Hazbin Hotel: Sins and Second Chances

Part 1: Welcome to Hell

                                                                                     Chapter 1

Zachary Barnes lay on his back, staring at the ceiling of his small studio apartment in Boulder, Colorado. The cool fall air blew through the open window as a faint hum of soft music played from the speakers of his nightstand. A full schedule of therapy sessions at the Rehabilitation Center, where he spent his time guiding others away from the same abyss he had once stared into years ago left his body heavy with the day's exhaustion.

Six years of shaky, relapsing sobriety. Six years since the divorced. Six years of clawing his way out of his own personal hell. He could still remember the darkness that had once swallowed him whole. Alcoholism, broken relationships, the suffocating weights of his own failures that would gnaw on his mind never fully left him. Even when he was in a better position than he was before, the past was something you cannot completely forget. But tonight, he was content. A brief moment of peace, if only for a moment, greeted him like an old friend. Eyes closed, his breathing light and steady, he let the music wash over him.

Then came the smell.

At first, it was faint, like something burning far off. Zack's nose wrinkled slightly as he opened his eyes. The familiar warmth of his apartment seemed to dim, and the smell grew strong. Sulfur. The pungent odor would fill up his apartment, making him sit up and reach for the open window to shut it. But it wasn't just the smell that caught his attention, something else was stirring in the air. The air was shifting, almost vibrating, and his phone on the nightstand begun to blink off, then on again, flashing erratically as the screen began to display a reddish hue.

"The hell...?"

He reached for his phone, but a sound stopped him. Faint whispers, unintelligible, slipped through the walls, the vents, under the floors. It was coming from everywhere and nowhere. His heart raced. Panic crept in, but his body froze, muscle tense as the whispers grew louder. His phone flickered once more before dying completely.

Suddenly, a low hum resonated from beneath his bed. Zack looked down, his eyes widening in horror. A blood-red pentagram was slowly forming beneath, glowing and pulsing like a heartbeat.

"Oh no...." He would scramble onto his knees, eyes staring wide as his mind was trying to make sense of what was happening. "No, no no!"

Before he could react, thick, hellish tendrils shot up from the symbol, wrapping around his limbs like serpents. He struggled, gasping as they tightened, pulling him as the glowing red would grow brighter.

"Help!" He would shout, his cries becoming muted as the tendrils began to pull him down. His bed immediately burst into flames, turning into ash right before his eyes as the world around him began to twist, warping as his body was yanked downwards with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs.

He screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the roaring fire that suddenly engulfed him. The room dissolved into flame and shadows, spiraling into a hellish descent. The heat was unbearable as the cries and screams of unsee voices echoed all around him. The sound of suffering. The sound of never-ending agony and torment filled his ears. Zack's skin prickled with the sensation of fire licking at his body, though he wasn't burning. Yet the agony, the fear, was all too real.

This is it.

I'm dead.

Panic gripped him as he tumbled deeper into the inferno, his mind reeling. This had to be it. He was going to hell. The life he tried to rebuild. His sobriety. His work. Helping others. None of it mattered now. He was falling into the very thing he'd fought so hard to avoid all those years.

But then, as suddenly as it began, the fiery descent stopped.

Zack gasped for air, his heart stammering in his chest. He was no longer falling. The heat was gone, replaced by an eerie, uncomfortable stillness.

He blinked and found himself sitting on something soft. A velvet couch. The fire, the screams, the nightmarish horror he fell into had vanished, replaced by... an office. A luxurious one. A plush, red velvet couch beneath him, soft golden light spilling from ornate lamps. The walls were adorned with framed pictures, though he couldn't make out what they were. A desk sat in front of him, and behind it, in a large chair, was a woman.

She was tall, strikingly beautiful, with golden blonde hair that flowed down her back like a waterfall of light. Her skin was a pale white color, flawless, almost glowing. Her eyes sported a light-yellow sclera, her pupils red. Her lips were black, with rosy cheeks adorning her face like a doll. Her eyes fixed on him with an intensity that made his blood run cold. She smiled warmly, showing a set of sharp, pearly-white fangs.

"Zachary Barnes," the woman said, her voice melodic, yet carried a strange unnatural weight to it.

Zack stared at her, breathless, frozen in place. "Y-yeah?" He croaked out, unsure if he could trust his voice.

"My name is Charlie Morningstar." The woman's smile widened, fangs glinting in the light.

"Welcome to Hell."