Elizabeth

Dying. I'm dying. Slowly. Six months. Nine months. I don't even remember how many months they gave me before it's bye bye Elizabeth. I don't fully know how I feel about this as of yet. I'm young. Sixteen. I'm terminally ill. That sounds so technical. It's pain. Pain. I miss things. Like standing on my own. I'm kind of not allowed to get out of the bed. I need my breathing machines and the IV.
I like watching the Nurses and Doctors run about, saving my life as much as they possibly can. Not that they can do it. Six months. Nine months. I know it's a multiple of three. I may have been nearly completely catatonic but I know it was a multiple of three. Unless it was just three. I don't want to think about it. So I turn over and stare out the window. Sometimes I do this and I catch a glimpse of a person. In a trench coat and sometimes a leather jacket. Brown leather, sometimes black. Trench coat is the same, colour scheme wise. I don't know what to say about gender as every time I see them I legitimately cannot figure out if they're male or female. I mean I guess there isn't much to go off of. I'm seeing a figure wearing a trench coat or a leather jacket and trying to figure out a whole life story. Maybe I've been watching Sherlock too much, trying to make deductions simply by viewing a person. I guess things like that belong in a world of fiction.
But aside from that I like seeing this person. They're...They look as if they should be the lead role in some kind of horror movie. Running around hospital grounds, pulling interest from naive cancer riddled teenage girls. But they're so interesting. I simply can't ignore them. As I stare out the window at the night rain, I see no one. And eventually I am asleep.

Kali

Thousands of years have passed and I am still a demon. Wrought with the anger filled body and evil mind. I can hear the screams of those souls I left behind in hell. I had to leave. Lucifer, you'd expect to be a bad guy but more closely resembles an overworked manager. Trying to get everything working properly. I vaguely remember humanity. But its best not to think of that life when your main source of life is terror. I feed on it. The screams of terrified humans. My favourite is when there is a good horror movie around. I can go for months off of the fear I get then. Travel city after city.  Hiding within the back rows listening, feeling the waves of uneasiness. I can come into those theatres looking nearly dead and come out looking as if I had just been born.
But really good horror movies aren't that easy to find. Sometimes you have to be creative. I find staying out a night and following girls home works; yeah it's evil.  Yeah I'm probably scaring the hell out of those girls but A) been to hell. Lived. B) If anyone actually attempted to touch them whilst I'm following them, they'll meet a quick, scream punctuated death. The fear of someone seconds from death is the sweetest. Better than that tight strained fear felt by those girls. I'm terrifying them, but I'm also protecting them. Rarely do I find anyone who isn't scared of me. But sometimes when I walk past the hospital out of the corner of my eye I see this one girl. I don't know whats wrong with her, she's got tubes coming out of her face and arms. She's not scared. I don't know if she's scared of anything.

Elizabeth

When I wake up, there are no new developments. Doctors and Nurses run about saving lives and I am hoping that maybe they'll come to me and grant me a clean bill of health or at least say that there's a good chance that I'll survive a couple extra months. But nothing happens. They are people not wizards. They tell me the truth, and sometimes its a miracle, but its not magic. There is no such thing.

I fell asleep again. I do that a lot. Sleep for a good twelve hours at night wake up for an hour or two to eat breakfast, sometimes lunch. No one wakes me. Sleeping is good. Sleeping means my body is tired from fighting. I realize I've slept way longer than I usually do when I look at the clock on the wall and realize it's past five PM.
I immediately look towards my window. Waiting to see if the person shows up tonight. Eventually they do. They walk past the window. I have no idea how I do this or really why; but I get up. I mean I get up like somehow I've removed my breathing tube and IV and everything else that holds me tightly to that bed. I'm pretty much sprinting towards the window. Which is weird. I shouldn't be able to do that at all. I get up real close to the window, and I fall through. I'm on the first floor so the fall isn't whats surprising or scary. The fact that I just fell through a solid sealed window and part of wall is worse. I just ran through a wall. There's no hole or anything either so I'm not like a superhero with super strength or something. That's when a chill runs up my spine. I turn quickly to see that I never left my bed. At least, my body didn't.

