And then, as we would soon find out, she willingly fell into the fiery pits of Hell.

I don’t know about you, but that pissed me off to all Hell. Figuratively. Literally.  The whole shebang. 

Asking what I intended to do next is pointless. I was going to follow her. The last time I was in Hell was over a year ago. You could call it a vacation. I call it a Homecoming I wish I hadn’t gone to dateless.

It’s much different than you might imagine it to be. There are no flesh-eating monsters or million-eyed crows. Nothing's even on fire unless we’re talking about a fireplace. A place where fires are supposed to happen. Hell’s not the place for that.

Hell is like the Spirit Plane.

Except in all the ways it’s not. 

It’s inverted. Twisted. The sky is always black and the grass is always gray. The weather is nothing to brag about either. Demons of all sizes and virtues — or lack thereof — lurk around every nook and cranny. If you want to get mugged every step you take, then it's the place for you. Tracking her to the hell hole of a plane was easy.

I found Hell’s hole. 

Smack dab in the middle of her Grandfather’s shrine. 

The entire room was covered in black miasma; soot falling from the creaking ceiling like snow. Almost picturesque, the physical manifestation of my home leaking out, had it not been under these circumstances. Sora’s room was left in the same condition — the reason I knew exactly what had happened to her.

It took Oh Sehun a second to understand, though, after I appeared before his frantic form at the slightest of efforts. Sure, he was clued in on the entire rigamarole of spirits and demons and the Spirit Plane and passing on into it and what have you. But “Hell”? He practically laughed in my face. If he did, I think I might have just socked him in his pretty boy mouth.

Lucky for him, he had more sense than to go pushing my buttons — and I his. Our egos didn’t matter when the love of his life was on the line. As for what Park Sora is to me, well I’m not the jealous type. I know when I’ve been beaten. Death hits hard. He rarely has to hit twice.

Yes, I was scared.

As I stood on the edge of Hell and Reality, I questioned for more than a second whether Park Sora was worth it. My opening monologue aside, there’s this feeling called “self-preservation” that I can’t shake. I may already be dead, but I want to live.

Maybe that’s why I jumped in. Swan dived. All majestic like.

, I don’t know.

I don’t know anything.

A/N: So this happened. Cliffhanger, anyone?