The transition from the blinding starlight of the High Court to the 1st Hello was like stepping into the heart of a dying sun. The atmosphere was heavy, a thick, crimson haze that smelled of old copper and ozone. Unlike the desert of the broken, this place had structure—towering, obsidian spires and endless corridors that felt like they had been carved from the very bones of the earth.
Two guards, their black armor absorbing the dim light, led the small group through the echoing halls. Robert dragged his tethered legs with a grim grunt, his face set in a mask of endurance. Beside Marianne hopped a young girl who seemed entirely too vibrant for the geography of the damned.
"My name's Zippo!" the girl chirped, her voice echoing off the dark walls. She was missing her left arm, the sleeve of her tattered Earth-clothes pinned back, but she gestured wildly with her remaining hand. "I call myself Zippo because I'm fast, see? Like a spark. Why are you so quiet, Pretty Lady? And you, Mr. Leg-Dragger? We're in the 1st Hello! No furnace for us! We should be dancing, even if I only have one arm to balance with."
Robert let out a huff. "It's still hell, kid. Just a quieter one."
"Oh, hush," Zippo retorted, her eyes wide as they approached a set of massive, iron-reinforced doors. "At least we get to keep our skin."
The guards stopped at a grand intersection. "Men to the left. Women to the right," the lead guard commanded, his voice a metallic rasp.
Marianne and Zippo were ushered through the right-hand doors into a vast, circular chamber that looked like a high-end boutique reimagined by a madman. It was the Women's Dressing Wing. Racks upon racks of garments stretched toward the ceiling, but there was only one color: Red.
"This is the uniform of the 1st Hello," a female guard announced, her face cold and impassive. "In the Shadow, we wear the color of the life-force we squandered. Choose your attire wisely. These are not gifts; they are your second skin."
The room was filled with every conceivable style—velvet gowns the color of dried blood, sleek silk tunics as bright as a fresh wound, and sturdy leather boots stained a deep burgundy.
"Look at these!" Zippo gasped, running her hand over a rack of crimson lace. "I want something with one sleeve. Less weight to carry!"
The guard's eyes narrowed. "A word of advice to you both: Choose the best quality you can find. The fabrics here are infused with the grit of this realm. If you pick something flimsy because it looks 'pretty,' it will tatter within a month. New clothes are earned through labor that will make your souls ache. Getting a replacement takes more sweat than most of you have left in your spirits."
Zippo immediately began rifling through the heavier silks, her talkative nature finally replaced by the frantic focus of survival. Marianne, however, stood before a long, crimson coat that reached the floor. It was heavy, the fabric thick and protective, with a high collar that would hide the jagged mark on her throat.
She reached out, her fingers brushing the rough texture of the red wool. Around her, other women from the 1st Hello were dressing in silence, a sea of red figures moving like ghosts through the crimson haze.
Across the hall, the men were being subjected to the same ritual—Robert selecting a pair of reinforced red trousers that could withstand the friction of his journey, and the others donning the heavy, blood-colored tunics of the condemned.
The "Devil Killer" stripped away her gore-stained rags and stepped into the red. As she buckled her boots, the weight of the garment settled on her shoulders—a constant, heavy reminder that while she had escaped the fire, she had not escaped the cost of her crimes.
The dressing rooms were merely a prelude to the true machinery of the 1st Hello. As soon as the last buckles were tightened on their crimson attire, the floor beneath them didn't just vibrate—it dissolved into a series of massive, mechanical gears.
The group was ushered into a cavernous arena where the air was thick with the smell of iron and old, cold resentment. Here, the floor was composed of hundreds of individual Rotating Plates, each one a pedestal of jagged stone.
"Station yourselves!" the guards barked.
Marianne, Zippo, and Robert were forced onto their respective plates. As the gears groaned to life, the platforms began to spin slowly, putting them on display like artifacts in a gallery of the damned. But they weren't alone.
From the crimson haze surrounding the platforms, figures began to emerge. These were not guards, and they were not demons. They were the people from their pasts—whole, unblemished, and clutching heavy, barbed whips that pulsed with a dull, rhythmic light.
Marianne felt her breath hitch in her scarred throat. Standing in a circle around her rotating plate were the people who had occupied her final livestream. Her mother stood at the front, her face no longer grey and slack, but sharp and filled with a terrifying, righteous fury. Beside her stood her father, his hands gripped tightly around the handle of a lash. Her siblings, the "imbeciles" she had mocked, stood with cold, dead eyes, their whips trailing on the floor like snakes.
"You thought death was a curtain," her mother whispered, her voice carrying over the grind of the gears. "It was only a mirror, Marianne."
A few yards away, Zippo's platform began to spin. The girl's usual chatter died instantly. Surrounding her were five men, their faces twisted into sneers of predatory malice. These were the men Zippo had hunted on Earth—the ones who had tried to break her, the ones she had dismantled in a frenzy of survival and vengeance.
"You think you're a hero because you killed us?" one of the men growled, snapping his whip against the stone. The sound was like a gunshot.
Zippo's small frame trembled, her one hand clenching into a fist. "You tried to destroy me!" she screamed back, her voice cracking. "You're sinners too! Why do you get the whip? Why do you get to punish me for stopping you?"
The men only laughed, a sound devoid of any humor. In the 1st Hello, the roles were calculated: the victim's sin of vengeance was weighed against the predator's original cruelty, but here, the one on the plate was always the one to bleed.
Robert's plate spun with a heavy, unbalanced rhythm. Standing before him was a group of people he had failed—perhaps a family he had planned a death for or victims of a negligence he had never confessed to. He didn't argue. He simply closed his eyes and waited for the first strike, the weight of his severed legs feeling heavier than ever before.
The announcer's voice boomed from the shadows above the arena.
"In the 1st Hello, your labor is your endurance. You shall be whipped by the memories of those you harmed. You shall spin until your red clothes are soaked in the truth of your deeds. You claim they are sinners? Perhaps. But on this floor, you are the masterpiece of their pain."
The first whip cracked. It didn't strike Marianne's flesh; it struck her soul. The pain was more vivid than the knife at her throat had ever been. As her mother stepped forward, the lash raised, Marianne realized the true horror of the 1st Hello. It wasn't just physical pain—it was the look of utter hatred in the eyes of the people she had once shared a home with.