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The crocodile man stares at you with his unnerving frown for another heartbeat, digesting your blunt question, before he bursts into a fit of laughter.

Abash, you twist your hands together, feeling the dry skin covering your knuckles. Of course he would laugh. You seem to be the only one on this street that doesn't know where you are or what's going on, and you don't like it. "What?" you snap. "Stop laughing."

He continues to laugh, nearly wiping tears from his eyes. His laugh is gruff and harsh, like his voice, and you despise it in this moment, because all you really want right now is to sit down with someone you trust, maybe your mom or dad or best friend, and have them hold your hand and tell you everything is alright. Yet here you are, being laughed at by a man who, two seconds ago, shoved you and called you a cunt.

You take a few steps closer to him, determined now to get your answer. "When you're done laughing, I'd like an answer," you say. "You look like a smart guy, I'm sure you could tell me everything I need to know." This was a half of a lie, of course. He looks like an idiot with a hard skull, but he can tell you what you need to know, and the sweet talking might help you break through to him.

This successfully makes his laughter fade.

The man sighs. "You don't look hell born," he says.

"I don't know what that means."

"Definitely not hell born. So that means you just died, I'm bettin'?"

You blink. "Did I?"

"Ha! If you're not hell born and you don't know where you are, then yes, you just died, and now you're in hell. Can't imagine you had a great life if you made it down here instead of up there. But who am I to judge." He laughs again, but this one's shorter and much less hearty. "Haven't you realized that yet? Where the fuck else would you be? Wanna call this place heaven? Sure doesn't look like any heaven I've ever imagined." The man points up at the sky with a lazy finger.

You pause, following his gesture with your gaze. There is a large pentagram, pinkish in nature, hovering in the sky like a cloud. That would have been a good thing to observe earlier, had you looked at the sky for more than two seconds. "No," you say, nearly breathless at the thought of what this man is implying, "I wouldn't call this heaven. I just didn't want to believe it was hell."

"Well, it is, and you're stuck here. You're lucky you got here right after the extermination, too. This one was fuckin' brutal. Not that I give a fuck whether you die or not." He laughs again, then brushes past you, starting to walk back into the street, but as you watch him, you realize that his last sentence did not make sense.

He just told you that you were dead and that this is hell. Then he said he doesn't care whether you die or not, which implies that you're not dead.

"Wait!" you shout.

The man stops just before the sidewalk. He looks over his shoulder at you, his lengthy crocodile nose jutting almost past the edge of his shoulder. You take a breath under his glare. "Can I... die again?"

He turns back around to fully face you once more. The action looks like it causes him great effort, which means he's getting tired of your conversation. He makes this extra clear as he says, "This is the last fuckin' question you get, got it? I'm tired of looking at you." You nod, so he continues, "Angels come down and kill us, every year. They don't target hell born, they target fuckers like you that sinned in real life. And when an angel kills you, you're really dead."

You stare at him. "Oh," is the only word you can get out.

The man turns back around and walks away without another word.

You sigh and sit down in the alley, leaning your back against the brick wall of the building to your left. You rub both hands over your face, feeling your own skin beneath your palms, trying to center yourself as you think over everything the man said.

You are dead, but you apparently get a second shot at life in hell. You likely didn't make it to heaven for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest reason was probably killing Jake. Even though you hadn't wanted to do it, it was your hands that plunged the knife into Jake's chest. Your heart aches even thinking about it. Even though you hadn't known Jake too well, for he was just a friend of a friend, you feel so guilty. It's your fault that he got caught up in that mess with you and your fault that he died.

Alas, what can you do about it now? What's done is done. You're in hell, and there's no chance you can go back up to the real world. The only shot at change you have is dying — truly dying — at the hands of some angels.

And then it would all be over.

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You're walking now.

About 15 minutes ago, you left the alley and decided to explore, or perhaps find yourself a weapon of some sort to defend yourself with. The man in the alley told you about the extermination — since it just happened, if will be another year before the angels come back to kill more sinners, according to him. However, you are in hell. Who knows who (or what) else will try to hurt you?

It seems as though you are nearing the outskirts of the city now. Large dark trees, jutting up to the sky like pointy, clawing creatures, lurk just beyond a few sparse buildings. You stay on the sidewalk, but the dark forest looms, the bony trees' presence filling you with a sense of doom.

The other buildings you saw on your walk were all either abandoned or loudly and brightly advertising some sort of lewd commodity, including but not limited to alcohol, drugs, sex, and guns. You debated going into a gun shop that you had passed a couple minutes ago to get yourself a weapon, but you had no money, and you didn't want to find out whether you would be shot upon entry or not. So you never went in.

You had also come across several dead bodies. Gore had littered the streets left and right; they were all likely the remains of the extermination the crocodile man had mentioned. Nobody else paid the bodies any real mind, so you tried not to think about them either.

One tall building that you see now, just off to your right, lies atop a hill, capturing your attention swiftly. A multitude of signs and arrows surround the building, and one of them says hotel.

A hotel. You had not considered where you were going to sleep. Supposing you are going to be in hell forever, you will probably need a home of some sort, but a home you do not have.

You sigh. Hotel it is.

You note that the hotel is taller than you first thought as you walk up to the front door, and the sign above it doesn't just say hotel, it says Hazbin Hotel. You debate whether Hazbin is supposed to represent "has-been," which would categorize this place as a once-loved and now despised establishment, and you realize that you're wasting time considering the hotel's name. It's name does not matter.

What does matter is how extremely intimidating the building itself is. You have no idea what lies inside, what violence or drugs or creatures lay waiting for you, who is nothing but an innocent object of prey. You take a deep breath, steeling yourself. This is fine. It will all be fine.

What other choice do you have?

Before you can think further, you grab the door handle and swing the front door open.

The room is moderately grand, but not strikingly beautiful. Your eyes land upon a couch, where a long, white and fluffy figure lays sprawled out, sucking on something that he holds in one hand and scrolling through a phone in another hand. The figure has... two other hands... resting lazily on its stomach. He hasn't caught sight of you yet, but still, you freeze.

Wary of the creature on the couch, you slowly look over your shoulder at the city behind you. You close your eyes and breathe, then turn your gaze back into the hotel. You tentatively step inside, letting the door close behind you. The door closes quite loudly.

The fluffy white figure looks at you with bright pink eyes. A pop! sounds through the room as he pulls the popsicle he was licking out of his mouth. "Hello," he says.

"Hi," you say. "Is this... hotel open?"

The man — assuming the strange creature/demon before you is a man — blinks several times. He then stands up (lord he is tall), puts his phone down, and licks his popsicle once before speaking again. "Charlie," he calls in an accent that you cannot place, "you've got a visitor."

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