Mere milliseconds in the dark seem to slip by as slow as a thousand unsure steps down a mountain, and rung by the boom of doors slam shut, Ruby’s devouring ends upon the marble floor of a hotel lobby, centuries due for a thorough mopping.

  On filthy, white stone waits a snaking line of once-humans. Those unlucky enough to have retained physical bodies, carver molested and mutilated as they are, drip with all sorts of fluids that further steal away the floor’s gloss but do not to counteract the air’s formaldehydic stench. Their wretched existences and timid cries would be heart wrenching, if Ruby had one of those. Most of the damned, though, are nothing more than translucent masses of darkness, crudely shaped into humanoid forms. Unstable souls, they are, shifting at every flicker of the large but modest chandeliers overhead. The soft, orange light pierces them, barely even leaving a shadow behind.

  And which of these guests is God’s favorite? The blur of freely surrendered souls? The wretches, consciously abused by the carvers just for the dignity of a shadow? The addict and his useless hell scape of a mind if left too long without a cigarette? None of them. These are God’s least favorites, now guests in a house of those who despise God.

  Yet, one clearly despises the addict even more than it does heaven’s king. From a massive opening in the lobby’s long, left wall, a mass of undead hands erupts like the tangled monstrosity of a rat king’s tails, their oozing, obsidian flesh breaking the otherwise elegant veneer of intricately carved wood. Endlessly, they all twist and stretch soul after soul as a single hive mind, shaping them into proper wraiths ready to receive a ticket from a nearby skeleton attendant. Well, all except one – a certain despiser that strays from its brethren and draws the attendant from its work.

  The stray’s scorched, cracking skin tells of a great fire it just barely managed to survive, and its trailing, serpentine shadow devours the warmth of the lobby’s chandeliers. Creeping closer, it studies the addict with its fingertips as if each were embedded with an invisible, discerning eye. Looking for a killer. Looking for an arsonist.

  Not far behind, the skeleton keeps pace, its naked feet drawing loud echoes from the marble floor as the ticket machine hanging from its shoulder blades rattles against its ribs. An awful symphony that brings rise to a panic Ruby refuses to show. Instead, he stands still and ready, tensing his muscles to hide their shaking… at least momentarily.

  From opposing angles, him and the skeleton watch as, one by one, the undead hand’s crooked joints snap into an accusatory point, and it breaks into full flight. Its terrifying speed leaves a thousand flakes of seared flesh in its wake and finally prompts Ruby to give an inch. He spins towards the door that swallowed him whole, but, it’s not there.

  What remains in its place is the same midnight void a demented cat might conjure. Only a single spec of light defies the door shaped flow of oily darkness. A small flame which, swaying softly, illuminates the silhouette of a tiny creature – part human, part beast. For a breath, it offers a pleasant unknown, a possible escape, and above all, a chance that Ruby takes too late. His breath disappears as a phantom weight grips his throat.

  And then comes the crack of heavy metal… followed by the ear-piercing shriek of a seared stray in swift retreat. A few souls in line offer their own sympathetic cries, but the skeleton attendant can only shake its head as it scours the floor for parts. “Back to your den of iniquity,” it calls, rapidly retrieving everything that broke off its ticket machine when it cracked against the undead hand’s knuckles. “Somethin’ about fireworks in an abyss… an arsonist! We’ve all heard that story a thousand times.”

  You thought that hand was choking you? You only imagined it, retard, thinks the arsonist in question, a concerning sign that his buzz is beginning to wear off. Slightly less concerning is the nervously apologetic face of a skeleton, now rushing towards him as it stuffs a handful of mechanical parts back into place. Though, the sight is still enough to leave Ruby in a defensive stance, his panic threatening to reveal itself once again.

  “At ease, man. That freak won’t be back, not anytime soon,” the attendant says, its hands raised in a disarming gesture as it meets Ruby’s cold stare with twisted sincerity. If it detects any fear behind the man’s eyes, it certainly does not care. Instead, its full attention falls on the dial of its archaic machine. With expertise, it inputs a long series of numbers before trying at the antique’s rusty crank shaft. The damn part refuses to move.

  “You are, without a doubt, the oldest, most skinless man I’ve ever seen – too ancient to have caught up with that… hand. I didn’t roast that thing, you know,” Ruby says, satisfied that he found a way to both insult his benefactor and lie to its face in the same breath. It seemed like the right thing to do.

