All Aester could perceive was a blinding white flash, stretching from her sight all the way to the horizon.

  Was this Heaven? she asked herself.

  If it is, then she didn’t belong here.

  Not only was she an atheist who had given up on the idea of God a long time ago,

  she had also committed many great sins in her life—too many to count, too few to avoid.

  Her time in the war, in the Middle East, had made her do terrible things.

  And perhaps now, she was going to pay for them.

  Instead, however, she heard a faint voice—too quiet to be threatening, but loud enough to echo across the vast empty white light.

  “This isn’t Hell. Trust me, Hell’s a lot worse.”

  The voice echoed far. It was a woman’s, a boy’s, and an old man’s voice, all hurled into one sentence, echoing across Aester’s mind.

  “This is where you can make a choice, daughter of mine.”

  Daughter? No one called her that—not after her falling out with her family.

  And so, Aester came to a simple and logical conclusion suited for the current scene: this was Hell, and the voice belonged to Satan, or Shaytan (the Muslim version of Satan).

  Perhaps the curses of those she had killed in the war had finally caught up with her.

  “I bear with me your second chance, child of mine. I will send you to a world of magic and might. I give you but one task: free my people from oppression and danger.”

  Yep, this was Hell. Magic didn’t exist, and if it did, then so did Satan (or Shaytan). Hell was the only place she could ever hope to go, with the life she had lived.

  “Do you take my offering, dear child?”

  “Ask the voice what you will get in return,” Greed whispered to her.

  Before she could answer or even consider the option, the voice replied,

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  “A second chance, and my blessing.”

  Aester had always been the observant type, especially after losing her body’s merits. She was always scanning and learning from her surroundings. It didn’t take a genius to realize, however, that this being could read minds.

  “Shall you take my offer? Or do you wish to continue to your original destination?”

  That was cruel of the voice: obey, or be thrown into Hell. Those were her options, but at least she had one.

  “Take it,” Pride said. “That way we can survive. That’s all that matters.”

  “I take your offer, oh being of light,” Aester decided to answer. There was no better choice.

  “Then good luck,” the voice replied with a hint of satisfaction.

  Then came a blinding darkness, swelling the sky and path, and all Aester could see.

  ---

  She was lying on her back, sunlight tearing across what seemed like the leaves of an oak tree—

  No… it wasn’t oak. She wasn’t sure.

  Usually, she could tell the species at a glance. But not this time. This time the tree was different. It was purple. The leaves were orange.

  Nothing out of the ordinary—if it were autumn.

  She tried standing on the two legs that God had given her, hoping that the voice—or God, or Satan, or Shaytan—had healed them.

  And that they had made her walk straight again.

  To her disappointment, she couldn’t. A mild, annoying pain coursed through her body as she stretched her legs to obey, only for them to fail.

  “Blessing my ass,” Pride snarled.

  She looked around for something to use as a makeshift cane.

  In the corner of her eye, she spotted it: a stick, purple like the tree, shaped perfectly like a cane. With a curved handle.

  It was shorter than she was used to, but it would do.

  “Mother Nature gives what you need when you look hard enough. And if it doesn’t, then you take what you need,” Greed remarked.

  Of course Greed would say that. Aester was long used to taking what she needed—

  From men.

  From the world.

  Even from nature itself.

  ---

  As she examined her surroundings trying to put two to two the sun began to feel like a hammer, beating down on her. Her throat was dry as sand. The trees offered little shade.

  She scanned her surroundings—not for obvious paths, but for subtle clues.

  Water. Civilization.

  Anything.

  The idea that this was Hell felt more and more likely.

  The strange trees, the heat, the dry air, the smell.

  But somehow, the heat was better than Detroit’s.

  Maybe that place had already burned away her sins, after all Detroit was man's hell on Earth

  But she wasn't on Earth that she was sure of

  The trees looked different from what she was used to.

  Atlest the ground, the dirt and grass were still the same

  She crouched down, brushing her fingers over the ground searching for something a clue.

  Wet.

  “Water runs through here,” she whispered to herself.

  She looked up and spotted birds through the treeline—flying in a loose, deliberate arc.

  Not normal birds.

  Their colors were familiar—red and brown, like sparrows. But their legs were long like flamingos’, and they could fly.

  Abominations, almost.

  But they were heading somewhere.

  She started walking toward their direction.

  Each step slow. Each one made heavier by her uncooperative legs.

  ---

  After maybe a hundred painful steps, she felt it.

  The wind shifted. The dust thinned.

  The air tasted cleaner.

  That’s when she saw it: a squirrel-like creature with horns. It wasn’t climbing trees—it was moving from root to root, running groundside.

  “He’s going somewhere. Follow him,” Greed suggested.

  Aester followed the creature, keeping a healthy distance.

  Then she heard it.

  Running water. Faint. Gushing. Real.

  A river.

  She broke into a sprint, forgetting her legs’ protests.

  They had no say in this. Not not.

  She broke through the trees.

  And there it was.

  A river—pure and clean—cutting through a meadow of soft grass and sunlight.

  Across it stood a stag—normal, at last—drinking in peace.

  It looked up at her approach and bolted. Not that Aester cared.

  She had no tools for hunting. And even if she did, the stag had a better chance in a raw fight.

  She dropped to her knees, dipped her palms in the river, and drank.

  Relief, sweet and cold, spilled down her throat.

  Now she had something else to worry hunger.

  Not her own, but the kind that growled behind her like warning loud and clear