The first thing South learned after death was that she had been wrong—about almost everything—her entire life. Her enemies would love this.

At first, after death, she had drifted through a realm of silence. It was an endless darkness where neither pain nor fear could reach her. It was as if she were suspended between two worlds, one foot still tethered to the past while the other was being pulled into the abyss.

Then came judgment. Whispers slithered through the twilight; their words barely distinguishable from the turmoil in her own mind. And then—the world shifted.

Now, South stood at the edge of a desolate plateau in Hell, her body trembling with dread. The fractured ground beneath her feet was blackened, scarred by unrelenting heat and pressure. Everything had led to this moment, and this moment left her with only one choice—to advocate for herself. She had no intention of surrendering to this nightmare.

Her sharp gray eyes combed the restless wilds of Hell, searching, waiting—though for what, she couldn’t describe. The air was thick with an unnatural chill, sinking deep into her bones, yet her blood burned with an eerie, electric intensity. Her golden hair crackled as if charged with static, strands defying gravity in the unnatural energy that surrounded her.

Beyond the jagged plateau, a vast forest of violet and indigo trees stretched toward an abyss brimming with fire and creatures beyond her comprehension. The smoky wind carried embers like fireflies, their light flickering, while translucent, dew-kissed leaves swirled around her blistered, aching feet. Pain rippled through her, raw and consuming, scattering her thoughts in a circle- just when she thought she had a grip on things, the anxiety came back around.

Then, the shadows stirred, trembling as if the universe itself had drawn a ragged breath. From a rupture in the fabric of existence, a figure emerged—a paradox of beauty and terror. He radiated both light and menace. His form shifted beneath the burden of a sapphire-encrusted crown that gleamed like fractured starlight. He had many faces. His wings, vast and boundless, unfurled behind him, each feather shimmering with an eerie sentience. Embedded within them were countless eyes, blinking at their own chaotic rhythms, their gaze as fierce and consuming as a tempest tearing through the sea. Somehow, she knew those eyes had been plucked from other beings and installed into his. His skin, dark and luminous like molten gold, exuded a searing heat, and the celestial glow surrounding him was restless—moving, pulsing, like dying matter caught in his orbit. And she knew that he was Lucifer.

South’s stomach tightened, her insides smoldering with desperation. She craved life—any life. The yearning twisted within her, primal and insatiable. This was her moment. Her one chance to bargain, to claw her way out of oblivion. She dropped to her knees, pressing her palms to the scorched ground. The act felt both instinctual and calculated, a silent plea wrapped in forced humility. Would he see through it? Would he deem her unworthy? Still, she lifted her chin, her voice steady despite the storm inside her.

“I would like to offer a life in service,” she began.

South woke in her grave, the suffocating dirt filling her mouth as she screamed. Her hands clawed frantically at the coffin’s wooden lid, then curled into fists as she mustered every ounce of strength to break through. She had secured her immortality—but not without consequence. More than once, she succumbed to the agony of oxygen deprivation before finally forcing her way to the surface.

She erupted into the starlit cemetery, gasping, choking, her entire body trembling as she spewed mud from her lungs. The air burned as it rushed back into her, the chill stark against the memory of fire. She staggered upright, hands pressing against her face as sobs wracked through her—fear, shock, and something else she couldn’t name. Then, with sheer will, she swallowed it all down and forced herself to focus.

The graveyard stretched out in eerie silence, the headstones bathed in silver moonlight. No one was there. She exhaled shakily, brushing dirt from her rose-colored burial dress, raking her fingers through the tangles of her hair. Her hands still trembled as she stumbled toward the water pump near the funeral flowers. Cool liquid splashed against her skin as she scrubbed the grime from her face, arms, and legs—a stark relief after the searing torment of hell.

One thing South had learned about the Devil—his ambitions were not careless whims. Every plan, every manipulation, was constructed with an unsettling precision. He understood human nature intimately, bending it to his will. And now, she was part of that will.

Once as presentable as possible, South stepped through the cemetery gates and onto the familiar streets of her old neighborhood.

The thought of being seen didn’t unnerve her. No one would recognize her now. Lucifer had designed a new face for her—one with impossibly round eyes, like delicate strokes of ink on porcelain. Her expressions melted into the contours of this face as if they had always belonged to it, sinking in as deeply as obsidian dissolving into the depths of a midnight ocean.

This new existence, this rebirth—it was worth the piece of her soul she had traded.

The air carried the crisp bite of early spring. It felt like April, maybe May. Frost clung stubbornly to windshields, yet flowers budded in the moonlit grass, their petals unfolding in the streetlamp’s glow and shivering in the wind. South caught her reflection in a car window and halted, taking herself in. For the first time since her death, something stirred in her chest. A strange thrill. Her new body was beautiful.

The night whispered around her—the first crickets stirring in the brush, the vibrating hum of the city. The scent of impending rain clung to the air, electric. A fine mist curled along the pavement, ghosting over her skin as she took her first step toward the destination the Devil had planned for her.