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GOTO Hell

Here’s a spoopy little story I wrote. The gist of it comes from a dream. There’s blood, murder, an unhealthy relationship, and a bit of existential angst.


“Heaven & Hell are real”, you said.

I think of this while I clean my knives. A body cools at my feet. Blood flows with the grade of the pavement to the nearest storm drain.

“Heaven & Hell are real,” you said, “I pushed it all to production this afternoon.”

I don’t know who this was. It doesn’t matter. It’s not you.

“There’s this sequence where your soul gets weighed.”  You smirked, proud. “It’s really cool.”

The alley is just a glance away from passersby on the street. But, no one does.

“A deep memory scan, criminal records, credit reports. Hell, even browser history. It all goes in.”

In a dive bar down the block, I leave another body in the grimy bathroom. I don’t make more of a mess than was already there.

“But”, you whispered (and I shuddered), “the rules are different for us.”

I push a dog walker into the river. The dog tags along with me until I hand the leash to a bewildered someone stepping off a bus.

“I slipped a bias into the algorithm”, you said, stroking my hair. “We’d have to be monsters not to make it in.”

On the bus, it’s a poisoning between stops. I slip a needle into a passed-out drunk.

“We’ll be together forever”, you sighed.

I drop a brick off a bridge: it smashes through the windshield of a passing auto-cab. I don’t think I hurt anyone – the cab looked empty.

“I never asked for that”, I said to no one. You were already asleep.

You died in a car wreck, last week. You were driving. Who even does that anymore?

The next day, I donated everything to charity. I did it in your name. Every bit counts while you’re still in the processing queue.

There’s still work ahead for me, though. I’ll kill everyone in this city if it means I’ll never see your face again.