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Chapter Text

A quiet midnight in Hell was never anything but suspicious, and Priscilla had seen far too many quiet nights since Hell had mounted a defensive against the exterminations. The whole status quo had been off ever since that last botched extermination attempt, like even Hell didn’t know what to do with itself now that it knew retaliation was an option; tension buzzed in the air, anticipating the inevitable shift of power soon to come.

Even at the edge of an abandoned district, you could never hear crickets like this. Priscilla hadn’t even known there were any crickets to be found in Hell until this goddamned silence had infected the night; they just seemed like one of those goody-two-shoes luxuries you’d find up in heaven for no reason other than to make pretty little noises for divine entertainment. Priscilla wondered what or who those crickets had been to get condemned to life as an insect down in Hell.

The place she’d been told to wait for her contact should have warned her off the job. She restlessly prowled a narrow alleyway between two buildings in the abandoned district, waiting for anyone or anything to show some life. A fire escape crisscrossed its way up into the sky above her head; the warehouse on the left was the tallest building left in the destroyed area, notable only for the pointed tower it sported at the top. There were so many places someone could be spying on her or waiting to pounce. The claustrophobia made her fur stand on end.

She flexed her claws under the leather gloves she’d purchased earlier that day. The message had been clear: meet at the warehouse on the border of the abandoned district, be discreet, tell no one, come alone. Pretty typical for an assassin-for-hire, but the one strange clause in the contract was that she had to “keep sunglasses and fireproof gloves on her person at all times”. Priscilla was no stranger to danger – she’d been a gun for hire in both this life and the last, and she’d handled her share of piping hot bosses (in all senses of the phrase). Who knew, maybe the guy just got off on leather-clad goons.

In any case, it was half-past one. Her contact was fifteen minutes late, and she was starting to get antsy. Hopefully this wasn’t a trap, and she wasn’t about to become ensnared in some truly nasty business. The pressure of the revolver against her thigh was the one comfort she had against the looming possibility of an ambush.

She’d stay here until something happened. She needed the money.

The red sky reflected in a puddle at her feet, the bloody shade of deep burgundy the only indicator that it was deep into the nighttime hours. Her catlike ears were just visible in the reflection, twitching back and forth as she strained into the silence for a sign that she wasn’t alone. This was a hell of a place to get jumped.

Maybe she should have told just one person where she was going, in case she never –

“Priscilla, I presume?”

Priscilla stiffened, her claws sliding out on reflex. She turned to see a scaly demon in a trench coat puffing at a cigarette behind her, leaning against the back wall of the warehouse. “Who’s asking?” she replied, her composure more strained after the wait than she would have liked. Her tail was fighting the urge to poof.

The lizard-demon stubbed his cigarette against the side of the building and flicked it into the puddle she’d been staring into a few moments before. “Someone who appreciates your responsibility in coming alone tonight. Discretion is quite important for jobs like these. So many potential hires have…thrown so much away by ignoring such a simple request.” The demon’s accent was thick, but she couldn’t quite place it in the moment; she was too focused on staying alert and aware to stay alive. He nimbly pulled a set of keys from a side pocket of the trench coat and unlocked the back door, yellow eyes flashing. “If you’ll follow me, then?”

Claws grazing the revolver under her skirt, Priscilla followed the lizard demon into the building.

~

“I’m sure you’re familiar with standard arrangements – you’ll have accommodations here, you’re to go off-grid, no contact, etcetera.” The lizard demon spoke with such casual cheerfulness as they ascended the spiral stairs that he could have been hiring her as a florist.

Priscilla was barely listening, flicking her ears forward so that she could be assumed to be at full attention. Something about the building instantly put her ill at ease – there was so much tension and malaise in the air she was certain if she opened her mouth she’d taste it. She looked back down the stairs; the whole inside was cast in a sickly green light that hurt her cat eyes to focus through.

This whole thing smells fishy. Hopefully I can just do my work, get the money, and get out of here.

“…and this is my grand center of operations,” the lizard demon was saying. They’d come to the top of the stairs, and with a start, Priscilla realized they’d made it to the tower at the top of the building. Had they really covered so many stairs so quickly?

