Welcome to My Inferno

Waking To Hell

“Hey ugly, how long are you going to keep sleeping? God damn its annoying having to watch you lay there sleeping. Did you know how boring you are?” a voice called from far away.

Open my eyes… I don’t want too. I can still remember the smell of burning flesh, the screams of my sister and the light that the headlights had as they raced toward us. No I didn’t want to wake up. If what I had dreamed of is true then never again did I dare to open my eyes. I felt a gentle hand on my arm but I didn’t feel any pain. Why didn’t I feel pain? If what I dreamt was real than I should be in more pain than anything imaginable… it was all a dream. I listened to hear anything but all was silent. There wasn’t a voice calling for me anymore. Relief filled me as I let out a sigh.

Suddenly I was yanked up to look face to face with a little girl. She smiled at me, a dimpled little smile as she moved my hair out of my eyes. Her eyes were a bright, happy hazel color almost like a precious moment doll. Two tiny braids hung down shaping her round face. The brown hair was tightly held in by the braids but her bangs fell down to her eyebrows.  I couldn’t understand why a girl that looked to be only six was sitting on my lap.

Then I looked around and noticed I wasn’t in my room. I was in a white room that looked identical to an emergency room in Ellis Hospital. Jumping out of the bed I noted I was not clothed in one of the embarrassing thin hospital gowns but I wasn’t in any clothing I recognized. When my eyes rested on the hospital bed I nearly collapsed in shock. There is the bed beside me that I was laying in. An oxygen mask was covering my mouth and gauze covered half my face. I didn’t dare move the blanket to see what else was wrong. I was lying in that bed but I was also standing beside it looking at the frail me. Confusion and sorrow completely covered me as I collapsed to the ground sobbing. The little girl that was once on my lap stepped toward me before backing away. Yet I still felt arms wrap around me.

“W-what is going on? How can that be me? D-did we really get in that accident? Who are you? A-Alice, is she ok? Please tell me she’s going to be ok!” I sobbed as I looked up at another stranger.

“Your sister is fine. A few injuries but she will survive. I’m not sure how to tell you what is going on. It is quite the complicated situation but for a start that is you. You are in a coma and when your body died the doctors brought you back.” Her warm brown eyes held mine in a motherly way as she soothed me and explained what was going on.

“So I’m died. This has to be a joke. I die and still end up in a hospital.”

“God! You are so slow. How about I simplify it for you, little girl? You aren’t dead. You are temporarily disconnected body and soul. Now we are your emotions put in people form. There are four of us present. The thing is we are here because, when you died, Satan took you as his pretty little pure soul. He takes one every hundred years. After he takes one soul he lets one hundred souls go to heaven. But when the doctors brought you back, Satan got all pissy and took your...” a voice screeched from behind me only to be cut off by the child;

“Be quiet. She isn’t ready for that problem yet. So if you aren’t capable of being silent until Serenity answers her then go rot in hell.”

“We already are, damn brat.”

For the first time since I had woken up I look a look at the people in the hospital room with me. There were three other girls sitting in the room with me. One was the little girl who took to sitting on the bed beside my… body. She looked like a sweet innocent child that spent a lot of time alone. The way she spoke to one of the other girls made her seem as if there was something else about her that wasn’t quite right about her. A little giggle escaped her lips and when the soft innocent sound reached my ears I simple knew her name. She was Hope. She was the innocent youth I still desperately tried to hold onto. Even though I could feel it straight down to my bones I didn’t understand how I knew that the child was me or that her name was Hope. The little white dress she wore seemed as if she was getting ready to take a family portrait or something. Possibly even a first communion dress.