Interno

Chapter 3

Spreading warmth.
The smell of sulfur and roses.
These were all experienced by Remilia as she descended the floors of the afterlife.
The process was almost a bore. Falling for five minutes or five years, the girl lost track in the purple flames. It was strange, wasn't she supposed to lose her humanity after she died...or...something like that? Boredom, smells, heat, time...
Time...
Honestly, how much time HAD passed?
It had to be a while, but Remilia was too confused to start calculating. Where would she begin? If a girl drops through a cloud at the speed of... Fast? And hits the ground with...some great sum of force.
Falling on to an obsidian tiled floor isn't comfortable.
The pain shot through her like the heat of the flames: an ebbing sort of warmth that covered an entire side of the body. With a grunt, Remilia regained her composure and managed to stand.
She couldn't have kept her humanity, she would have died from that fall.
Oh.
How ironic that would be.
The room Remilia fell into held a sort of tragic beauty. The floors were tiles of obsidian, placed into intricate rose-like patterns. The walls were black and silky curtains of red, violet, green and turquoise hung over four dome shaped windows. At the other end of the eloquent room stood high a mighty throne of glass. It wasn't too pure looking. The glass reflected all the black of the room and, too, appeared to look obsidian. A woman sat lax in the throne, obviously bored of another person. Her long white hair was sharpely angeled, shorter on the right and longer on her left. The front bangs were cut on an equal degree. She wore a black gossamer, only to be synched in by a white corset.
"Rise you fool." Boomed the voice of the woman. Remilia almost rolled her eyes. She already stood. All she could do was stay in place and nod once, signaling she couldn't do much. The woman sighed and stood. "It's a damn shame." She said quietly before descending the short stairs of the platform elevating her glass throne.
Only when the white-haired woman walked down did Remilia notice something strange.
The woman's right leg.
From the knee down was a black spike. It was like a sort of cone, but long and thin. How she could stand on such a thing baffled Remilia but she kept quiet.
The woman stopped only a few feet from the teenager and inspected her with a cocked eyebrow. She flicked her vision to the right a bit and said
"You dropped your sickle on the way down."
Remilia turned and followed the woman's vision to a long silver weapon with a red base. She picked it up in one hand and sighed.
"I am Queen Silver." The woman said, causing Remilia to turn and face her. "Welcome to Interno."
"Where the hell am I?" Remilia said
The queen turned, her long dark gown billowing with the movement. She threw her hand up in the air as a purple rapier appeared. She grabbed the base and stabbed the obsidian ground. The floor opened a long crack in the ground, filled with fire. She threw the rapier back up to the ceiling and it pierced a crack full of bright light.
"What do you see?" Queen Silver asked as her gaze fell upon the blonde. Remilia looked up and down, over the cracks and walking in an indefinite path.
"The fire... Its Hell." She looked up "and I've seen that light... For a brief moment."
"Heaven" the queen affirmed her. "Child, we are nuzzled right in between. For the ones that don't quite fit."
The one that doesn't fit in sounded perfect for Remilia.
"This realm was created for the ones who didn't die according to YHWH's plan. The ones who had been... Compromised. Who had the free will of others end their lives."
The queen walked by Remilia. The smell of roses and sulfur was prominent and wafting off the woman.
"Come child, you can't wear a heavenly bun like that in a Hellish place like this."
Remilia would've giggled if the situation wasn't so strange. Queen Silver walked back to her throne and sat down, signaling for the blonde to kneel in front of her. Remilia walked over slowly and did just that. The queen pulled out the bun with a skilled hand and the teen's blonde hair tumbled down her shoulders. With nimble fingers, the blonde hair was pulled back into a long french braid.
"Amazing" Remilia said, pulling the braid over her shoulder. "Just like-"
"-your mother used to do." The queen replied, helping her stand up again. "Go forth into the realm. And Remilia.."
The girl turned.
"Fight faithfully."
And with that, Remilia nodded and grabbed her sickle. She opened the obsidian doors with newfound strength.
"Behold!" The queen spoke out, sending the ground shaking. "Another has joined us!"
And the doors closed behind Remilia, leaving her reborn in a field of black grass under a purple sky.