Chapter Text
Chapter One
Wander and Sylvia had faced countless dangers in their travels, always finding a way to triumph over it. It usually involved befriending the very person who was trying to kill them. Enemies became friends, again and again.
On occasion, Sylvia intervened and they simply ran away. The moment Wander shed a single drop of blood or sustained a single bruise, she scooped him up and rocketed into the sky. As much as Wander hated when this happened, he knew he’d probably be back in a few days, befriending that exact same villain. Wander really did believe nothing could ever kill them.
That is, until something did.
What did it in the end didn’t matter so much. Sylvia had thrown herself in front of Wander, shielding him with nothing but her flesh and bone. She died instantly, perhaps convinced she’d saved her friend.
What she never knew was that Wander lived for exactly sixteen seconds more.
He lay curled in the dirt just a foot away, his arm draped loosely around his mangled torso. A few seconds ago, he’d stopped feeling pain from it. There was only the hot and the wet from his own blood dripping across his hand.
Wander managed to lift his other arm and weakly lace his fingers into Sylvia’s still hand. The moments between the pounding in his head grew longer with each thump. He squeezed her hand, refusing to look up at her eyes, afraid to see them glassy and dead.
Wander closed his eyes and exhaled softly, expecting to perhaps see the face of Sylvia when he opened them again, wreathed in soft light.
However, when he did open his eyes, overhead only stretched a muddy-red sky. The reek of smoke and alcohol burned in his nose. Wander sneezed.
Wander sat up and rubbed his face. He made a soft noise in surprise. He’d been transformed. His face was shaped outward, creating a tiny muzzle. His mouth was full of fangs and he had two ears that flopped at the sides of his head. His feet were cloven hooves and he had a short, orange tail. He cautiously swept a hand through the fur on his stomach. His fatal wound was gone, like it never happened at all.
Wander felt above his head. There were two little horns on top, and by some miracle, he still had his hat on him. How a hat managed to cross over with him, Wander would never know. He’d already known his hat was special, though.
On either side of Wander, crooked buildings stood with three or four floors. There was a dumpster to his right, but other than that, the alleyway was empty. Whatever kind of afterlife this was, it had no special entrance; Wander manifested in a random alley, one of hundreds in a sprawling, decrepit city.
Suddenly, Wander sensed another person nearby. Two yellow eyes peered from around the dumpster, bringing with them a scaly head crowned by a pair arcing horns.
Wander leapt to his feet and offered a hand. The other person jumped a little in surprise.
“Hello! Folks call me Wander!” said Wander, a smile taking up a large percentage of his face.
“Whoa, you’re a fresh one, aren’t you?” said the stranger, a cruel and cunning tone sneaking in between his words.
“Why thank you!” Wander bowed his head a touch, assuming ‘fresh’ was a compliment.
“I mean, you weren’t here a second ago. Say pal, feel like having a bit of fun?” The stranger’s voice turned slimy.
“Oh sure! I love fun! Do you like karaoke?” Wander pulled the hat off his head and reached a hand inside.
The stranger’s grin turned into a grimace. “That’s- that’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, well if karaoke isn’t your style, I have other ideas… what did you say your name was again?”
The stranger hissed. “What’s it to you?”
“Well, I thought that since-” Wander’s smile didn’t falter a bit.
“Ugh! Newsflash, you’re in hell right now. We don't have that kind of fun here,” roared the stranger. “Nevermind. Get lost.”
The stranger made a surprisingly professional jump to a balcony and clambered up a fire escape before disappearing onto the roof.
“Aw, that’s too bad,” said Wander, knowing he couldn’t make a jump like that without Sylvia. “Sylvia! Grop bless it, I almost forgot! Where is she?”
Hell- Wander remembered the stranger’s words- is that true? Is Sylvia here?
No, he told himself, that wasn’t possible. Sylvia was the strongest, kindest person he knew. He couldn’t think of a single person who was more selfless and kind. Sure she could be hot-headed, but she always did the right thing in the end.
If there was only one soul allowed into heaven, Wander knew it would be Sylvia.
But that didn’t change the fact that Wander was definitely not there. He wondered why for a moment. There must have been something he’d done at some point, but forgotten over the many hundreds of years he’d existed. He’d never thought about his own ‘goodness’ before. He helped because people needed it; he helped because he could, that was all there was to it.
What bothered him more than the fact he was in actual hell right now was that someone might be out there, hurt by Wander, and Wander could never fix it, he could never, ever apologise or make it up to them. He might have an enemy he never got to befriend. The thought of that set off something deep inside him that coiled around his stomach like spoiled milk.
In a cruel way, not being able to help was Wander’s personal hell. So this place really did know what it was doing, after all.