Kali

I feel weird. Like there's this really bizarre feeling of like...a glitch in the matrix. Somethings going on that isn't supposed to be going on. This happens occasionally. I ignore it as I pull up my hood and head out to the emergency room. Sometimes a distraught wife see's me and screams bloody murder, convinced I'm the grim reaper coming for her or her partner. As if. I need you alive to scare you.
Anyway, I head down there. I get a good amount of uneasiness and slight fear but no real terror. It'll hold me until the next night likely. So I decide to trek back. I don't know where I'm going tonight. But I usually find somewhere. One of my favourite spots is the public library. It's just this big building filled with books. Any kind you want. There's science books, fiction, economic, computer, you can learn anything in there. I mean I've been on this planet for thousands of years, might as well learn something. I'm just walking back slowly when I realize what that glitchy feeling was. That sick girl? Well she's on the ground hyperventilating and crying. Great.

Elizabeth

I can't breathe. I can't stop crying. I cannot be dead. I am not dead. I am not dead I am not dead I amnotdeadIamnotdeatIamnotdeadIamnotdeadIamnotdeadIAMNOTDEAD. I might be separated from my body but I AM NOT DEAD
This isn't happening.
NOT HAPPENING. I can hear myself wailing. I wonder if anyone else can hear me?
“GODDAMN SHUT UP YOU'RE GONNA SCARE THE CRAP OUT OF EVERYONE.” That answers that. I look up and it's that person. The one I was looking at earlier. Who made me walk out of my body... “You killed me!” I am so angry.  Anger. I can't feel anything else.  The person looks at me with a nice feminine face. But there's only a couple seconds before the face arches and contorts into a very angry masculine sneer. HOW? I literally cannot apply a gender to this person.
With very visible tension they say; “I didn't kill you. You idiot. I don't kill. You're astral projecting. i.e You're not dead.” It takes me a minute to process. Not dead. Everything's okay. “Thank you.” I tell them. “I...Uh....I don't usually freak out that bad. Uh so how does this work? Do I just go back into my body?” The person nods and gestures to my body. “Yep.” I walk back into the room and lie down on the bed.

Kali

I'm sighing, when I hear the girl go ballistic about me 'Lying to her'. I had been walking away when she started shrieking her head off. So I walk back. “Bloody hell,” I mutter. “Okay first of all I didn't do this to you so stop that right there. Second of all...yeah I don't know why you can't get back in.” She stares at me. Seething. Clearly I'm not scared of her. But the way she's eyeing me at the moment conveys some sort of blood lust. I'd walk through the window and door to hear her, but I am within some form of actual corporeal being. I can hear shrieking and screaming but not really specific words. Pretty sure she's cursing me out telling me to go to hell. Jokes on her.
I motion for her to come back out here. Since I'd really rather not destroy a hospital. This is a place of good. I have no place here and neither does my destruction. She walks out. “What is going on?!” I look around blankly before shrugging hoping she'll realize; I have no clue. I just ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Fix it.” She says. I think for a second I could just turn it down. Walk away. Let her deal on her own, but she's only got so long to live, do I really want to leave her here in a coma?  I sigh and direct her to follow and begin to explain what I can do to help her.

