The Chay Ong Casefiles, Volume One: Always Chasing Rainbows.

Chapter 1: Waking Up

She always had the same damned dreams.

Every night, when the dull red glow of Hell's day gave way to it's dark forboding night, Chay would find herself wrapped snuggly in her 'blanket' (which was really just a pile of old t-shirts), exhausted from the mind-numbing tedium of paperwork and note-taking, and she would breath out the last of the day's stress, and simply allow her conciousness to give rest.

And then she would start hearing the screams.

Mommy! Where's my Mommy?!

I found more, over here!

Chinese filth! Leeching off of our motherland! Die!

Mommy, it hurts...it HURTS....

Then she would start seeing the fire. She would see hazy forms running away, as if fleeing from some unseen threat. Something they found so terrifying that they were willing to push and trip over each other just to get a few precious inches away from it. Like antelope fleeing from a cheetah.

Then she would start seeing the huts, burning and collapsing into smoldering ashes. She would see weeping figures watching as their meager lives were put to the torch.

Then she would wake up.

"Fucking hell", she said as she clumsily climbed out of her bed. She woozily scratched at her sunken eyes, trying to get the bits of dust and grime as she made her way to her 'bathroom' (which was just a sink and a toilet on the far side of her room). She could hear her phone vibrating near the window, but it would have to wait.

She stumbled groggily over to the sink, and looked at herself in the mirror.

Yeah, she was still fucking ugly.

Her sunken eyes framed by pale green flesh, stretched thinnly over a face that was more a caricature of a skull then any actual skull. Her noseless face steepled over thin lips, barely stretched over bare rows of teeth. The whole ghastly ensemble was topped off with long back-length black hair. She was reminded of the stories the old Chinese lady would tell kids like her about the Hungry Ghosts, the poor souls of those who died with overpowering desire, and who wandered the underworld for eternity, desprately hungering for food, for drink, for carnal release, and never able to be sated.

And yes, she was hungry. Always hungry. Or thirsty. Or horny. Or some combination of all three. No matter how much she ate, or how much she drank, or how many sessions she had in the bedroom, it was never enough. She may have been sated temporarily, just enough that she could ignore it for a while, but it always came back. She had been down here for fifty years, and for all that time , always in the back of her mind and in the pit of her gut, she was hungry .

This is what she lived with down here. This is how she woke up when she found herself here. Any previous good looks she may have had in life had been stripped away from her by cruel karma, the most severest of justice.

Well, at least it made brushing her teeth a bit easier....

As she squeezed out toothpaste on her ragged toothbrush, she turned on the faucet. Stale water poured forth. It tasted like shit, but it was relatively clean (at least by Imp City standards). And besides, what could it do? Kill her? That's a laugh.

She was starting breakfast and putting on her bra when her phone started vibrating again.

She looked at the caller's ID.

It was Lucius, her ILF contact.

"Yes, Lu?"

"I told you to stop forwarding your clients' calls to me", Lucius growled angrily into her ear.