The tower was something like a control center. Dozens of monitors surrounded a central control board that blinked and binged with sparkly lights and beeping like audio-visual confetti. But the control board faded into the background, insignificant, when Priscilla realized that there was a door in the far wall from which all the green light was emanating. The malaise, too; every second she spent bathed in that greenish light was another layer of regret added that she hadn’t burned that suspicious offer the moment she laid eyes on it.

She wasn’t sure if the lizard demon noticed where she was looking or not, but he suddenly scuttled towards the door. “Now, I have some business to attend to, so if you don’t mind, perhaps you’ll find your own way down to your quarters? Second door you’ll come to as you descend the stairs.” The lizard-demon tipped his hat and reached for the doorknob with a taloned finger.

For the first time all evening, Priscilla finally found her voice. “Oy, wait – erm, sir. Please, what do I call you?”

The lizard stopped, green talons on the door handle, then turned with a dramatic flourish. “Well. Sir. I certainly like that. But in time, the Pentagram will come to know me as…The Collector.” His yellow eyes flashed bright over his long snout, and he (somewhat overdramatically) exited into the adjoining room.

Priscilla strained her eyes to get a peek into the next room, but her new boss moved so fast she only got a quick snapshot – but a good one, if her cat eyes were worth anything. Two demons sat bound and gagged in the middle of the floor, and strange green runes hovered over them in the air, casting that sickly green light throughout the whole tower. One demon was too beaten up to be recognizable, but the other was distinctly froglike and vaguely familiar. Priscilla felt her tail hair begin to rise when she realized where she’d seen the demon before. That’s a swamp Overlord…a minor one, but still. Bloody hell, what am I getting into?

She tore her eyes away, resolving to try and make it through one night – just one night – and then come to conclusions in the morning. Just as Priscilla turned to descend the stairs, a brilliant flash escaped from the other room, and the entire tower lurched on its foundation. She yowled and gripped the railing with her claws, tail poofed to the full extent. The tower continued to shake violently, jostling this way and that – and just as suddenly as the earthquake had started, it stilled.

The door opened, and the Collector popped out. The tower no longer glowed green, and if Priscilla’s eyes were worth anything, the adjoining room was empty of any other inhabitants. “Oh, you’re still here.” He was evidently distracted, stumbling and muttering as he rushed to the console to look out the window; the muttering ceased as his reptilian face stretched into a smug and satisfied grin. “Well. In any case, welcome to Hell’s Moving Castle. We have a Pentagram to conquer.”

Priscilla unwound herself from the railing enough to sneak a glance out the window and, sure enough, the tower was floating. In the violent shaking, it had freed itself from the foundation of the warehouse and was slowly floating up, up, up and away into the clouds, leaving the district smaller and smaller below them. Hell burned brightly in the five-pointed pentagram – so small, at least at this angle.

Small, but no easy feat to conquer.

Not for the first time that evening, Priscilla found her heart sinking as she wondered, What in Hell’s Bells have I gotten myself into?

Chapter Text

I was cold. Bone-deep, violent-shivering, aching cold.

I’d barely been awake for ten seconds, but I was instantly hit with body-wracking shivers, enough to make me forget anything else around me that might have been remotely important. Every joint in my body ached.

Where am I?

I was flat on my stomach, face-down on a set of stairs (concrete ones, as the edge digging into my ribs told me plainly). The little light available was cast in an unnatural red tint, like a forest during a wildfire.

I pushed up onto shaky arms and sat back onto my rear, wrapping my arms around me for any warmth I could get. I squeezed my arms, hoping to get some blood flow to warm me up, and started when my nails dug right into my flesh.

I pulled back my hand and stared in horror. Claws. I had long, dark claws extending where my fingernails should have been, now coated with a thin layer of red at the tips. I’d drawn blood by accident, not knowing I had literal knives attached to my fingers.

A mirror. I needed to find my way to a mirror, and fast. My hands were moving before my brain, feeling all over my face, body, back. What I was feeling couldn’t be right – fur, fluff, something new and soft against my lower back that was flicking the more agitated I got.