Elizabeth

“I can't promise that you'll get back in your body. I can't promise that I can help, however I can promise that I can get you to the people who will show you how to get back. Honestly; you're not dead. If you were dead you wouldn't be here or you wouldn't smell like that. Dead souls have specific smell. You do not have that smell. So you're not dead. I can bring you, but I can't really do much to help you. Got it?” I nod. “Where are we going?” I question. “To go yell at God.” I imagine they're kidding. But as they continue walking I get the bizarre feel that they aren't. “You're kidding right? Like we're not actually going to go yell at the dude who controls everything, in other words the one who controls whether or not I will live or die?”
“The very same.” And that is how I found out my escort is probably clinically insane. Oh while I'm near them; “What gender are you?” They stop for a second. Turn around and  seem to think for a minute before saying. “Uh you can just go back and forth? Like between 'he' and 'her'? That works I think? I'm not exactly human and don't really...fit inside either of those.” I don't even want to acknowledge the 'not exactly human' bit.
  “Well, yeah, but its going to be a bit confusing?” 
“Okay... Just use my name.”
“Which is?”
“Kali.”
“Okay. Kali. So in exact terms, where are we going?”
Kali's head bobs up and down. Thinking of how to explain the answer. “Well, We'll be going...First off we have to find the gate. But to find the gate we have to get a blood stone and to get a blood stone we have to find A) A virgin." Seeing my face Kali addes yeah I don't get the whole virginal thing either but apparently being 'pure' is a huge winning point when it comes to the supernatural." B) A specific crystal. C) a tooth.” I think for a second about that last one. “What on earth is the tooth for?” I question. “It's just to carve into the crystal.” Kali say's offhandedly. “Couldn't you theoretically use anything hard and pointy?” Kali pauses and looks up as if asking God what would have been done to deserve this obviously annoying ignorant question. “No. No. Okay see that's not how it works.  The only way to get into heaven is to A) be a good person and die and B) Bribe an archangel into letting you in. So since you don't want to die and I actually shouldn't be allowed to get up there in the first place, we're doing the second one and these archangels? They will do anything to keep us out. So we have to do it exactly as I say. Got it?” I nod. Jeez, calm down. I think. I mean it can't be that hard to get into heaven. It's heaven.

Kali

I assume Elizabeth, as she tells me her name is, grew up in a religious family. She seems to have that bizarre innocence where you think that God is this perfect guy sitting on a cloud who forgives everything. Don't get me wrong he does do that stuff. But I mean, I rebelled against the guy for a reason. I didn't want to serve someone else. Especially when their idea of love and acceptance varied from my own. I personally think so long as stuff doesn't hurt anyone, especially yourself; do it.
I don't remember the big guy being particularly forgiving to certain acts. But anyway as me and Elizabeth continue our trek to the door way to heaven. I don't know exact landmarks to pinpoint where it is, but I know the feeling of when its near. Its where the end closes at the beginning. I imagine if I had to really explain it it's a rip of space fabric stuff and if you can squeeze yourself through that rip you wind up at the gate. Now if you don't know how to get yourself to squeeze through the rip, you can't get through. But luckily I know how to get through and Elizabeth can walk through walls. The dead and the non corporeal beings can get through without much energy. Lucky.
As we near the rip I begin to tell Elizabeth exactly whats going to happen. I'm just going to give her a good shove into the rip and she'll fall out at the gates of heaven. Then she has to wait about ten minutes and I'll have to just squeeze myself through. She may or may not have to pull my hand.
I walk past it a good three times before I manage to zero in on the location and push Elizabeth cleanly through. Now here's the hard part. I have the blood and the tooth. But while I'm halfway between the rip opening and the gates, I have to reach into the void between worlds and yank a crystal out. Dangerous stuff considering I'm a creature of the underworld and the void for whatever reason isn't a neutral space (also I've never actually been through here before and that doesn't exactly add to my safety points). It likes good energy. When I stick my hand in there its going to burn. You'd think it'd be the heavens gate that I'd have problem with. Nope. Its the not-actually-neutral space before it.
I take a deep breath and shove myself in the void.
There's colour here. Lots of it and at the same time its as if there's none. I'm awed by it for a second. Before snapping back to myself and reaching into the void. It hurts. It hurts and its travelling up my arm.

