Is It Possible to Change?

Xing Yue and Turen sat at a small tavern bar off one of the side roads of hell. Xing Yue was sober with every intention to remain so. Turen however, was 10 drinks deep, his face flushed red again.

"Damnnnnn end of humanity, that's some crazy shit if I've ever heard it."

He held up his drink mug hoping for Xing Yue to give him a cheers back with her water, but she just sighed rejecting the motion.

"It's all meaningless," she said, "all of it."

"Nah what? Meaningless? Nah nah it ain't." Turen said downing his drink, "But I real done got myself in a mess now didn't I? *hic* All of humanity rests in my hands, what a world!"

"You want me to prove you can't change anything?"

"Go ahead."

She pointed to his drink.

"You know alcohol is the drug that kills the most people on Earth right? You think you can go without it for a year?"

"Wh… what?"

Turen looked down at his cup.

"I…"

"You can't could you? You can't change."

"I can quit whenever I want! *hic* I just don't want to."

"That's the talk of an addict, you're just like everyone else."

As she said that, a rather large fellow of what looked like Hispanic origin sat next to Turen at the bar.

"Yoo… is that Jack and Coke?" Turen asked pointing at the drink the man had with him. The man turned to face Turen with a warm smile.

"Hell yeah, it is brother. You enjoy this as well?"

"Who in all of bloody heaven doesn't?"

"Aye I'll drink to that," he said as the two of them clashed their mugs together and took a swig. Xing Yue sighed looking away as they did. She looked around the bar where it appeared everyone else was doing the same things. Clashing their mugs, laughing about seemingly nothing, and breaking off into random conversations with smiles on their faces.

"Aye, you know humanity might end soon?" She heard Turen say.

"Oh yeah? How'd you figure that?"

"God told me!"

"Hahahahahaha," the man next to Turen laughed, "Yeah and God told me last week aliens would come to Earth!"

"They're all so pompous," Xing Yue thought as she continued to observe. How dear they be happy when all she could feel was emptiness.

"It's the end of the world as we know it!" She turned around as the song changed suddenly in the bar. A few random drunkards had suddenly begun singing.

"It's the end of the world as we know it! It's the end of the world as we know it! It's the end of the world as we know it! And I feel fineeeeeee, I feel fine."

"You know this one?" the man next to Turen asked.

"Not one bit, but I'll hum along as if I do!"

Drunkards began forming a circle in the middle of the tavern locking arms. Not much later, Turen and the man next to him joined in as they continued to sing.

"It's the end of the world as we know it! It's the end of the world as we know it! It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fineeeee I feel fine."

All this while Xing Yue just sat there by herself with her face still covered wondering, why she could never feel as happy as them.

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The next 24 or so hours seemed to pass by in a flash as Xing Yue took Turen to all the various spots in hell. Most of them were bars of different designs but there were a few unique places they went to.

"This is a casino?" Turen asked as they entered a building with a sign that read "Hell's Casino 1235".

"Yes."

"What do you even wager here?"

"Meaningless tokens that only have value when you assign them it."

Before they knew it, the full day had passed and they were up the elevator to the heavenly realm before taking the escalator down to the purgatory labs. Turen was somewhat relieved to see Xing Yue return to relative normality in her behavior. In the back of his mind, however, the words she said before, the weight of depression deep within her still lingered in the background. She just hid it well.

"You want to know what would be super fun?" Xing Yue asked when they were on the escalator.

"What?"

"Sliding down the rails."

She did just that sliding along a good distance down before flying back up to Turen.

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"No?"

"But I can't fly."

"You can't die either."

"Right…"

Turen gulped as he sat onto the rail still grasping his hands tightly to it so he didn't slide.

"Oh come on just do it!" Xing Yue suggested, "Are you ever going to be able to do this on Earth without injury risk? Be free!"

"Okay, here I go!"

Unfortunately, Turen's balance along with his fear of falling caused him to lean much too greatly inward as he quickly fell down face planting on an escalator step.

"Oww…" he said getting up

"Oh come on, I know that didn't hurt one bit."

"Yeah, but it was still unpleasant…"

"Hmmm…" Xing Yue thought for a moment. Despite his gravity, she remembered distinctly Turen still had the other properties of a soul such as his body being light as a feather when she caught him from his fall off the escalator. His frame she noticed, was also only slightly bigger than hers.

"I have an idea."

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"Too fast too fast!"

Turen began questioning everything about the universe as he sat on the devil girl's shoulder as she barreled down the escalator railing.

"I don't know I think we can go faster!"

She leaned downward on the railing accelerating in speed. They had been sliding for 5 minutes at this point with several scientists on the railing's other side yelling furiously at them.

