Hey all! Sorry for the extremely late update! Life stuff came up, but never fear as the show must go on!


"We'd like to stay here," I explained to Charlie after a couple seconds of awkward silence.

"Wait...really?" she questioned. I nodded and she squealed in happiness. "Oh this is wonderful! You're going to love it here!"

As she led us inside, I couldn't help but smile. Her optimism was extremely refreshing after everything that's happened and I could almost forget about what I had done…almost. She stopped as the doors closed behind us.

"My name is Charlie Magne!" she smiled warmly, holding out her hand. "The owner of the hotel!"

Awkwardly, I set down the briefcase onto the floor and shook her pure white hand, "I'm Paul Jones, this is Luzz. She's my f-"

"Servant!" Luzz interrupted me and bowed to Charlie. "I hope it's alright if I stay as well."

"Of course!" Charlie said, not noticing the exchange as I looked at Luzz, confused. "Now I just need to find out where Husk went. I'll be back in a bit!"

Luzz and I nodded awkwardly as Charlie walked off into a side room. Once she was out of sight, I turned to my companion.

"What was that?" I asked her. She sighed.

"Sinners don't normally have imps for friends," she explained. "Mostly due to the hierarchy, it's much easier to say that I'm your servant."

"But that sounds, I don't know…" I struggled to find the right word.

"I know how it sounds," she said. "But it's just to make things go smoother, besides, I'm used to it."

I sighed, trusting that she was right. After all, she's been an inhabitant here much longer than I have. Standing in awkward silence again after that conversation, I decided to take the time to look around. The main entrance area where we were was just a small hallway that led to the foyer. The floor was all red carpeting while the walls had red wallpaper and the furniture was also red in color. On a more interesting note, there were pictures and portraits on the walls, most of them seemed to be pictures of demons I didn't recognize, though there was one of Charlie and possibly her parents standing together. On the left side of the foyer was the front desk with a bar behind it. Past that area was a door that led to somewhere and stairs in the far left corner. The right side looked to have a lounge with a sofa, a fireplace and even a mini fridge. Further down was another door that led to somewhere and an elevator on the far right corner. And to top it all off, there was a fairly large chandelier hanging in the middle of the foyer.

"She must be high in royalty status to have an entire working hotel just given to her," I muttered.

"That's right, you're still new," Luzz chuckled softly, as I looked at her, she elaborated. "She's the Princess of Hell. Daughter of Lucifer and all that."

"Wait, seriously?" I asked incredulously. "S…should I have bowed or something?"

"I don't think she really cares," Luzz said. "She's probably just happy she has guests."

"Surely I'm not the only sinner who wants to be rehabilitated, right?" I asked Luzz. She just gave me a doubtful look as Charlie came back in with a few new faces. One of them split off and went over to the front desk. Immediately after they sat down, the demon started drinking a little too heavily and pulled out what looked to be a porno mag. I averted my eyes to that absurdity only to be reintroduced to Charlie's bubbly personality.

"Thanks for waiting, you two!" she exclaimed happily and motioned to one of the two remaining demons next to her. "This is Vaggie, she's the hotel manager."

As I stepped forward to hold out my hand I looked at her, she had long, flowing white hair with gray at the ends and a slightly torn dark pink bow on the back of her head that had two strands that almost reached her feet. She had light gray skin and, except for her dark pink blouse, her choker, skirt, long fingerless gloves and stockings were all a dark gray. But the thing that caught my eye was that her left eye was covered by an eyepatch with a red x on it.

"Nice to meet you!" I smiled, trying not to focus on the eyepatch too much. She looked at me with what seemed to be hesitation, but then she looked at Charlie, then back at me, sighed and shook my hand. Then I turned towards the other and immediately felt chills for some reason as I looked at the demon. There wasn't anything unnerving about their appearance, the atmosphere around them just felt…heavier.

"This is our co-manager," Charlie said. "His name is Alastor, I'm sure you've heard the name."

Quizzically, I looked at him. He had beige colored skin and hot pink hair that went down to his jawline with strands of black mixed in at the lower ends on each side. He also had two tufts of hair on either side that stretched upward and almost looked like that of deer ears, which was further accentuated by two small, black antlers on the back of his head. His angled jawline was in a smile that showed off some extremely sharp yellow teeth. He also had a monocle on his right eye. His attire looked old fashioned with a red pinstripe coat and a bright red shirt. He had black dress pants and pointed toe boots. He also had a black bowtie and black gloves with red fingertips. In his left hand was a thin cane with what looked to be a vintage microphone on the end.

"The name sounds slightly familiar," I said. But then I held out my hand. "Either way, nice to meet you Alastor!"