No, no, this isn’t right, this is a bad dream –

I stood up and half-stumbled down the stairs on wobbly legs, gripping onto a post near the base of the stairs to keep myself from faceplanting. Through my panicked haze, I dimly registered that the stairs were attached to some sort of altar, or center, in the center of a town square. And there, just a few feet from me – a fountain. Water. Anything with a reflection.

I launched myself towards the fountain, propelled by a monstrous burst of anticipation. I needed with a burning fear to see what fever-dream, twisted monster I’d become.

Then I almost wished I hadn’t looked.

Not because I was so horrified by what I found in my reflection, warped and changed as it was. Two tufty, foxlike ears poked through my ratted auburn hair, which hung in clumped mats down past my waist. My pupils were slits peering out of green irises, and my face was spotted with black freckles around a tiny black nose. I had whiskers, too, but most disturbing was the tail. I had a long red fox tail, tufted in black at the end.

No, what I realized, upon looking at myself, was that I had no idea what I was supposed to look like. I didn’t know if this was where I belonged, or where I should be going home to. My life and memory were empty, scriptless, directiveless.

The girl (fox?) looking back at me from the pool wore such a pinched, hollow expression I almost forgot it was my own face. I absently brushed at my new ears with a clawed fingertip, wincing when my nail easily nicked the soft pink inside - apparently ears and nails weren’t a good combination.

Where do I go from here?

I needed a name. I needed a friendly face – anyone to send me in a decent direction.

Something wet stung the side of my face, leaving a raw, burning trail. Am I crying? I brushed at the liquid with my knuckle, and jumped when the skin of my knuckle began to burn as well. Another drop hit my exposed shoulder, stinging as it rolled. It then occurred to me that I was only wearing a slip of a dress – barely a nightshirt.

And there appeared to be acid falling from the sky.

More drops began to spatter here and there, stinging at my bare arms and legs. I shielded my eyes with a hand and looked around frantically for any sort of shelter. There – just a few buildings away, I could see one storefront had a large awning. As the rain picked up, burning into my skin and soaking through my shirt, I sprinted over to the only cover I could see and collapsed in an exhausted heap.

Cold, wet, and burned, I curled up under the awning, staring at the red streaks lining my arms. I didn’t understand anything that was going on – what had happened to me, where I was, why in god’s name it was raining acid from a blood red sky.

Exhaustion pulled at my eyelids. I was just going to have to wait out the rain before I could go answer-seeking.

~

“Oh my stars! Well, what do we have here?”

I started awake, blinded by a much brighter version of the red light I’d awoken to before. I slapped a hand over my eyes, trying to adjust my focus so I could see whose overly cheerful voice was ringing out overhead.

A middle-aged woman stood with her hands clasped in front of her, bending over my slumped form. She wore an enormous pink hat that nearly swallowed up her petite form, except for the two giant-lashed black eyes she’d fixed on me with owlish concern.

And the extremely pointy teeth.

“ACK!” I launched myself backwards away from those terrifyingly pointy teeth, mostly on reflex, but forgot about the tail I was now sporting. I stepped on the end, yowled, and faceplanted back in front of her.

“Aw, hon, no need to worry like that! I don’t bite. Well, not unless you give me significant reason to, and I haven’t had any significant reasons since my first husband!” The woman chuckled to herself, then offered a gloved hand. “The name’s Rosie, love, now what can I do for you?”

Pride and backside smarting, I gingerly took her outstretched hand, eyes drifting up to the painted overhand I could now read in the light: Franklin and Rosie’s Emporium. The window behind Rosie showed only a glimpse into her shop, but from what I could see, there were shrunken heads and body parts on display that looked a little too real for comfort.

Nevertheless, I allowed Rosie to pull me to my feet and tried to take a very discreet step backwards. “Um,” I said, which was all I could think of. I rubbed my arm awkwardly, then hissed in pain when I brushed one of the angry red wets from the night before. They appeared to have flushed twice as red as the night before while I’d slept.

