"Where am I?"

Wyn finds himself floating still in darkness. The last thing he remembers is the feeling of drowsiness and that he fell asleep.

"Am I...still alive?"

While he's conscious, he finds himself unable to worry. There's something very calming to this darkness. The dead silence here gives him tranquility. Wyn is aware that his eyes are open, though the rest of his body is completely paralyzed, as if he were given a large dose of anesthesia. He also realizes that he's still breathing but is making no sound at all. He can't feel his heart – no beats, no sound. The usual Wyn would have panicked by now, but instead, Wyn is fine with this. He doesn't enjoy nor dislike this. However, that doesn't matter to him right now whether he's in a coma or in the afterlife, as long as it is this peaceful. Given that he only has control of his eyes, he just recently notices tiny particles, more or less like dust, sparkling unremarkably all around him. There's possibly some on his body.

Wyn has been floating for a while. He has lost all sense of time. He shuts his eyes. This is the most peace he has experienced in his so-called 'life'. Then, 'DING, DING', a sound reminiscent of a small bell startles Wyn. "What the fuck?" Wyn exclaims in his mind.

'SWOOSH', Wyn feels a sensation of getting violently sucked from the back into something. It doesn't take long until Wyn gets thrown out and lands on his back, hitting his head against the ground. The pain is tremendous, even the toughest of Tide massages didn't prepare him for this. Then he hears a 'thud', a similar sound he made merely a few seconds ago. He quickly gets up, turns around to locate the source, but instead, is drawn to an all off-white space he's in. The space is huge, stretching far beyond his vision.

More thuds keep occurring intermittently. Wyn sees a number of people get thrown further than him, and much harder. Counting with his eyes, there are approximately twenty others, most still lying on the level, spread out in proximity to each other. Then he hears it again, 'thud'. Turning back around, more people are flying and landing on the ground. It is then when he sees where they're getting shot from. There's a big off-white wall with what look like purple portals on it. When a portal opens, a person is sent into the open space.

The thuds are becoming more and more frequent. At some point, people start flying into one another. Wyn and some others run further away from the wall, like raining from the rain, to keep a safe distance. Finally, there are no more portals opening. Those who are far away, including Wyn, start to walk toward the new ones to check on them and help them get up.

"Are you okay?" is what can be heard among the group of, now, two hundred something.

"Where are we?" someone asks.

At this point, everyone's beginning to mumble in confusion. The empty area's too large for any of them to explore. Sticking together for now to discuss what's next sounds like the best course of action. Wyn begins to peruse the group.

"Why are we here?" is the question he unintentionally slips out loud.

"Let's all talk about the last thing we did or the last place we were before this," someone near Wyn speaks loudly to try to silence the mumbles.

"I was driving, then I saw a flash. After that, I was in a dark room where I couldn't see a single thing and couldn't move," the same person continues after successfully drawing attention from most people there.

"Same here. I mean the flash and the dark room," Wyn shares his condensed story, sounding surprised.

Others begin to mumble, "Me too. You too, right?"

"So, wh...," the same person near Wyn is interrupted before finishing his question.

"WELCOME," a strange deep, loud, and echoing male voice comes from afar, too far for Wyn to see the owner of the voice.

Everyone's looking at the origin of the voice, which is from the other side of the area away from the wall. Slowly, they begin to see a figure, a small figure.

"It's...a cat?" says one of them.

As the figure gets closer, it is no mistake. What everyone sees is a cat, an orange tabby cat.

"Welcome to Hell!" says the cat.

"Hell? What?" mumbles of disbelief, along with cries of sadness are coming from the group.

From a distance, it looks like a normal fat cat that walks on two hind legs. Inspecting closer, Wyn notices that its face is rather strange. The head's larger than a normal cat, maybe ten to fifteen percent. The ears are thicker in proportion to the large head. The snout though, is abnormally long and thick. It extends further than usual from the face to support the large pink nose. There are tiny fangs, so tiny that they look disproportionate to the snout, hanging out from the mouth. The body and the paws look just like those of a regular fat cat but thick.

Just as everyone's fascinated by what's in front of them, someone says, "chonky kitty!"

Dead silence follows as the cat stares straight at the source of the voice.