As we shook hands, I felt Alastor's grip tighten, almost as if he tensed up for a second, and when he did, the atmosphere around him grew slightly more dark. But then he let go and everything went back to normal. I let my hand drop as Charlie spoke up again.

"Alrighty!" she smiled. "Follow me and we'll get you checked in!"

As I turned to follow her I looked at everyone's faces, no one else seemed to have noticed the brief atmosphere change. Had it just been my imagination? Even Alastor had the same grin on his face when he first came in. I shrugged it off for the time being as we walked over to the front desk. At the front desk sat the demon from earlier who was still reading a porn magazine titled 'Hell's Hottest Babes Vol. 13'. Clutched in their other hand was some type of alcohol that read 'Mammon's Malts: The Cheapest Liquor on This Side of Hell!' on the backside of the label.

The first thing I noticed about the demon was that they had a pair of wings sprouting from their back that had to be at least eight to ten feet in diameter when unfolded. The wings were mostly cherry red, but they also had what looked to be card suits on them and the ends of the feathers were dark gray. They had a furry body that resembled a tuxedo in a way, with white fur on the front and then dark gray on the sides and back. They also had a red bowtie with two black dots under it that resembled buttons. Their forearms had a lot more fur on them and ended in claws. Their eyes were red with orange irises and they had cat ears that were pink and white striped on the inside. They had a black top hat with a red stripe on the base and excessively long red eyebrows. They kind of looked like if an anthropomorphic cat grew wings and became a magician.

"Husk," Charlie said. "Would you fetch us the ledger please?"

The one known as Husk seemed to ignore her for some reason, that or they were too invested in the porn magazine to hear her.

"Husk," Charlie repeated their name again, this time they looked up, albeit very lazily. "Could you please hand me the ledger?"

Husk sighed but dug into the front desk and seconds later pulled out a red ledger and handed it to Charlie. Then they immediately went back to reading the magazine. Charlie sighed ever so slightly and turned to me.

"That's Husk," she said. "He's our front desk attendant."

"He seems…nice," I muttered as Charlie opened the ledger. She pulled a pen from her suit pocket and asked for my full name. "Paul Gerald Jones."

I noticed Alastor stiffen ever so slightly for some reason as I said my full name, but I paid no mind as Charlie followed up her question with another.

"Alrighty, so are you two going to have separate rooms?"

"Yes," I said.

"Okay," she muttered, scribbling something down. "One last thing, in order to ensure the best rehabilitation we can offer, we ask that you tell us how you ended up in Hell."

"I…I don't know," I said.

Charlie looked up from the ledger at my words and I heard Luzz breathe a soft sigh for some reason.

"What do you mean…you don't know?" she asked.

"I mean, as far as I know, I've never done anything bad in my life. I mean the last thing I remember is blacking out after drinking too heavily. And then I woke up down here. I guess I could've done something before I died from alcohol poisoning, but that's a very small window. But I clearly remember falling down and falling unconscious before even leaving the apartment."

"Alastor?" Charlie asked her co-manager. "Have you heard of anything like this?"

Alastor seemed distracted for a second until he realized Charlie was asking him a question and responded with a voice that sounded like it was coming through an old fashioned radio. And while he talked his smile never faded.

"Can't say that I have, but there's a first time for everything darling!"

"Okay," Charlie sighed. "Well, I'm sure we'll figure something out, don't despair! I'll show you to your rooms!"

And then Charlie twirled around and grabbed two keys off the rack next to the front desk labeled 102 and 103 respectively. She motioned for us to follow so Luzz and I did just that. We headed up the stairs and as we did so, Charlie started talking again.

"We have one other guest staying with us but he's…out and about at the moment, the only other face you haven't been introduced to is Nifty, our housemaid, she's currently cleaning some of the top floors."

As we reached the second floor, she spun around to face us and handed us each our keys, with mine being 102.

"Other than that, we here at Happy Hotel hope you enjoy your stay and we can't wait to rehabilitate you!"

And with that she gave a wave and headed back down the stairs. I turned to look at the golden key in my left hand until Luzz spoke up.

"Well," she sighed. "It's getting pretty late, so…see you tomorrow?"

I nodded and went to unlock my room door, but Luzz spoke up one last time.

"Thanks, Paul," she smiled. "You've done a lot for me and it's given me hope for the future. It feels like everything I've done until now has been worthwhile just for this moment."

"No problem, Luzz!" I smiled sheepishly. And as we waved to each other good night, I unlocked my room and went inside, locking the door behind me. Sighing, I walked over to the bed sitting at the far wall of the room, not even bothering to check the room out. I was too exhausted. As I sat my briefcase on the red carpeted floor at the edge of the bed I felt like complete and utter shit. I crawled under the blankets, feeling like I wouldn't be able to go to bed after everything that's happened today. But thankfully, moments later, sleep took me away.