  “Eh, can’t argue with you there. And what you did or didn’t do is no concern of mine.” The old bag of bones continues to struggle with its crank, slapping the ticket machine’s frame a couple times before it finally decides to budge. All too quickly, the crank makes three full rotations, and far more tickets than intended erupt into the air. Time slows, at least for mister attendant, who scans the runaways with squinted, empty sockets. Each one’s waxy surface captures the lobby’s orange glow, but only one bears the addict’s number.

  “Only thing I’ve ever done right is giving out these,” mister attendant admits, snatching the winning ticket from a cloud of blanks. “Couldn’t have a guest dragged off before I even got the chance to give em’ a spot in line.”

  Dumb, the guest decides. Still cautious, but curious too, he accepts the ticket, making certain not the graze the skinless old man’s boney, yellowing fingers. “What’d happen if you didn’t?”

  “I’d be a failure,” it answers, offering Ruby a grin and a nod as its final, departing gifts. Duty completed, it returns to its place beside the tangled mess of ever working hands. A place of entry and contortion… a place where, in the attendant’s short absence, two souls had been delivered and molded into their new, unnatural shapes, ready to receive a ticket.

  Ruby’s own ticket, inscribed with a number so long he mistakes it for a paragraph that he “doesn’t have time to read,” is just one of seemingly infinite line-position-designations. Every soul ahead of him in the lobby’s long line received one, and every soul that comes after will too. Under constant assault from the rancid, bodily fluids of carver mutilated ghouls, the tickets developed a thin, waxy exoskeleton. To allow for seamless imbuement in the swaying forms of crying wraiths, much like a patch sewn into cloth, the tickets became weightless. Of course, the number of tickets possessed by the present, rag-tag group of a few hundred once-humans does not even come close to accounting for all that were ever distributed. Before *these* unfortunate souls, countless others already waited their turn in eternities passed. And the prospect of waiting for his own… makes the addict want to die a second time.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  What better way than to take a chance in the void? He turns to look for that single spec of light – that mysterious little creature he thought he saw… right before he thought he was choked. But it no longer exists in the door shaped hole of flowing darkness. You just imagined that too, retard.

  They make it hard to even breathe, those intrusive thoughts. If another smoke ran its course, they would fuck off a little longer. If everything faded to black, they might just fuck off forever. Ruby knows, though, the peace he wants is not just a few, convenient steps ahead. No, through the absent door is something else entirely.

  Deeper, Kaicif told him, at hell’s very depths, *that’s* where I’ll find what I’m looking for. Once again focused on the snaking line of souls, he blinks and sees a future where a thousand years of waiting results only in a reward he never wanted. And then… he decides to skip the line entirely.

  Wraiths disperse like clouds of shade, lost to themselves for only a moment before their scattered parts draw back together. Most are humanoid in shape, crudely made in their old image, yet each carries a demonic tinge. For some, this is taken to the extreme. One hovers as a translucent sack of faces, each mouth moaning in regret. Another swarms as an orb of Jerusalem crickets, born from shadow, and chasing something they can never have when all they really want is to be still. But no matter their uniqueness, every wraith in the lobby is just a single, disembodied soul. They weigh little, and Ruby has no issue passing straight through them.

  Those who still have bodies are an entirely different story. Of the hundreds of guests, only 65 retain physical forms, and each one stands isolated from its butchered brethren like isles of flesh in an ocean of ghosts. Little to no skin. Muscles plagued by maggots. Exposed bone. Dragging intestines. Considering they look much closer to demons than to the humans they once were, they are… surprisingly docile. Still, as the addict nears one of these wretches, he almost falls to his knees, coughing up nothing but phlegm from the cigarettes he smoked earlier.

  In turn, the wretch begs him not to come any closer… as if *begging* was even necessary. Its dejected eyes, one still in place, the other dangling from its socket, plea not in threat, but in shame. For, the air around it is rotten. Its stench mixes with the lobby’s dense, formaldehydic mist in the worst way possible, and just a whiff is warning enough. Just a whiff speaks louder than any amount of shame or begging.

  Who would care about the dignity of some pathetic, walking corpse anyways? Someone with a heart. Not Ruby. Cleaning his hands of tobacco-wreaking mucus, he removes himself from the ghoul’s miasma. He does it for his own sake – so that he might breathe easier in the sweet aroma of pure formaldehyde, untainted by decay. Instead, breathing only becomes harder.

  Every time he takes a wide arc, circumventing the debilitating poison of 65 mutilated ghouls, his chest stings with panic, fear and disgust. Looks like *him*… could have been me if not for… fireworks in an abyss come to mind, and the stinging in his chest becomes a fire. Whatever. In protest of shaking muscles, feverish skin, and the burning pain of each breath taken, he pushes forward until he reaches the very front of the line. There, against the lobby’s back wall, stands a blood-red reception desk framed by two tall archways.