Elizabeth

Kali's taking too long.
Something went wrong. I know. Now I can see, but its not my eyes I'm looking through. These aren't even things that are currently happening. These are Kali's memories. I can see. Kali was a boy at one point. I think. But then again they still have that certain femininity to them. Maybe Kali just looks different because of the age? I mean this quite clearly is a young Kali. In heaven.
Kali's an Angel? I watch as Kali flies about with other angels, and then laughs fighting with others. And then some darker memories seem to surface. A massive fight; A war. Kali's fighting. Kali losing. Falling. Hell. All of those images fall into my vision. Kali isn't an angel. Not anymore.
It takes a good minute after the last image has left my mind for Kali to come out of the rip. It occurs to me; Kali may know the way but has never been here before. Kali lies on the ground coughing and clutching a crystal that I know we didn't have before entering the rip.

Kali

I stare up at Elizabeth thinking of the things I saw in the rip. Her memories. A child happily playing but all cut short by the appearance of a terminal illness. None of that was fair. None of it looked fair. She never did anything wrong. She never did anything period. A life so short... She's barely had time to live.
For the first time since starting this I am happy with myself for what I am doing. Maybe its a bit of a pain, but I'm doing a good thing. Even as a demon I still have some of that goodness that started me rebelling in the first place. That fight and drive to do good still exists within me and I don't think that I will ever lose that.  I look up towards this terminally ill girl and whisper 'Thank you.' She won't know what for. Silently I tell her 'You're welcome.' I don't know what for, quite yet.

Elizabeth

Kali was an angel. Doing something that was believed in. Not just by them. But by others. Kali was fighting to live in a more democratic land. It's not much different than the fights going on upon Earth. I can't believe you can get sent to hell so easily. For just agreeing with someone else. I mean, “Better to reign in hell, than to serve in heaven.” I wouldn't want to be doing someone else's bidding. Especially if its someone whose opinions I don't believe in. Democracy is a chance for everyone to have their own voice. I can't imagine living in any other way.
I've never had that experience of looking into someone else's life and seeing what they saw, feeling what they felt. Its amazing and scary. Kali shouldn't have become a fallen angel, much less a demon. That's not fair.
That's not fair.

“We're getting close. When we get there we're going to be led into a room where we speak with God. We'll just have him put you back into your body and that'll be it.” Kali says. Smiling slightly. I imagine this is a proud moment. Someone who is meant to have lost any semblance of good, selflessly saving a little cancer riddled girl. I smile. Maybe I'll try to return the favour for Kali.

Kali

As we approach the house of God (his literal house. Its a bit bigger than you'd expect but smaller than my mentioning it might make it seem) I begin to feel sweat on my palms. I haven't been here forever. Literally thousands of years. I can't imagine how I'll be treated.
We reach the door and I can feel the anxiety leaking off of me. Actually its more like a Tsunami wave knocking down everything in its path. I watch as Elizabeth enters first. When I enter, I can't see Elizabeth anywhere. We're being spoken to separately. A voice comes into my head.
What do you desire?
  guess that's the English translation of what I'm being asked.  The voice speaks in your native tongue. Mine is the divine tongue but you woudn't be able to understand it. Although I guess hebrew people might have the best shot.
  I desire her life to be spared
  I say. Its as simple as that. Its what I want. I don't want Elizabeth to die. She's a sweet person. I mean, she gets angry, obviously. She's not painfully nice but she's one of those people that you can see don't deserve to die.
For what reason?
She doesn't deserve to die.
Very rarely does anyone actually deserve to die. It's apart of the cycle. Even when they are young, it's apart of the cycle. The doctors fight to do good. It's how it works. If things were perfect down there they'd all be spoiled and not understand what loss feels like. The world would lose all order. I'm sorry. I cannot save her for that reason.
I don't know how to respond to this. I don't want her to die. I hold the power to save her.
I don't want her to die. It's like...Imagine this. You're on that little planet you created and you're a doctor, in other words someone whose made to save-
I know what my creatures have created. I know what they are called.
Okay well imagine you're a doctor, and you know how to save people. And someone you care about gets something REALLY easily treatable. You would give them the treatment right?
Cancer is not easily treatable.
It is for us!
If I saved her, I would require something for saving her. A soul of another. Bring me the soul of someone else, they will become sick and she will live.
I don't know what to say. All I have to do is give the guy a different person. But who? Does anyone really deserve to die? Pretty much every person has the potential for good, it's impossible to find someone who truly deserves to die. Humans can be monsters, but monsters are also human. They are flawed. Incredibly so. But no one really deserves to die.
I can't think. Then it hits me. I know someone who deserves death.

