1 Where The Crossroad Lead

Aisha heard guitar strums play faintly in contrast to the endless drumming in her head, and her eyes suddenly burst open.

She couldn’t tell if she was dead or alive – all she knew was that her whole body felt like it was burning. From head to toe, every part of her ached. She could even feel her internal organs in shambles.

Or perhaps her mind was just playing tricks on her.

She was sprawled over fields of ashen grass, and beside the fields was a gloomy crossroad.

Aisha picked herself up, even when she felt like her limbs were about to give up on her. She took inventory of her situation, and found she still had the same clothes she wore, only they were all tattered and caked with her own blood.

All at once, she recalled the events that she last remembered.

She had fled from a pack of wolves that had chased the entire wushu team to death. The blood curdling screams of her teammates were still fresh in her mind, as if they were right beside her at the very moment. A shiver suddenly bolted down her spine, and Aisha held herself curled halfway.

“What happened after the screams?” she asked herself. “Oh right… goddammit! Did I really have to ask myself that?”

Aisha remembered the worst thing to ever happen to her that night — her coach’s betrayal. She had to drag that old bitch after they were separated from the rest of the team. When the wolves got to them, the woman pushed her as a decoy and sprinted the other way. In a bid to save her own life, she had sacrificed Aisha to the wolves.

In her hands, she still held the branch that she had attempted to use as a weapon against the wild beasts that turned on her. She couldn’t think of anything else after her coach took off and the wolves had cornered her to a cliff. One wrong step was all it took, and all else was a blank darkness as Aisha drowned in her screams.

Suddenly, a vindictive smile crept on her face as she mumbled, “Well… I survived the fall and she turned out to be wolf chow in the end.”

So much for the last days of her summer holidays.

“Where am I?” she mused as she realized the place didn’t look like the mountains they had trekked.

The landscape was different. Everywhere she looked it felt barren. The whole place seemed like what one would usually see in a horror movie when the lead characters get stranded in the middle of nowhere. Also, something was bugging her the most…

Was the music just her imagination?

No… there definitely was something that played at the distance.

The crossroads were covered in the same fog that Aisha recalled the ravines had. She looked up hoping to see the cliffs where she had fallen, but all she saw was grayish fog.

It was confusing... Was she in limbo? Heaven?

Hell?

Dreading the last option, Aisha started to recount all the bad things she did in her lifetime.

“Crap,” she cursed.

If this was because she poked holes in her cheating ex’s secret car stash of condoms and soaked all of them in Carolina Reaper juice, then Aisha was in trouble.

Although, Aisha did strongly feel he deserved it. She suddenly cracked into a guffaw as the memory of the burn of her little revenge.

Aisha slapped herself back to reality and looked around her. Enough of the past, she had to find out exactly where she was right this moment.

“Hello? Anybody here?” she tried to call out.

Nothing.

There was no hint of human life all around her. The only thing that Aisha could hear were the strums of the guitar that came from one of the four roads she was in between. She trudged for a very long time in a daze, the music in her ears as her guide.

When she finally snapped out of her trance-like state, Aisha gawked at the scene in front of her.

The place would’ve looked normal considering it had modern architecture. Skyscrapers reached great heights in the distance, with modern vehicles and electronic billboards.

It was like a busy city, and would have looked too normal if it weren’t for the fact that most of the structures were on fire.

Even the people were in flames.

In Aisha’s eyes, it was a city built from fire and wails of perpetual pain.

Monsters lurked in the shadows, and hideous creatures flapped their wings above. Some were poking at people with spears, while others simply watched the humans burn.

The monsters all had two distinct features – their horns and flaming tails.

Aisha turned numb with shock.

Her mind raced with several hundreds of questions which she knew deep inside would only come together to form one word – hell.

She was in hell and she didn't know where to go.

“Hey you? Why aren’t you suffering?” one of the monsters – demons rather – called out to her.

Aisha turned to her right, and she saw a demon approached her with a whip in his hands. And not just any ordinary whip – it came with a spike on its end!

Aisha panicked, adrenaline instantly kicking in, and started to run in the opposite direction. She had no idea where she was going, but all she knew was that she needed to get away.

Every corner Aisha took, she could hear ghosts wail and scream in despair. The ghastly faces of tormented souls passed through walls and buildings, with one that even brushed over Aisha’s shoulder. Aisha felt her head spin in confusion.

As unlucky as she was, Aisha took a wrong turn and found herself in the midst of monsters.

They had humanoid bodies full of burns and bruises. Their eyes were as black as tar, and most of their teeth were rotten. Black goo dripped from the corners of their mouth.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” the only woman in the group said. “A little stray escaping her scheduled punishments?”

“We must bring her to the authorities immediately!” one suggested. “And perhaps we could get rewarded!”

The others nodded in agreement, and Aisha held her branch forward as she trembled, yelling, “Stay away! I will use this against you!”

The group snickered and black blood sputtered to the grounds.

“With that teeny-weeny stick you have? Don’t make me laugh!” the woman snickered. “Get her!”

Aisha took the cue and without hesitation, she sprinted out into the other direction away from the group. She didn’t think her athleticism would come in handy in hell, but she was thankful enough her legs could still carry her away from danger.

She could hear them cackle behind her, and she almost thought it reminded her of the wolves that chased after them from their hike.

‘What the hell – no pun intended – is happening to me?’ Aisha screamed internally. ‘Why me?!’

She pushed herself to her limits and ran as fast as she could.

Aisha emerged into a rotunda, and suddenly felt herself collide into someone with a broad build. Her eyes widened at the sight that greeted her and she gulped a large lump that got stuck to her throat.

Oh boy.

The man in front of her was like no other. He was entirely different from the monsters she saw who poked and tortured people around. She immediately thought of him as an angel – all in a clean and white suit, minus the fluffy wings, of course.

‘Hold on a minute – why would an angel be in this damned region in the first place?’ Aisha backtracked in her assumptions and then thought perhaps the man was a fallen angel?

‘But Aisha, Satan was a fallen angel too!’ she panicked internally.

“Holy shit —” Aisha accidentally blurted out.

What she said seemed to pique the man’s interest as he arched one thick and perfectly shaped brow. He smirked and the dimple that dug on his right cheek made him more attractive than he should be.

“Little lady, there is nothing holy about shit. And there will never be anything holy in every part of this city,” the man replied with a deep and sexy drawl in his voice. Aisha thought if she had crashed on to him somewhere less fiery, perhaps in a park with flowers, she swore she would have swooned.

‘Aisha, hold off your raging hormones!’ she mentally slapped herself.

He was tall and had a messy look to his hair that seemed to complement the shape of his handsomely sculpted face. Disregarding the silvery gray hair, he looked like just around Aisha’s age, late twenties perhaps? Definitely not in his thirties, she presumed.

The man had worn black-tinted circle glasses that hung low on the bridge of his nose, and Aisha’s gaze locked with his. She noted he had such deep red eyes that were akin to blazing fire. Oh hell – there was indeed fire in his eyes!