A Hell Of A Ride

Michio went to open the door and Ose sat down at the table again, next to Aida again.

“Good morning. I hope you two are doing well.” he opened the conversation.

“Sort of. But we're glad you are her Ose.” Michio replied, not wanting to give Aidas and his conversation before away.

“Of course, it's my pleasure. Now, I guess I will explain how we will get to hell and back.” Again, he was very business like and didn't waste any time. But that suited them just fine.

“Yes, please.” answered Michio. Aida hadn't said a word to Ose up to this point and she seemed to be somewhat intimidated. But Michio didn't have a problem with talking to Ose, so he was glad to be helpful in this situation.

“I shall begin then. As I explained to Hino before, I've been dead for a very long time and therefore I know a lot about this place. By which I mean heaven & hell. What I haven't told you before is, that there is a direct connection between heaven and hell. And you can use it to get from one to the other.” Ose began his explanation.

“But it's not that easy I suppose?” was Michios answer.

“Oh no, of course not. But you can bribe people to be able to use it. And that's what I did.”

“Oh, but how do we pay for that? I mean it must be expensive, but there isn't even money here...”

Ose interrupted him with a hand gesture. “Don't worry about it. That's all on me.”

That didn't really sit right with Michio, but the whole thing was pretty dubious, so what was one more shady aspect to it. “Okay, thank you.” Ose smiled his angelic smile in response.

“Can it really be done? Being brought back to life?” Both Ose and Michio were slightly startled when Aida suddenly asked her question. Apparently she was anxious about asking it the whole time and just blurted her question out. Ose quickly gained back his composure and answered her.

“Oh yes, it's happening all the time. But usually there is some sort of divine reason. But this will be different. Hell can still tap into gods power enough to make things like this happen. But we have to be careful and not do it to often to avoid attention, so it only happens if a worthwhile opportunity comes along.”

Michio was wondering what that meant. Obviously Ose thought that Aida and Michio had something to offer that would be worth it, but what could it possibly be? Just their souls? They had literally nothing else to their names, so that was the only possible the answer.

“And how does it work in practice?” Michio asked.

“I guess it's best I show you. If you are ready we can get right to it.” Ose responded.

Michio looked at Aida and she nodded. “Okay, we are ready.” Ose smiled upon their little non verbal communication but didn't make any further comment about it.

“Okay then, let's go.” All three of them stood up and left the house. Michio did even lock the door, although there was literally nothing worth stealing in there. It still felt better this way. It was their home for now, so they should at least care about it a little bit.

“Is it a long walk?” Asked Michio, more to make some conversation than anything else.

“It will take a while, but nothing too young people shouldn't be able to handle.” Fair enough thought Michio.

Ose lead them away from the house into a direction he had not yet went. Neither Michio nor Aida had really explored their surroundings so far, so everything was still very new to them. The part of town they walked into had bigger houses that seemed more like office buildings. A lot of people that looked like angels were walking around.

“This is where the administration of heaven is taking place. At least some of it.” Apparently Ose could read Michios mind.

“Thanks. I was wondering about that.” Michio replied.

“We are almost there.” Ose said and pointed at a building a little way down the street that looked like any other building in the street. When they entered it, all that was there was a counter with a guy behind it and an elevator.

“Hey George.” Ose said jovially to the guy behind the counter. He apparently was asleep and looked at Ose with some disdain as he slowly woke up. “Oh, it's you. Great. Day ruined.”

“Don't be so harsh George, I'm just here to show some young people hell. Nothing wrong with that, is there.” That made George look up and take notice off the two young people in the room.

“Oh, that's rare. Well then, I guess it's not so bad after all. So you want to go down?”

“Well, yes, down to hell that is.” Ose said that with a big smile and Michio wondered what he was thinking about.

“No problem, not much business today. You can go right in.” George pushed a button under the counter and the door to the elevator opened. “Thank you very much.” was Oses answer, given with a smile as always. "You helped me out by making me be able to see my brother again one last time, so I won't deny you this at least." George said to Ose. Apparently Ose was more in the business of selling favours than Michio realised.

“Okay, let's go.” said Ose to Michio and Aida and all three went in. “One word of warning.” continued Ose. “Don't touch the side walls when we are going down.” Michio and Aida looked at each other and instinctively took a step away from their respective wall.

“Prepare yourselfs” was the last thing Ose said and then moments later the elevator started to drop in a spectacular fashion that made it seem like they were just in freefall. Ose seemed decidely unimpressed, but Aida and Michio sure were shaken by the sudden drop that felt like it was still accelerating. Aida seemed to panicked that she actually clung to Michio, which under different circumstances probably would have felt like a dream, but he barely was keeping his own composure so also paying attention to the girl clinging onto him was not really in the cards. Well, maybe he was enjoying it a little bit despite everything else going on.

“Eh, Ose. How long is this going to take?” Michio needed to scream, since their ride was all but silent on top of everything. It was a hell of a ride in fact. “Quite a while I'm afraid.” Ose answered. “But look at the walls, that's why I told you to stay away.” He pointed at the walls of the cabin and both Michio and Aida looked at them and their eyes widened. The walls were definitely starting to glow red. Was it that hot outside the cabin? So they were truly on their way to hell after all. After seeing that Michio couldn't help but squeeze Aida a little bit as reassurance and she let it happen. Maybe things had gotten better between them after all? The two of them kept looking at the cabin walls that only grew hotter with every second passing and the temperature in the cabin was also starting to raise rapidly. Michio and Aida soon felt like they couldn't take it anymore, but then the cabin started to finally slow down and after what felt like an eternity the door opened again and both of them tumbled out of the cabin, gasping for air. Then they gasped at what they were looking at.