Rosie clucked and took my arm in her hands, which were surprisingly soft and gentle for someone who appeared in many aspects to be a cannibal. “Did you get caught in the acid rain last night? Must’ve missed the warning, I presume.” She turned my arm this way and that, inspecting the raw stripes.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled, feeling very exposed with my arm in the hand of a cannibal and my tiny nightdress displaying much too much of me. “I just sort of…woke up over there.” I gestured over towards the podium I’d found myself on in the dark, which I realized, to my chagrin, sported a much larger awning than Rosie’s Emporium. I really needn’t have plopped myself on this poor woman’s front doorstep, but I wasn’t thinking very straight in the heat of the moment.

Rosie blinked those owlish eyes at me, her mouth freezing in a perfect o. “Ah,” she said slowly. “You’re new.”

“I don’t know where I am,” I added, though I was fairly sure that much was obvious. “And I don’t know who I am…or where I’m supposed to go home to. I’m sort of…lost. I’m sorry I slept on your doorstep, but it had a roof…and there was acid falling from the sky. Um, why was there acid falling from the sky? And why is the sky red? And…why do I have a tail and whiskers?”

The woman stared at me for a very long second, then burst into a cackle. “Oh sweetheart, you’re just adorable! Ohhhh, I wonder what in the heavens you did to end up down here.”

Down here? I really looked around for the first time, taking a minute to fully process what I was seeing.

Red skies.

Constant smell of smoke and brimstone.

And there, up in the sky, just conveniently out of reach…a heavenly golden light.

I came to the realization just as Rosie spread her arms wide and announced, “Welcome to Hell, darling.”

Chapter Text

“Hell,” I echoed, my mouth suddenly dry. The word tasted wrong, like bad milk. “I’m in hell.” Why am I in hell?

“This district is Cannibal Town,” Rosie continued. “My district, full of a lovely bunch of people so long as you don’t catch ‘em hungry! Which…on that note, I might advise you to stick close to me. The early curfew might have left us with a few hungry friends.” Rosie tugged gently on my arm. “Why don’t you come on inside, my dear, and we’ll see if there’s something I can put on those burns for you?” She opened the door, revealing a store full of very questionable items (such as the row full of jars sporting the slogan Yum, Blood!).

I hesitated on the doormat. I really didn’t want to become anyone’s breakfast, but there was really no polite way to say hey excuse me, you really don’t plan on eating me, right?

“…I have a really excellent salve, my husband’s recipe, I’m sure you would have – oh come now, darling, I promise I’m not about to harvest your organs! I have a much greater preference for pinkie fingers.” Rosie bustled back to the door, holding a jar of strong-smelling salve and grinning with those industrial-grade razor teeth.

I froze, tucking my hands delicately behind my back. I liked my pinky fingers right where they were, thank you very much.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding! You’re such a little doll, you ought to meet Charlie Morningstar. The two of you would hit it off right away, I should introduce you. Come to the back with me, darling. Those burns look nasty.”

I had reservations, but something in my gut told me Rosie didn’t really mean any harm. I let her pull me by the elbow to a back room with a sofa and sit me down.

“Now sweetheart, is there something I can call you? And that dress is ruined something awful, I’m sure I have something better around here.” Rosie unscrewed the cap off the salve and began applying it very liberally to my burns. I let out a shaky breath; the salve provided an instant cooling relief I’d barely realized I needed in all the commotion.

“I don’t remember my name,” I said, my throat suddenly much tighter than it should have been. “I don’t really care what you call me, so long as I know it’s me you’re talking to.”

Rosie smoothed the salve along my cheek where the rain had hit. “Well, you’re a lovely young vixen…now, that’s not such a bad name. Not terribly creative, I know, but do you mind that? Vixen?”

I tilted my head, flicking my ears in thought. It had a sort of nice ring to it. Vixen. “I like that,” I said, surprised to find myself smiling. “Thank you, Miss Rosie.”