"Xing Yue you really should slow down!"

"Why? It's not like we'll get hurt."

"Yes, but the purgatory lab is right in front of us!"

"Huh?"

Just as Xing Yue turned her head, she noticed only briefly the brown doors of the purgatory lab 2063 entrance as she crashed head-first onto them catapulting both her and Turen inside. As they lay on the ground, she looked up to see Rosa carrying a clipboard and looking down at both of them.

"Well…" she said adjusting her glasses. "It looks like you two are getting along."

The two blushed slightly as they both dusted themselves off getting up.

"Follow me," Rosa said with a smile. She led the two of them through the laboratory until they reached one of the hundreds of doors on the back wall labeled "Dream Room". As they went in, Turen noticed a single button, a display on top of it that had the word "awake," as well as a number that currently read 120398612482. Under that number read "Local Time 7:42"

"Alright, here we go," Rosa said clicking on the number display which was apparently a touchscreen. She inputted the numbers 126582312412. The status under the number remained displaying the word "awake" with the local time changing to 22:43.

"And here you go." She said taking out two sheets of paper from her clipboard and handing them to Turen and Xing Yue.

"Xing Yue, I trust you to guide him through the rest? Remember you'll be trying to save the person in question or his/her victims understand? Well… I suppose you don't have to, I don't care either way, to be honest, but if you want to help Turen you should guide him."

Turen looked at Xing Yue whose expression changed to a somber one.

"Alright," she said softly.

"Right well… I'll be here if you need me. Good luck then."

She left the room leaving the two there alone. Turen looked down at the report Rosa had given him. It appeared…

"Turen," Xing Yue said softly. He looked up at the devil girl. Her eyes were still sad ones but very subtly, he could see a glimmer of hope.

"Yes?"

"I want you to be right you know."

He blinked twice.

"About?"

"Everything," she said, "about humanity, about dreams, about… change."

She stared at him expression increasing in sorrow.

"But… how can you be so sure? I can't simply believe something because I want to believe it."

They stared at each other for a moment. Turen searched for words but came up empty. What proof did he have? Not like his life had gone at all how he wanted.

"I don't know," he said, "I just feel like it's true."

Xing Yue sighed looking away,

"In other words, you're not sure at all."

She grabbed the paper Rosa gave them, and Turen did the same.

Name: Antwan Red

Status: Homicidal

Situation: Antwan Red is a 25-year-old homeless man living in Miami, Florida.

Backstory: Red grew up in a single-parent household where his mother raised him to love football like his father. Until around age 16, Red had one of the brightest futures in his city with big aspirations to one day make a professional football league as a wide receiver. At age 16 however, his mother was unfortunately diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. To pay his sickly mother's medical expenses, Red took up part-time work as a delivery driver after football practices often coming home as late as 9 o'clock before he even began his homework. The constant stress led him down a path of drug and alcohol abuse. A boiling point came when he was caught by a teacher using meth in the school's bathroom. His grades at the time also fell considerably to the point where he was failing several of his classes often being too tired when he came home from work to complete his homework. As a result, his school had no choice but to expel him effectively ending his dreams of becoming a professional. Soon after, he was caught with a DUI on one of his deliveries and stripped of his license. His mother now unable to receive further payments from him soon passed leaving him with only a small house and thousands of dollars in medical debt. By age 18, he was living by himself on the streets of Miami where he's been in and out of prison for dealing drugs.

Expectancy: Antwan never let go of the grudge he had for his school. He has in the past week bought 2 pistols that he keeps hidden in his sleeping tent. He is planning to bring them to his old high school and shoot the principal and teachers whose class he flunked out of as well as anyone who gets in his way.

Good Luck

Eve.

At the top of the profile was a picture of Antwan who appeared to be of mixed race with tan skin, black hair, and brown eyes.

Turen looked up to face Xing Yue who finished reading at around the same time as him.

"Is this one similar to what you usually get?"

"Yeah, they're all like this, all of them."

"How so?"

"Broken people with broken lives. And there's not a damn thing I can do, not a damn thing God wants me to do for that matter."

"I see,"

As he said that, the status on the display suddenly changed from asleep to awake as the button under it began flashing.

"So how does this work?" he asked, "you just press this and off you go?"

"Well, I've only dream hopped with another person once, and that was when Rosa showed me what to do the first time. And if I remember correctly."

She grabbed Turen's hand.

"Oh uh…" He looked away blushing a bit as Xing Yue looked at him puzzled.

"It's that weird for you? You really are innocent," she said as she pressed the button. A tingling sensation suddenly consumed Turen's body.