"If you don't want to dissect a dead frog, you'll have to dissect a live one."
My eyes scanned the scene. A modern science classroom, full of middle school students seated at high desks, metallic trays in front of them displaying dead, splay-legged frogs pinned into the soft rubbery guards. All eyes were turned towards a window desk, where the teacher held a scalpel in a young woman's hand, forcing it toward the frog – only this one wasn't dead. I could feel the life radiating off the little creature, hear its heartbeat race as the sharp edge came closer and closer.
The second I lay eyes on her I knew that this had to be her own personal hell. Even as powerful as I was, being in alternate hells could be very disorienting; things glitched and slid in and out of focus, leaping from moment to moment when they lagged. Only the girl was crystal clear – early twenties, unkempt blonde hair, and pale skin hidden under an all-black ensemble. Sweat gleamed off her face, contorted in anguish, as she let out a devastated scream when the blade pressed deep into the frog. She threw her head back in agony as I felt the frog's life trickle away slowly, blood seeping from the deep cut down its belly.
When the incision was complete, the teacher walked briskly back to his desk at the back of the class. This young woman sobbed violently, shaking as she desperately held her trembling hands over the metal tray. Curious, I moved closer, passing through the classroom as though it were nothing but a thick fog. I peered over her shoulder as she whispered small words down at the little, mutilated frog… but it was too late. The frog's life was gone.
Shaking my head, I turned to leave, already releasing the illusion from my grasp when I suddenly felt a tug from behind me, as though a fist had clenched my heart and was dragging it backward. I whipped around just in time to see the wound on the frog's belly heal itself instantaneously, then witnessed the little creature flip onto its feet and croak weakly. The life radiated from its healed body as though it had never left.
This had to be a witch.
I shook my head in disapproval. Why the witches seemed intent on flipping between their reality and the underworld as if it were some kind of sport never made sense to me; it seemed this one was too late. She mustn't have returned to the world of the living in enough time – she was as cold and dead as any other.
"Mr. Kramer, she did it again!"
A boy, seated at a table just next to her, was peering down at the reanimated creature. I watched as the miserable middle school teacher marched back to the young witch's desk, ignoring her feeble retorts as he lifted the scalpel once again and thrust it into her hands.
"No, no, no, please, please don't make me kill a living thing, please don't!" The young woman was screeching at the top of her lungs in a hoarse, scratchy voice touched with a Southern accent. It was pathetic to watch, to be perfectly honest – a young person, stolen before her time, trapped in an endless loop of horrors. I shook my head and waved a hand just before the teacher opened his mouth.
As though I had pressed a pause button, every person in the room besides the witch, the frog and me – the teacher, the students, the tattletale boy – froze in their positions. Not realizing for a moment, the young woman continued yelling, protesting against the teacher, her eyes squeezed shut.
"Shhh, shhh," I muttered to her quietly. "There's no need to be afraid, young one."
She opened her eyes and looked around, sweat gleaming on her forehead. Then she began to cry, her shoulders rising and falling with each heavy sob. "Oh please, oh please God, please free me from this! Please, I beg of you! Let me go!" she wailed, clutching my coat and resting her head on my stomach.
"Relax, child," I said a little louder. But she was so weak and so agonized that she tumbled off her stool, melting into a puddle of tears and pain. Even I was surprised; I'd seen hells full of boredom, full of sadness and rage, and even agony – whenever the pain made sense. But never had I ever seen such compassion in a human.
Not a human, I had to remind myself. A witch. Taken before her time by her own overconfidence.
"You do not belong here, ma cherie," I whispered, bending down. She kept her head hidden in her arms, wailing softly to herself. Blood coated her small, pale hands, and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor soul. I lifted a hand and stroked it lightly. "When will your kind learn that hell is no play place?" I clicked my tongue. "No one will save you here, little one."
She looked up at me, her eyes as wide as the moon, glowing in misery. "Please, please, send me somewhere else, send me anywhere else!" she begged. "I can't, I can't live like this anymore, I can't, I can't…"
"Of course you can't," I answered softly. "The underworld is no place for living. Surely you knew that."
She began to wail again, and hid her face once more. In all the eternities that I had spent passing through the dark afterlives of helpless souls, innocent and guilty, never had I once felt even a touch of pity. But seeing the witch writhe on the ground, so young and pure, I couldn't help but feel badly for her. And so I rose to my feet and pulled her up with me.
At first she resisted, obviously terrified and untrusting. I rolled my eyes. "Come, come, before I change my mind," I growled at her. She sniffled and looked up at me, then began staggering to her feet. With my free hand I lifted the reanimated frog off the dissection tray and examined it. No scars, no damage… a perfect piece of life in the land of the dead. Something not everyone could manage.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked in a quiet voice.
"You want to leave, no?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. She nodded vehemently. "Then I will return you to the land of the living, my dear. It's clear you do not belong here… not yet, anyway." I turned and pulled her along, through the classroom that was her own hell.
"But… but I don't understand," she began.
"You may find the mortal world will have changed for you, of course," I told her. "Most find it has. But when your time comes I will be back for you, ma cherie, and that time I won't be quite so forgiving. Make it count."
And with that the prison of horrors closed behind us, fading into darkness as I pulled her through the fabrics of reality to the world she once called home.