"You want scratches?" the cat asks, eyes dialated.

"I'm not itchy, but sure!" a young male replies.

The cat, despite its thickness, nimbly jumps from shoulders to shoulders and makes its way to the young man. As promised, it gives scratches to the man, but onto his face four times. No blood is coming out though, just dry wounds. The cat then gets back down on the level and looks up to the man.

"You will heal in less than an hour."

Instead of listening to what the cat just said, the young man goes around asking others how bad his wounds are.

"Anyway, I am the great CATOTO, all caps," the feline announces its name. "I am your Hell guide."

"I lived for dog. There must be a mistake!" a male voice speaks out anxiously. "Wait, did I just say dog?"

"The word is banned here. It gets replaced by a random word," CATOTO explains. "And you are here because, before or at your last moments, you despised the Heaven King. That is the rule your beloved King set."

"You know, we can't see you CATOTO or whatever your name is," a different female voice complains as CATOTO is indeed now somewhere in the crowd after scratching that young man's face.

CATOTO jumps around to make his way out of the crowd, significantly further from where he was when he welcomed everyone to Hell. The tabby then uses its front paws to cover his nose and starts to inhale deeply – he is growing. The longer he inhales, the bigger he grows. All of his body parts are getting larger. His already large head is even larger. He stops aftering growing about twelve times his original size. Anticlimactically, The cat himself doesn't look at all almighty. It's still just a cat, a humongous cat that is.

"Behold, Le CATOTO GRANDE," the voice hits the lowest of keys anything audible can hit.

Deep in everyone's heart, they want to call out the incorrect use of the language, but no one dares to utter a single word.

"Well, at least CATOTO knows what 'grande' means unlike some coffee chain," Wyn thinks to himself.

Until, "Ha! You manage to get even chonkier! You should call yourself CATOTO GRADNE LE CHONK!"

Yup, that's the same voice of the same young man, now, with cat scratches on his face. There are several gasps among the crowd. Le CATOTO GRANDE is not entertained. He gives the man a scary cat death stare. Wyn hits his forehead with his palm, thinking, "this dude is not so smart either."

"You are lucky I am not so nimble in this state," Le CATOTO GRANDE speaks, not breaking the stare. "Moving on, you here have parted the living realm and are to be referred to as souls."

"Souls? Dead? How do we still look like our human selves before death?" a random female soul asks.

"Why not?" replies the cat. "You are on level zero. Think of it as the entrance to Hell. I am here to provide you with crucial information before entering."

"You already said 'Welcome to Hell' earlier, but we're not even there yet!" the same young man strikes again.

"Can you shut up? You souls are not the only batch I have to accommodate. Everyone just shut up and let me explain or I will ensure your suffering myself." Le CATOTO GRANDE is getting agitated.

Wyn takes a glance at the young man. While the view's obstructed by distance and the other souls, Wyn can make out that both of the man's hands are covering his mouth. Wyn feels relieved for the safety of the man and to finally get to hear what the cat has to say. He still has hope that his dream of eternal peace is still alive.

Le CATOTO GRANDE proceeds to explain. Souls are fetched from the recently deceased within minutes after the death. A grim reaper arrives at the scene, opens a portal, then sucks the soul into it. The grim reapers can work faster, and thus fewer of them are needed with this new collection method. As trivia, the grim reapers are skeletal cats of thick human teen size, complete with skeletal cat ears. In the portal, the soul is sedated with dust particles fused with mysterious chemicals to prevent panic. Since souls are collected in batches, there might be long gap times between them, anywhere from seconds to days.

"That kind of explains the dust particles I saw," Wyn's reaffirms himself.

Wyn wants to ask if there's a way to attain the dust in Hell but decides to not to. Little does he know that the dust only works in portals. As of now, he's completely free from its effects and is free to panic, and yet, he appears calm. Deep down though, he's very nervous about what's in store for him. His heart should be pounding like crazy right now, but still, no beats, no sound. The tabby cat continues to explain how level zero has been revamped to serve as a more convenient passage to Hell. This and the new soul collecting method, in fact, was designed by 'the nerds'. It was them who revamped Hell to what it is today. The nerds are in the process of optimizing the number of souls coming through the portals. Because Wyn's batch is special, the number is limited. On a regular basis however, Hell can expect up to hundred-thousands of souls to arrive for each batch. For the moment, this is done at random, decided by the chonk himself with the help from grim reapers' reports. The kitty can open portals with his thick paws by pointing at the wall from any distance as long as the wall is visible to him.