Elizabeth

What do you desire?
I look around but I don't see anyone.
You cannot see me.
Yeah that's not creepy at all.
I want two things. One is easy. The other...
What is this one easy thing?
I just want back in my body. Not yet though. Let me finish. I also want Kali's place in heaven restored. Kali believed in what they were doing. It wasn't their fault. I mean you are the top I get the whole all powerful being thing but one guy making all the decisions isn't...it's not how things should be. I think it should be less monarchy and more democracy. That's what Kali wanted. I just...I don't want them to have to constantly worry about one day losing every shred of good in them. That's what happens to demons. I saw it. The darkness slowly takes over. It kills them. It turns them dark. Kali's lasted so long by adding fuel for the darkness to take instead. Kali lived like this for thousands of years.
I am not in control of where Kali resides.
Who is?
Lucifer.
How do I find him?
Hold on.
Music starts playing and I realize; I'm on hold. God Just put me on hold to call up Satan. God is playing Nicki Minaj for me while I'm on hold. This is single handedly the most bizarre thing to to have ever happened in the history of the universe. The song changes and now it's Macklemore with Same Love. I imagine God jamming out to rap music and wearing legalize Gay Shirts. The image is slightly ridiculous but intriguing.
Yes?
A voice says after a while. The voice is in my head but it's also around me.
You control Kali's soul?
Well that depends on which one's Kali.
Fallen angel?
A long silence follows as Lucifer seems to wait for any other identifying details.
The not evil one?
OH. Yeah gotcha. Uh yeah whatdya want with his soul? I don't sell souls for possession. I know we have a problem with that type of thing, but I've got some people on it. They'll eventually cover the leak.
Uh no. I just want you to let him go? So he can go back and be apart of heaven?
I'd need an exchange for that, sorry.
Like?
I'd need a soul to replace the one I'd be losing.
I'm dying soon anyway.
When I die, you can have mine.
That was easy. Have a lovely day.

Kali

I will return to earth as a human. And live out my days sickly, and cancer riddled.  I am in the body of a male now. I am human. I am still left within Lucifer's care but he's not exactly a bad guy. I imagine to him, I'll be gone for maybe five minutes. I mean, he's been around even longer than I have. So I'll come back. Get out and go back to living off of the terror of huamnity.
As I exit the building I see Elizabeth. But it's not Elizabeth. “I haven't yet had time to change my name yet, so you will refer to me as Elizabeth until I do.”
I will return with you to Earth now. And after I die, my soul will belong to the devil instead of yours.” She actually looks at me now and realizes something is wrong. “You gave up your life for mine. You're going to Earth to die; you'll forget all this won't you?”
  I nod.
“I did almost the same for you. However I'll remember you...I'm not going to die in six months now am I?” 
  I nod again.
“You gave up your soul for me to stay out of hell?”
She nods. 
“You realize you have to go there now?”
“You realize you have to have cancer now?”
“That sounds like almost the same thing...Except I think hell might be worse...Cause you know... the whole eternity thing.”
“I guess that makes me more of a hero than you are.” She smirks. She looks different. The way I imagine I used to look before I gave up my demon life.

God

I look at them. Standing outside my home. I put a calm over them. Lucifer? I think I'd like them to both live within my kingdom. You will be relieved of one soul.  I charged Lucifer with a specific number of souls and I hold the power to take a soul back.
Good actions should be rewarded. Kali has earned their spot back. And Elizabeth has proven to have a deep, goodness within them. My kingdom could use more love.