I was wearing a dress the color of disaster. The dress I'd been buried in was the singular, most atrocious garment I'd ever laid eyes on. The superfluous amount of tulle made every step along the highway to hell agonizingly difficult.
Before anyone jumps to conclusions, I was not a serial killer or an evil dictator when I was alive. It was my talent for debauchery must have landed me in this acrid place. The fires crepitating, the screams of agony, all gave me an unnecessary preview of what eternity had in store.

I'd been ambling about for a time beyond recall as I finally approached the epicenter of hell. As I dragged myself along in the pitch dark, cries of desperation were ringing in my ears. I could hear their nagging voices, “You're next  Alice.” At that point, I realized that perhaps eternal damnation was not for me... I mean, I couldn't really be forsaken? Right?

In the face of being castigated until the end of time, I had shamelessly yellow-bellied. I justified my actions under the illusion of priggishness: “You're better than this. You don't deserve to be condemned.” Resolutely, I spun around with every intention of leaving this acrimonious inferno. But when I did, the road had vanished. In lieu of a 6 lane, asphalt highway, there were now imposing, rust colored, rock formations.
With the strength of ten men, I scaled the escarpments in record time. I went on, hell-bent for leather, bushwhacking my way to redemption. Over time,the scenery morphed into a craggy carmine cliff, with thorny bushes emerging from the stone facade. Regardless of the terrain, I was determined to prevail. I would find a way out of hell, because I was deserving. Entitled.

While trekking around another bend, I found myself face to face with the person I'd least expected to meet. Disbelieving, I looked again, desperately willing it to have been a mirage. But no, that severe hairstyle, those tired eyes, the fragrant scent of jasmine, there was no mistaking her. I was standing before my least favorite teacher.
“I'd say it's surprising to see you here, dear, but it's not,” she taunted. There was something about her honeyed voice that made me want to set a village on fire. Her very presence brought my blood to a boil. Impulsively, I pushed past the ghost, rather, through her.
I'd thought I was free. That would have been so much easier and would have avoided extensive emotional trauma.  But I heard her first, “You ignorant, indolent, insufferable trollop! I was talking to you,” she chastised, voice bouncing of the rocks. A mere moment later, she materialized, cackling. As though it couldn't get worse, my hideous dress caught in the juniper. The hag regarded me with disgust. “Such wasted potential,” she snickered, her ghostly hand caressed my cheek, her touch astringent. My skin was crawling.
“I tried,” I spat. She retracted her outstretched limb in a flash, glaring.“Sweetheart,” she continued, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions. You're nothing special.” I shut my eyes and tried to pretend I wasn't ordinary. My old teacher went on, “How could you be so oblivious?”
I mustered all of my strength, “These things just come naturally to me,” I boasted as I tugged fiercely on my dress. I scurried, subsequently checking over my shoulder like a paranoiac. The wind slithered around me, rustling the chokecherry and juniper. Nevertheless, I was safe, at the very least temporarily.

There were hazes of red on the horizon. Before me, laid a vast stone run utterly devoid of life. The oppressive heat made the journey in the open unbearable, even for the dead. Frustrated, at the land, the heat, at my legs threatening to give out, I endured. I knew then that escaping hell would not be an easily accomplished feat, even for an individual such as myself.

I’d made it halfway across the stone sea when a second figure appeared. I dashed towards Ella as a look of recognition flashed upon her face. My arms went straight through her intangible body as I attempted to sweep her into a hug. “Oh Alice,” she giggled, “Welcome to Wonderland.” The dulcet tone of her voice was tremendously off-putting. “You know, we were always going to end up here. In hell. For us it was just a question of going big or going home,” she mused. Overwrought, I stumbled backwards. “ And boy did we ever go big.” Her words rang true. We did partake in some morally cloudy activities on occasion. I'd been the kind of girl who liked to hang out with her demons, until 3 am, on a school night.
The sour wind was now billowing across the rocky plain. Ella inched closer, “You were lazy and ambitious, proud but self-loathing. Not to mention, practically the embodiment of capital sin. But you still think your soul is worth saving? Is there no limit to your arrogance?” Taking another step back, I dislodged some rocks, scraping my knees on the jagged edges as I fell. Ella took another calculated stride, “I hope, for your sake, that there's Netflix in hell,” she piped, vanishing.