She chuckled again, capping the salve and setting it aside. “Not many young people around down here with your good manners, Miss Vixen. You watch out for yourself, but keep that good head on your shoulders. “

Her praise lit a little bit of warmth in my chest. If I was in Hell, I must have been awfully lucky to land on Rosie’s doorstep. “Now!” She clasped her gloved hands together with a muted smack. “Let’s get you some new clothing. That shirt is nothing more than a scrap on you, and that hair could use a good brush! Can I get you a snack?”

I thought back to the pinkie fingers and gracefully declined.

~

It took the better part of a half-hour for me to ease the knots out of my hair, but the oil Rosie gave me to help with the tangles left it sleek, shiny, and smelling very nice and herbal. I thought it better to not read the ingredients list – I knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. She’d shown me so much hospitality already, even going so far as to provide me with a nice change of clothing. “Baby pink,” she’d said, “to complement that lovely shade of auburn hair you have.”

When my hair wasn’t ratted beyond recognition, it hung in loose waves past my waist – not half bad for a dead girl. I pulled it into a thick Dutch braid wrapped around my head to keep it out of the way, and then stripped to change in a corner of the room. Rosie turned her back to give me some privacy.

I’d barely gotten my first layer off when I froze, caught once again by my reflection in the mirror. The skin right below my collarbone was raw, with a set of three runes I didn’t recognize carved into the center of the flesh there. They were just beginning to heal and scar over.

That’s not right. I haven’t been in Hell long enough for a cut that deep to be so healed.

“Miss Rosie,” I asked, fighting to keep my voice calm and un-wobbly, “what…what is this?”

Rosie turned, saw I was only in my undergarments, turned away in surprise, and then looked back with a hand over her eyes. “Ah – what is what now, dear?”

I pointed to my chest. “These. They look like runes, but…they’re too healed to have only appeared last night.”

“Well, usually our markings have something to do with the way we died, as sinners.” Rosie carefully lowered her hand from her eyes and bent over to get a better look. “Oh, these are very old runes. I don’t think I recognize them. Could you have possibly been a human sacrifice? Some of them turn up…marked a bit worse for wear.”

I prodded one of the runes and winced; the skin was still raw, and my head was beginning to ache. “I suppose. I don’t really remember anything about how I died, anything is possible.” A human sacrifice. God, there were so many messed-up ways I could have died. I really hoped I’d just passed away in my sleep in fox pajamas or something.

“They appear to be healing, though,” Rosie mused. “If it’s an injury you received here, you’ll regenerate in a few days and be good as new.” She patted me on the head. “Get yourself dressed, my dear Vixen; where I’m about to take you, I have a friend who might understand what those mean. Plus, I’m sure they’ll be happy to put you up in a room while you sort yourself out and recuperate!”

I began buttoning the white blouse she’d given me over my fresh new undergarments. “A room? As in a hotel?”

“Exactly, love! We’re off for a stroll down to the Hazbin Hotel.”

Chapter Text

 “…and this over here would be one of my favorite butcher shops, I really ought to take old Al over to this one more often. I’m sure you’ll just love him, you’ve both got that charm about you…he’s, oh what are all you kids saying now? ‘A real one.’ Hah!”

Rosie had been carrying on in this manner, narrating everything we passed with growing enthusiasm. It was quite apparent that she knew every inch of Cannibal Colony, or Cannibal Town, or whatever it was called. I was doing my best to not step in what appeared to be old brain matter and intestines on the sidewalk every few concrete squares, hardly able to take in any of the information she was rattling off at the speed of a seasoned auctioneer.

“Ah, here we are…Pentagram City. Now stick close, Vixen, it gets a wee bit busier from here on out.”

She needn’t have said anything; I’d automatically shuffled a bit closer to her. We’d reached the end of a sidewalk, and the ruckus we’d approached was enough to make my ears (and eyes) bleed. Whereas Cannibal Town had a quaint and calm appearance, so long as you paid no heed to the ravenous eyes hunting you at every turn, Pentagram City was pure unhinged chaos. There were demons screaming, demons on fire, demons doing inappropriate things in the street that made me wish I had eye-safe bleach…I fidgeted with the edge of the white lace gloves Rosie had given me, sincerely hoping they weren’t going to be bloodstained or burnt by the time we reached our destination.