On to the most important part, the structure of Hell itself. There are seven levels of Hell in total. At the center of each level, there's a lesser deity who's often referred to as a moderator. Every level has a condition or rule to abide by. Failure to comply will result in suffering. This is where the differences of batches come in. Souls can be categorized into three types, coded by the colors of the wristbands which will be given and explained by the cat later. The colors in use are, midnight purple, dark gray, and transparent black. The souls with purple wristbands are those who had committed harsh crimes in their past lives. These crimes include, but not limited to, intentional murders of all degrees, verbal and mental abuses that lead to physical or mental harm to the victims, thefts that cause hardships to others, sexual assaults, and physical assaults that maim or cause major injuries to the victims. The gray wristbands are for souls who either committed no crimes or only engaged in petty offenses, such as lying, minor theft, or non-serious brawling. Revenge murders fall into this color group as Hell finds these justifiable by human nature. Wyn and his batch will receive the black wristbands. These souls would normally receive the gray wristbands but are special in some mysterious way. Doesn't matter how many times the souls ask the tabby, he never elaborates.

"Now, each color gets a different treatment in different levels of Hell. The level number increases as we go deeper." The feline stops for a short breath. "The goal for a soul is to serve its time in Hell until it gets reborn. With you special souls, there is a way to stay in Hell indefinitely. I will get to that too, so hold your paws."

"So, it's either suffering or rebirth?" Wyn thinks to himself, feeling fidgety.

The first level belongs to Gluttony, the classic overeater. On this level, there are six sections with each representing a different region of countries on earth. Inside a region, souls can find different cuisines from countries belonging to that region. The gray and black wristbands are allowed to eat anything, anywhere, and any cuisine they want at any time. The condition on this level is: DO NOT OVEREAT. While souls in Hell have no need to feast nor feel hungry, setting foot on this level will stimulate hunger. The concept is similar to an all-you-can-eat buffet where the diner can never reach satiation. However, overconsumption will cause a soul's stomach to burst. An exploded soul doesn't die, but rather gets fed to Gluttony where it will suffer from gradual digestion and suffocation inside the stomach. Every time Gluttony burps, the pain triples. The soul stays in the stomach until its time in Hell is up. As for the purple wristbands, they're fed directly to Gluttony.

The second level is where Greed resides. A credit card-sized device is registered to each soul upon the entrance. The card carries ten thousand credits, given as pocket money to start the journey. The rule is straightforward: BALANCE MUST NOT BE NEGATIVE. There are myriads of ways to earn credits within the three zones on the level – gambling, gaming, and combat. It's recommended to plan ahead the activities souls want to partake, as inactivity costs one credit per second. When the balance goes negative, they get taken to Greed where he tears off the arms, the legs, and the body slowly – this leaves just the head, still very much alive and conscious. The body parts are sold to other souls for a price. Greed keeps the head as a prize in his vault tower. Other souls that purchase these body parts keep them until they disintegrate when the original owner's time in Hell is up, turning into a significant amount of credits. Purple wristbands are sent straight to Greed for the dismemberment.

The third level has Lust as the moderator. As one would guess, this is a level full of sex and orgies. There are four sections that mirror one another exactly to spread out the souls. Upon entering, souls automatically lose their clothes and are free to engage in any form of sexual act imaginable. The condition for this level is: ALWAYS ENGAGE IN A SEXUAL ACTIVITY. This doesn't mean souls can't rest between rounds. They have up to one hour to change areas or partners. The wristband vibrates when the time is up. Souls that fail to engage before the vibration stops will be transformed into random sex toys. The purple wristbands get automatically transformed into sex toys upon entrance.

Chuckles and cheers can be heard from the crowd. It seems these souls don't take Lust seriously. This is another part of the tabby's secret responsibility. He observes and reports to the nerds the overall demeanors, reactions, and feelings of each batch. It does look like Lust's level will get a revamp in due time. Wyn's batch is not the first to have such a reaction. However, to Wyn, this is possibly the worst type of punishment. Being conscious in someone else's anus is not at all a glorious end he envisions.