After that encounter I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and die, again. The bottom of the dress was irreparably shredded, a reflection of my emotional state. “Don't let it get to you,” I repeated to myself like a mantra while dawdling. As the light faded, absinthe-like thoughts had risen to the forefront of my mind. Was I irredeemable? Could basking in the hedonistic joys of irresponsibility have been so wrong? I shielded myself from the dark, clutching my sides as I wobbled along.

I grew weary as I drew near a clearing. Light flooded the area, coating it in an angelical hue. In the center, throned on two large stumps my parents were laughing. Grudgingly, I continued forwards. I wasn't sure if I could handle another ghostly encounter. My carefully crafted defenses would most certainly come tumbling down with the slightest prodding. When I slouched before them, I saw my mother's eyes bleeding with sympathy. I allowed myself the faintest glimmer of hope.
“Baby, what happened?” my mother sighed. And that, was how I found myself nuzzled in her impalpable embrace, blubbering like a whale. My parent’s reassuring whispers lifted my spirits. For a moment I considered my slapdash appearance: the previously repelling dress was tattered and torn, my hair was matted and tangled, my feet bare and bloodied. As though she'd read my mind, my mother wiped the tears speeding down my cheeks and adjusted the straps on my dress. “It'll be fine Ali, trust me,” my mother reasoned. Clearly, that moment was too beatific for hell, because my parents dissipated in a flash. Alone again, I continued to traipse along, shoulders slumped in the everlasting gloom of the underworld.

On the cusp of breaking down, I found myself in a labyrinth of cochineal rocks again. Chest heaving as I marched on, I was met with another apparition, this one impersonating yours truly. “Fancy meeting you here,” my double snickered with painstaking conviviality. “Well aren't you just a blender without a lid,”she jested, laughing. The sadism in her cackle was apparent.
“What do you want?” I snapped viciously, in the hopes of scaring her.
“I'm just here,” she began in a mellifluous voice, “to show you how irredeemably damaged you are.” This reflection of myself was simply the subconscious whisper I'd ventured to ignore. “You are the epitome of the damned. When you were alive—” I plugged my ears, a last-ditch attempt to block her out. However, it proved to be useless. Her treacherous words echoed in my mind, “When you were alive,” she continued, aggravated, “you were the quintessence of transgression. You don't deserve to be saved. You condemned yourself.” Was I really that obscure and verbose? I'd always believed I was something more akin to acidly witty. Was I really that horrible, was this my true reflection? Gathering whatever energy I had, I replied, “Yes, I know, I'm superficial and volatile.”
“And?” my doppelganger queried.
“And what? I'm owning it,” I retaliated, determined. Her sly grin made my gut sink.
“I know you, you're only using humor because you want to hide the fact that you want to jump off a bridge—newsflash honey, it won't do you any good,” she barked.
Not to be boasting erudition, but tackling a non-corporeal entity was by far the best idea I'd ever had. My body slammed into hers with all my pent up rage and desperation. I fell through her discarnate form, crashing onto the ground with a painful thud.

The previously vitriolic landscape was replaced with an ambrosial and lush garden. Jessamine grew free, seraphic-smelling flowers were abundant, and in the center, there was a statue. I had no aces up my sleeve. I hauled myself up. My dress was now reduced to a flurry of rips, tears and chaos that just about screamed high fashion. The statue blinked. The figure was looking at me, sizing me up with traumatizing intensity. I shifted uncomfortably in the palpable silence. Finally, he spoke, “Do you deserve to be saved, Alice?” His mouth was a gun and his words hit me like bullets. I could hear the voices creeping up my spine:
“Wasted potential.”
“The embodiment of capital sin.”
“But you still think your soul is worth saving?”
“You damned yourself.”
The growing tremor was resonating in my mind. My mouthed struggled to form a silent, heartbreaking no.
Overcome by a fit of madness, I did the strangest, most inexplicable thing: I laughed. I laughed from deep within, almost convulsing from it. My mother's words came back to me: “It'll be fine Ali, trust me.” And I did, I trusted her, trusted that everything would be as it should.

The sublime garden ceased to exist and returned to its desolate self, dragging me out of my reverie. I went back into hell knowing that whatever punishment was waiting, they couldn't tear me apart. I'd done it already. I didn't pass quality control to get into heaven; people like me were fated to burn down the earth
and graffiti the sky. When the animalistic cries became louder again, it didn't phase me.  Brooding along, I knew my screams would soon join the blood-curdling chorus.