“Now, with any luck, we’re headed to the one place in Hell where a little sweetheart such as yourself shouldn’t have to worry about any of this unsightly filth. This Hazbin Hotel is run by our princess, Charlie Morningstar, and my good friend Alastor; it’s a safehouse, if you will.” Rosie gestured with one hand as she spoke and used the other to pull me daintily out of the way of an oncoming explosion. I craned my neck, trying to figure out where the hell it had sprung from, and was greeted instead with a slimy demon wearing only his birthday suit.

I decided to keep my eyes forward from that point on.

“Dear little Charlie is on a mission to try and find redemption for sinners; we’re not sure if that’s possible, but she’s sure doin’ her darndest to get somebody up to heaven! Just humor the poor dear and go along with whatever she’s on about now, I’m sure she’ll let you stay for as long as you need.”

I’d stopped dead in my tracks. “Redemption?” I echoed, then hurried forward when I saw an imp licking its lips salaciously in my direction. “As in, getting to heaven?”

Rosie gave me a sad smile. “I wouldn’t bet your heart on it, but you’re welcome to try. Heaven’s approach is a bit more ‘spears now, questions later’. They used to come down and exterminate as many sinners and demons as they could once a year, you know! That’s how I lost my poor Franklin.”

I frowned. “Heaven killed demons? Isn’t that against all their moral codes?”

Rosie turned away and kept walking, but I saw something in her big black eyes darken before we lost eye contact. “That’s what we all wondered.”

~

Pentagram City was a twisting maze of ugliness, and I was desperately glad to have Rosie as a guide. She knew all the alleys that could be used as shortcuts, and all the bad corridors to avoid. We doubled back multiple times to lose a few unsightly demons who tried to tail us. “Women,” Rosie tutted. “We always get targeted more. I really ought to show them who they’re playing with, but you really are in such a nice little white blouse, and this is my best parasol!”

One look at Rosie’s razor-blade chompers should really have deterred any advances we were seeing, but I supposed these creatures were all in Hell for a reason. It was hard not to constantly sprinklerhead, trying to get a visual in every direction at once. There was just so much to take in, and so many things spontaneously lighting on fire. Or exploding. It was taking every ounce of my concentration to avoid being one of the casualties.

“I really don’t mean to offend,” I began carefully, “but are we almost there yet? I really don’t want to die again before –“

I was cut off by another explosion, a massive, smoky one that erupted right between myself and Rosie. I stumbled backwards, ears ringing, and pressed a hand to my mouth to try and filter out some of the smoke. Dust and detritus were so thick in the air, I could barely see a few inches in front of me. “Rosie?” I called out, feeling blindly in front of me. “Rosie – “ I had to stop and cough a few lungfuls of smoke out – “are you there?”

“You lookin’ for somebody, lass?” The voice was so clear and close to my ear that I jumped. My new fox ears must recover much more quickly than human ones, I thought dazedly, and turned to face a funny green demon in a tweed suit. He had an oddly Scottish lilt to his voice and a serpentine quality to his features that made me think of a snake or a dragon. “That was a pretty big un’, she might not have made it through that.”

I turned, horrified, and tried to peer through the smoke. It was still too thick to tell. “Rosie is tough,” I said firmly, surprised to find a foxy, growling rattle in my voice. I decided I liked it; it made me feel tough, too. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

The Scottish Dragon – no, Loch Ness Monster Demon, that was what he looked like – barked out a chuckle. “You’re a fine young lady yourself, Miss Vixen. You may call me Oliver.” He took my tiny hand in his reptilian claw and attempted some sort of kiss, but all he succeeded in doing was stubbing his snout very ungracefully against the back of my hand. “Ah! Alas. Stay out of trouble, then, young lady. Until we meet again!” He popped down into a bow, and I looked down at my hand, wiping it discreetly against the side of my pink skirt.

A sudden shiver hit me. It wasn’t that I was cold, per se, but a sudden and eerie feeling of discomfort swathed me like a blanket of worms. Maybe I was still getting used to Hell, but something about Oliver was just…off.

