Luz's eyes fluttered open for a moment as she groaned "Why does my bedroom smell like sulfur?"
Rolling over, Luz tried to check the time, only to find in place of her clock was a rat-like creature sniffing her face.
"Oh, hello little friend."
Suddenly, the creature stopped sniffing and glared "Who you callin' friend bitch?" a New Yorker's voice left his mouth.
"Uh, sorry?" Luz apologized as the creature scampered off. Leaping to her feet, Luz saw she was in a dingy back alley with used needles, blood, and other unmentionables littering the ground. Luz walked over to the alley's entrance to see pure chaos in the streets, explosions rang out from left to right as countless figures beat each other to death.
At the sight of such utter madness, Luz backed away in shock with only one question on her mind "Am I in the bad place!?"
"Nope!" a voice rang out and Luz turned to see a pair of demons standing over her "You in Hell bitch!" one of the demons, a short humanoid dressed in black and white striped prison wear, said.
The other demon, a neon green humanoid snake, rolled their eyes and said, "That's what she meant dumbass."
"Oh…" the first demon frowned before the pair each pulled out a knife "We're going to shank you now."
Luz quickly broke off into a run with the Demon pair following close behind, the pair shouting quite descriptively how they were going to cut her up and do… things with the parts. Fortunately, the pair had nothing on Boiling Isles workout routine and Luz was easily able to make headway against them. Reaching a fork in the alleys, Luz began to run to the left only to spy out of the corner of her eye a large dumpster, or as Eda called them 'the perfect hiding spot', on the other side. Carefully retracing her steps, she leaped across to the hiding spot, climbed inside, and waited with bated breath as the pair reached the fork, glancing about for a sign of where she had gone.
"She went that way!" Luz breathed a sigh of relief as the pair ran in the opposite direction, and then shuttered as she heard an explosion and screaming from them.
"Th- That's one set of crazy people handled." Luz said as she tried to catch her breath "I- I need somewhere to hide." Glancing around, she quickly spotted a large shining building lit up like something from Vegas and atop the building was a bright neon sign consisting of two words.
"Hazbin Hotel."
With no other choice, Luz ran inside.
Slamming the door behind her, Luz slumped down gasping for air and clasping a hand over her chest to stop her heart from bursting out of her chest. Luz couldn't help but think of her first day on the Boiling Isles, but this was a thousand times more insane.
Finally calmed down slightly, Luz took in the hotel's lobby; it was unsurprising a spacious affair with a high ceiling holding up a chandelier, a bar off to one side, and a sitting area with some couches off to the other. Some soft jazz was playing, probably from some speakers Luz thought although she couldn't see any around. Suddenly Luz noticed a tall Demon with antlers dressed in a red suit staring at her, "How long has he been doing that?" Luz mentally questioned, a wide toothy smile stretched across his face.
Luz shyly waved at the Demon only for him to vanish into the shadows and instantly appear in front of her.
"Salutations dear Sinner! Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel!" the deerman's voice rang out like it was coming from an old radio as he somehow made his already wide smile even bigger. "The name's Alastor; Chief, and only, investor in this fine establishment."
"Uh hi." Luz greeted in kind "I think there's been a bit of a mix up, I'm not supposed to be here."
Alastor stared for a moment (seemingly taking Luz's concerns seriously) but soon let out a laugh, accompanied by canned audience laughter. "Ah, a new arrival to our homely hellscape I see." he noted, wiping the tears from his eyes, "Still fresh enough to still be in the denial phase too; don't worry my dear, our lovely princess will soon fill your head with more delusions of redemption than you could hope for." the radio demon said, condescendingly patting Luz on the head.
"Hey stop messing with her Al!" a spider-like demon called out from one of the couches.
Alastor glared at the spider demon for a few seconds, before some radio tuning noises played as he wandered off.
"Don't let him get to you kid." the spider demon said as he walked over "Name's Angel Dust."
"Luz." she introduced herself in kind.
"Been a while since I've seen someone your age down here." Angel noted, "So, what you in for?"
If Angel had asked the question a few months ago, Luz would have said that helping Belos was more than enough to damn her, but after plenty of reassurances from Amity not anymore.
"I don't know!" the confused human yelled out, "I mean… I do have a girlfriend…"
"Yeah, that's definitely not it." Angel bluntly answered, "Trust me, with the number of homophobes that have ended up down here, God's on our side with that at least."
Before the conversation could continue, a loud crash was heard as a small one-eyed Demon scampered into the room. The Demon tightly gripped a sowing needle as she chased after a bug, only to lose all interest as she spotted Luz "New friend!" she cried out and scampered over only to be stopped by Angel.
The Spider Demon pulled Nifty back as he said "Hey, give her some space Nif' she just got down here."
"Oh neato!" the Cyclops cheerfully stated, squirming out of Angel's grip and quickly climbing up to Luz's face to whisper a question "How did you die?"
"NIF'!" Angel cried out "You can't just ask people that shit!"
"But I wanna know…" Nifty muttered through a frown.
Luz's brow furrowed as tried to recall her dea-, what she had been doing before arriving in Hell "I just laid down for a nap and woke up here." she admitted with a shrug.
"Hmm, died in your sleep, there's worse ways to go." Angel noted with a shrug while Nifty had a different outlook.
"Boooooring!" the cyclops declared.
Luz glared down at the cyclops as she snarked out "Well sorry, guess I used up all my cool dying the first time."
Before either Sinner could question that, a cat-like Demon entered the room, a half empty bottle of whiskey clasped in his hand, "Hey Husker, we've got a newbie here!" Angel said
Husher glanced at Luz and greeted her with a huff, only to quickly stop and look closer at the 'newbie' "She's not dead." he stated.
"What you talkin' about, how else would she be here?"
"I know dead newbies, she's not one." the former Overlord declared "Check her pulse."
With a shrug, Angel held Luz's wrist and quickly found a healthy and very not dead pulse "Oh shit, he's right!"
"I'm not damned to Hell!" Luz cheered.
"Yeah!" Nifty screamed in excitement before asking "What are we yelling about?"
"Congrats kid." Angel said before realizing there still was a question to be answered "Wait if she is alive, then how is she down here?"
Husker shrugged "Guess someone decided to drag her down here." he suggested before finishing off his whiskey.
"Who in Hell would throw some random girl into Hell?" Angel questioned only to near instantly answer it himself "Right never mind stupid question, a lot of people here would. But who would specifically do that to you?"
Luz shuttered as the image of one such person appeared in her mind "I think I have an idea."
Moxxie's eyes fluttered open for a moment as he groaned "Honey, I think you kicked me off the bed in your sleep… again."
As he opened his eyes, Moxxie was greeted not by the crack and unknown stain-covered ceiling of his apartment, but rather a pristine one that didn't look like it was about to collapse. Throwing himself upright, the Imp took a quick recon of his surroundings and if the ceiling wasn't a big enough clue, the bunkbed and the window with the bright very not red sky outside made it quite clear, this wasn't his apartment.
"…oh crumbs."
"Hey Luz," Moxxie heard a girl's voice as the room's door opened "I'm going to hang out with Marsha, can I borrow your jack-"
The girl paused as she stared down at Moxxie, who awkwardly waved back, for a few silent moments before finally yelling out "MOOOOM!"
"Oh crumbs."