Page 70 of Becoming Super

CHAPTER 2 – Chloe

Apparently, in hell, they accumulate garbage, and the best part is that Satan is a chick! Who would have thought? They call her Queen Neopia and she is like a magpie with shiny things. She likes my black hair and sometimes pets my head like I am a cat.

I am starting to wonder if there is acid in the water?

There are more blue people in hell than I ever could have imagined. Nobody talks to me, and there are times when I wonder if I am invisible.

But when I tried to walk through a wall—bad things happened. So, I am not a ghost.

At dinner, I decided to scream and yell like a two-year-old. I threw myself on the floor and kicked my legs, but halfway through I lost steam and cracked up laughing. It was so strange to find something funny. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed.

I knew it wasn’t when I was living on the streets and it certainly wasn’t when I lived with Mrs. Lewis. It had to be when my parents were still alive. Suddenly tears pricked in my eyes. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about my parents for a long time.

Now that I was in hell, would I ever see them again?

I curled into a ball on the floor, which incidentally smelled like the inside of a dumpster. Trust me when I say this because I honestly would know.

Gut-wrenching sobs shook my body and the tears that hadn’t fallen all those years ago were suddenly set free. The dam had broken, and I couldn’t hold anything back.

“Take the human away, it’s broken. No wonder they were so willing to leave it behind,” Satan scoffed in her gravelly tone.

I flipped her off, or at least I tried to.

“Fuck you, Satan, and fuck hell too!”

No matter what I shouted or how I raged the blue people held fast and tossed me back into the room with the strange bed.

There had been a time when I would have laid there day in and day out. I had spent so much time waiting to die.

I was a fucking idiot.

The short time I had left on earth I spent in limbo and now I had eternity to deal with Satan and the blue people. The worst part was that I was in the best shape of my life; somehow in death, my body had filled out again.

I was no longer the emaciated cancer victim. My hair was thick, black and shiny. My skin was clear, and my hips and breasts were nice and round. The sores that plagued my mouth and nose were completely gone.

I felt...

And then it dawned on me for the first time since my parents died I could feel everything. The emotions were almost overwhelming. My body was alive and vibrant. I wanted to retake the past few years. I would have been kinder to Mrs. Lewis. I would have gone to college, made something of myself. I had always wanted to go into medicine like my mom.

How could I have thrown away my life? Each precious moment lost to me, and now this was my reality.

I cried for my parents.

I cried for who I could have been.

I cried because I didn’t want to turn into a blue person.

Last, I cried because when I was alive all I wanted to do was die, and now that I was dead I just wanted one more chance to live.

Two days later the door to my room opened. I thought that it was the food lady coming in and didn’t turn around.

Imagine my surprise when the woman called me by name, “Are you Chloe?”

I turned to look at her. I can’t imagine how it looked; I was lying on the floor underneath the bed.

“Who are you?” I said shortly.

“Betty’ I am Zackary’s mother,” she moved into the room and I noticed the strange suit she was wearing.