“Vixen? Oh, stars above, I thought I might have lost you!” I snapped out of my thoughts, surprised to find that the smoke had completely dissipated, and Rosie was rushing back towards me. “That was one doozy of an explosion. I think those two gibfaces over there are about to go after each other – let’s cross the street before they blow each other up. We’re almost here, anyhow.”

I turned back to make some sort of polite parting gesture towards Oliver, but he was nowhere to be found – and we’d been passing through one of those narrow alleys. No doors, windows, or escapes.

Unless Oliver had wings hidden in that ugly tweed suit, he’d up and disappeared.

“Right,” I said uncertainly, and followed Rosie across the road, sidestepping as the two imps she’d mentioned before did in fact begin lobbing explosives at each other. This was Hell, after all – people probably pulled strange tricks all the time. I was wearing fox ears and a tail; who’s to say disappearing wasn’t just another talent? Plus, Oliver could have been a pedophile in another life, for all I knew. There were plenty of reasons he could have given me the creeps.

I couldn’t shake the shivers that plagued me for the next ten minutes, though, not dissimilar to the ones I’d felt when I first arrived. I rubbed my arms through Rosie’s white blouse, suddenly wishing I had more than the thin silk sleeves and pleated skirt to keep me warm.

“Now, if I’m right,” Rosie said conversationally, “we should pass Evil Donuts right before we see the hotel – that looks like an evil doughnut shoppe if I ever saw one. Ha!”

I followed Rosie’s line of sight and almost laughed out loud when I saw what she was looking at. To our right was, in fact, a doughnut shoppe, with a giant doughnut affixed to the roof. However, the doughnut was comically anthropomorphized, with bulging eyes, devil horns, and a bite out of the side leaking disturbingly realistic jam-blood. The center hole sported fangs so it looked like that doughnut was stuck in a permanent scream, mouth in a perfect “o”. “Evil Donuts,” I read from a sign affixed to the side. “’Stop by for a bite of decadently delicious pastry! Our prices are…to die for? We make…bloody good filling.’” The whole sign screamed dad-joke central.

Rosie shook her head. “And to think we usually end up with the best advertisers down here, too. Well, they don’t need all that ridiculousness to convince me to stop in for a bite! I’m sure they’d taste wonderful.”

(It was much later that I finally had the clarity to question whether or not Rosie was talking about the doughnuts.)

We made a left at Evil Donuts, and Rosie gestured upwards grandly. “Ta-da! One Hazbin Hotel for you.”

I followed her hand, struck speechless. After all the squalor and superfluous extravagance we’d passed, the hotel was…beautiful. It was tall, sleek, and classy; a refreshing sight for a pair of very sore eyes that had seen way more than they would have liked in one morning. The path leading up to the door was lined with flowers, and the front door itself was completely stained glass. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to sprint up the hill-like path to the front door and beg them to let me in.

“Wow,” I breathed, and trailed after Rosie, inhaling as we passed the rows of flowers. It was practically a perfumery, for Hell.

“Well, I’ll let you have the honors of knocking,” Rosie announced, and closed her parasol with a small thwip. “I’m sure they’ll be just tickled to have a new guest!”

I raised one gloved hand to the stained glass and knocked three times, very softly; the door looked breathe-wrong-and-I’ll-shatter fragile. My knocks, however, reverberated grandly through the glass, so much that I felt it through my shoes. Please open please open please open, I found myself chanting. The stained glass doors looked like the entrance to a shiny oasis, and I was more than ready for a drink.

The doors, unfortunately, remained stubbornly shut.

After a few moments, I turned back to Rosie, who tapped a long-nailed finger against the side of her chin. “They might be busy,” she offered. “Try again, maybe?”

I turned back to the door, raised my fist to knock, and –

- couldn’t, because the door had opened on its own to a dark, empty front hall.

Startled, I froze for a moment before looking back and forth. Even with my night-savvy fox vision, I couldn’t make out anyone inside. “Um,” I said, once again at a loss for words. “Hello?”

Then the screaming started.