The fourth level is Torture's. The crowd mumbles in confusion as the name is not familiar. In fact, Torture is Wrath's replacement. When asked why Wrath was replaced, Le CATOTO GRANDE explains that not only Wrath, but also Pride, Envy, and Sloth were retired by the King of Hell and only He can answer why. The name Torture is slightly misleading as the ones torturing are the grey and the black wristbands. The level's split into two main sections. One section is a marketplace where souls can select their victims and tools they want for free of charge. The variety of victims ranges from random Hell's specific creatures to other souls, mostly the purple wristbands. The other section is where the torturing occurs. There is one catch: DO NOT KILL THE VICTIMS. Whether by accident or by intention, souls that commit murder on this level will become the victims themselves. This is a rare level where a soul can actually vanish out of existence for eternity. Over fifty percent of the purple wristbands are on this level. Wyn gets chills as he would not want his fate to be decided by the hands of others.

The fifth level's moderator is another new face, Anxiety. It is believed that Anxiety succeeded Sloth. The level is one big slum. Some say the decoration on this level is an imitation of the city of Deathtroit, a city in the United States of Ammunition or USA. Here, souls are free to take drugs. Drugs can be obtained by talking to any of the demons on the level. While this may sound nice to junkies, there is a caveat: DO NOT OVERDOSE. An overdose will cause a forever severe seizure characterized by intense muscle stiffness, contractions, and violent body twitching. As for the purple wristbands, they are crushed inside the moderator who changes shapes every now and then. With every change, the souls inside suffer excruciating pain from figure distortion. Their anguish transforms into a potent substance for drug production.

The sixth level is reserved for the black and selected gray wristbands. Maya, in place of Envy, runs the level. The theme is to imagine and dream. Much like creating scenarios in the head, this level allows individuals with creativity to create their own world. For those lacking imagination, they can resort to 'sleep and dream'. There seems to be no condition nor punishment on this level. There are positive mumbles from the crowd as this level sounds more like Heaven than Hell to them. Wyn is excited. This is definitely the level he wants to be on if he can choose.

"As for the seventh level, it is open only to you black wristbands. I am not allowed to say what is down there, but it is where you can discover many truths about the living realm and why you are special in Hell," Le CATOTO GRANDE speaks.

"And as a black wristband, you get to choose any level you would like to visit. You can also change levels to your liking at any time using your wristband. Others get assigned according to the sins they committed most frequently."

"Be warned that on each level, you still need to follow the rules, or you could end up stuck like the others."

"Another note on the seventh level, once you go there, you cannot return to any other levels. The

Your choice is strictly irreversible. My advice is, if you really despise the Heaven King, it might be the place for you. There is no more to say about the seventh level for now."

"That's too much information. How do you expect us to remember all this?" a random male soul asks.

"You can ask the entrance demon guards on each level, but your questions need to be specific or they will not answer. They are not that smart," Le CATATO GRANDE answers as shrinks back to his regular size after letting out air through his orifices. "Plus I kind of only have one script for the gray and black wristbands."

Wyn is over the moon to hear that he can choose the levels himself. For now, he wants to end on the sixth level, though the thought of visiting the last level bothers him a good deal as he doesn't have enough information to base his decision on. According to the cat, it might be nice to get some answers Wyn was seeking back then. The fact that he despises mother is another reason he is tempted.

"Why do we get these privileges?" Wyn asks the feline.

"MOEWWWWWWwwwww," CATOTO lets out the loudest longest meow

"What the heck?" Wyn is covering his ears.

Every soul is staring at the CATOTO in confusion. CATOTO doesn't look back at them, he just keeps staring at his paws. No one knows what's on his mind right now. A few minutes later, buzzing sounds can be heard. It sounds like a swarm of large insects is on the way to where the souls are. The buzz is terrifying as it gets closer.

"A flying...bread?" mumbles a female soul.

"Do not fret. These will take us to the gate." CATOTO turns around as he speaks.

Large strange figures flying in a swarm approach the group.