Kendry the Vicious

Relief.

It's what I feel when the cancer finally kills me. I wake up and it feels like I can finally breathe, finally think about something other than my impending doom. Except that it's scorching hot, my boobs are out and there's red as far as the eye can see.

I'm in hell.

And people in hell - they aren't very nice.

I find out just how not nice they are when day one I'm enslaved.

I don't know what happens or even if I can die in hell. But with new energy and a revived appetite, I fight to survive and end up swearing unwavering fealty to Kendry the Gate, the Unjust, the Vicious.

He's bitter, controlling, arrogant - and I think he's been here a really long time.

He's also beautiful, oddly funny. Lonely.

We're just trying to survive. Scavenging for food, uncovering assassins, trying to pull normalcy into hell. We don't mix. He's killed more men than I can count and I - I don't think I even belong here. But we stick together and I find myself wondering if maybe I got sent here just for him as I lie awake thinking of him. His eyes, his lips, his touch.

Then he tells me the truth.

Turns out there are cold days in hell.