  Both seem to lead deeper into the building, but only one has any sort of appeal. The left arch is without light, not like the void of a demonic cat or absent door, just unlit. At its top is a gray, stone tablet chiseled in the stereotypical image of a wraith. Conversely, the right arch is decorated with a stone ghoul and leaks the same orange luminescence as the lobby. Perhaps being nothing more than a ghoul (unmolested), Ruby bets on the right path. But, before he can make his way over, a rather lethargic gatekeeper decides to bother him.

  “Looking for rest?” a voice calls from behind the reception desk – another fuckin’ skeleton, wearing nothing but a child’s sleeping cap. “Who are you? Scrooge?” Ruby returns. Or maybe, this guy’s the hotel mascot… the model for a neon sign I saw a thousand years ago.

  Extending a hand and twitching its fingers in want of something, the receptionist repeats, “looking for rest?”

  “I’m not tired, I’m headed down,” Ruby growls, dropping his now crumpled ticket into the skeleton’s hand as if it were an unwanted piece of trash. In his chest, newfound frustration adds fuel to the fire. “Not sure if… you can help me with that…”

  Equally unsure, the skeleton takes an unforgivable amount of time to notice Ruby’s garbage. Roughly ten seconds. And after uncrumpling the piece, it raises a shaking arm as if it were about to direct the addict *exactly* where he wants to go. Instead, it removes its sleeping cap and feeds the damn thing his ticket.

  Insect-like hissing comes from within, and something that has no business moving at all… convulses like a fat, crawling grub. Its digestive stirrings transform Ruby’s ticket into something else, and with one more awkward contraction, it spits a blocky, white token onto the blood-red desk. Standing perfectly upright, the stone reads, “93.”

  With a furrowed brow, Ruby studies the block and the saliva pooling at its base. If nothing else, that demonically possessed children’s hat can make some mean ninety-degree angles. But displeased with the insignificant result of such a disturbing process, Ruby redirects his glare at the receptionist. It looks like it has something to say. Don’t you fuckin’ say it.

  “Looking for rest?” The receptionist asks, nudging the block closer to Ruby with an uncharacteristically smug expression.

  He cannot help but yell. No words at first, just a guttural sigh of annoyance as he locks eyes with the nearest once-human that still has a body. A crumb of affirmation would be nice, but the ghoul merely averts its eyes in fear.

  Disappointment adds to panic, terror, disgust, pain, frustration and a fire that was already far too close to going rogue. “Nah, fuck this. I’m not ‘looking for rest,’” Ruby mocks, spinning towards the skeleton with crazed eyes and a beat-red face. “Quit acting like you didn’t understand me… like i’m crazy! I told you what I want, and *you know* it’s not sleep. Tell me where to go… or at least give me a damn cigarette. The sign outside… didn’t it say… smoke. sh-” He blacks out, falling forward and gripping the block that reads, “93.”

  It looks like… and feels like… nothing. Or it would, if not for the firefly. He tries to grasp it, to crush it – the single flaw in his delusional, unconscious world… a spec of light delivered by a tiny creature that, for a second time, *he thinks* he sees. Like him, it is far too stubborn. It’s…

  Too hot… he thinks a few seconds later, coming too with a red-hot stone in his hand and flames erupting from his sleeve. Every strand of fire, each individual ember – a different color. Blue rivers of magma, chaotic bursts of purple and red, sparking fountains of green and yellow. An apocalypse and a festival at war.

  It hurts. It hurts something awful, but it brings catharsis to the addict. This is his will, and the first order of business is to chuck a near-molten block of stone through the head of an innocent bystander. A carver-tortured ghoul who refused to even acknowledge him. Wet chunks of rotten meat, shards of searing stone and a wave of multicolored sparks explode off its neck.

  The decapitated corpse hits the floor with a gurgling thud, and the wailing begins. Every soul in the lobby’s long, snaking line joins in. Frenzied. Pathetic. But Ruby’s work is not done yet. He stares down the receptionist, and the bastard’s lethargic fa?ade does not waver… not until Ruby brings his fist down upon its desk, cracking it, and leaving flames to dance across blood-red wood. Only then does the receptionist flinch. It shuffles backwards, clutching its sleeping cap like a child would a teddy bear. At the same time, Ruby surrenders his rage to demented laughter.

  Was I the scariest thing in here? God help me… he thinks, walking through the arch carved for ghouls like him.

  He knows no god was listening.