Part 6

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Next thing Astrid knew, she was standing on top of what seemed like clouds, the injuries and scars she had before seemed to have vanished, and in there place was bright patches of lights and stars.

She was just looking around the area when she noticed a large gate in front of her, a very tall person with kind eyes was staring down at her. For some reason looking at them made Astrid feel uneasy.

"Astrid, I would like to welcome you to heaven." The person said. "Who are you?" She asked.
"I am Jehovah, but you might have heard of me as god." They replied. Astrid took a step backwards and looked behind her, a very long staircase was leading down and into what she could only assume was hell. "I believe that, despite your sins, you deserve a chance at heaven, you may come with me."

It wasn't until just then that she realized that large, feathered wings were attached to her back, and she looked back at the person who called themself Jehovah. They now had two people standing behind them and with a jolt of horror that she hadn't felt for 11 years, she stepped towards them.

Her parents were there, smiling, they looked just as she remembered them, both blonde haired, blue eyed, but now they seemed to be glowing. Astrid's mother had a line of starlight on her neck from where Alastor had stabbed her, and Astrid's father had a large spot of starlight on his chest.

"Hello dear, we've missed you." Her mother said gently. Astrid took another step back and narrowed her eyes at the 3 people before her.

"No" she whispered.

"No what?" Her father asked.

"I don't belong here, I've killed too many people, I've broken a lot of other rules just to ensure that I don't end up here with you."

"I see that, but you were misguided, that horrid excuse for a person led you to believe that your parents were horrible people." God told her.

"That 'horrid excuse for a person' gave me a better life than they did! I spent five years being harmed, all because you two decided to break the rule that specifically said 'Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body!' You told me this countless times!

"I was punished for something that wasn't my fault, and you are still considered a saint because of it! What kind of reputation does that give to Christianity?"
Astrid was livid, she didn't want to be there, not in heaven with those... Assholes, who called themselves her parents.

"I will gladly go to hell if it means I'm not stuck with you!" She turned and started to walk off towards the stairs behind her.

"Blood is thicker than water." Her mother tried to remind her, "our family tree includes you, you are apart of our family, not his."

Astrid turned furiously on the spot, "I believe the phrase is 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.' You know what that means? It means family isn't who you're born with, it's who you'd die for!"
And with that, she ran down the staircase at full speed, as she got down further, she felt herself morphing, her hair, which had previously been short and curly red-ish brown, now felt longer and wavy, horns curved on top of her head, and a tail had also grew, the only thing she didn't feel change was the wings.

     Eventually, she reached the bottom of the staircase. She had made it to hell at last.

It wasn't even as bad as she had expected, she had assumed it would be some kind of dark cave filled with lava and fire and nothing else. Yes there was fire and lava but there were also buildings, people... or, demons rather, were walking about their daily business and she only attracted a few sideways glances, particularly at her back. She walked over to a sidewalk and sat down, thinking about what to do next. Whatever she did would have to be quick because most of the people here didn't look too friendly.

She thought that the wings would be a pain in the ass to walk around with so she focused on hiding them. When she felt them go away, she stood up.

One thing Astrid noticed was that the one thing every demon here had in common was an x somewhere on their body, all in different places, and she looked around for her own. At last she found it, a small x was fading on and off on her chest. Then, it disappeared. Weird... she thought, nobody else's x's seemed to disappear.

She walked around hell and tried to figure out what to do. She was making a mental list of priorities when a loud gunshot cracked the air. She hardly flinched, as she was used to the sound of gunshots, but she did want to know where it was. It seemed to have come from the building on the corner of the street. She waited and a few moments later she saw a group of demons walking out of the building with what looked like the body of a human.

Curious, Astrid followed quietly, they rounded the corner and she followed, they began putting the body into a bag and threw it into a portal. The  tallest one of the group stood up and brushed himself off, he had red skin with a white patch over one eye and two black and white striped horns. "Alright that clears up that job, good work team." He turned around, it was too late for Astrid to try hiding and the demon saw her. "Hello!" He said with a surprisingly welcome tone. "Sorry we were temporarily out of the office to finish up a job but welcome to the I.M.P, I'm blitz as you probably saw in the ad."

Astrid was confused. "No, sorry, what's the imp? I just got to hell." He looked around at his team, he had two shorter demons with him, one smiled and waved, she nervously waved back.

"The I.m.p stands for the immediate murder professionals, I'm Millie, this is my husband, Moxie." She said enthusiastically, putting an arm around the other short demon.

"So you're basically hitmen, I was a hitman before I died..." she trailed off and looked up, Blitz seemed to be confused. "Cool, uh, how old are you?"

"Sixteen? Why?"

"Well for one thing who decides to train a 16 year old to kill people?"

"Technically I've been in the business since I was 6." She said, trying to throw that out casually.

"Well it was nice meeting you..." Millie trailed off

"Astrid." She told Millie. Moxie turned, grabbed an odd looking blue book and they began walking off. As they walked past her, Astrid began thinking, would they hire her? Really getting a job wasn't a top priority, but she did think that she probably wasn't going to get paid or that anything really cost money here...

"Hey, are you guys hiring?" She asked the group, they turned towards her and Blitz looked her over. "Maybe, come for an interview at... let's say 4 o'clock tomorrow."

Astrid nodded, trying to look cool, and walked off in the next direction, next step, find a place to live. As she walked away from the group, she couldn't help but think bitterly "Have fun trying to find a replacement for me before opening night"

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