Chapter Text
You wiped the sweat off your forehead, right before unceremoniously plopping face first into your very comfortable bed—which was, of course, accompanied by a string of curses.
Rolling over, you laid on your back; ruffling your hair in frustration. God, you hated dealing with people… If 7-year-old you knew that an acting career also came along with interacting with fans, you would’ve long since left that dream behind and never letting it come to fruition. Maybe becoming a psychiatrist would’ve been a better choice than—actually, scratch that, your job seemed way better than that… You still needed to deal with people if you had that occupation.
Gosh, why did both of your dream jobs require you to interact with people? You were good with it, sure, but you still hated it. Especially when you had to talk with people you could hardly consider friends—heck, you didn’t even think of them as friends at all in all actuality. And your fans? You loved them, sure, but the weirder ones made you want to crawl out of your skin… literally. You did not want to know that people were measuring your foot size, or creating strange fanfictions of you. Eugh. You should remind yourself to never search your own name in AO3 ever again.
Enough of that, though. You really wanted to take a nice, warm bath—so you did! It was refreshing, a nice break from the very long day you had. It was relaxing, and you enjoyed it until your fingers got all wrinkly.
After drying yourself off and putting on a change of clothes, you plopped on to the bed yet again. The bath had washed the sleepiness out of you, so really, you had nothing to do except rot of boredom… Just kidding! You weren’t that boring, you had your own secret little hobbies that the public knew nothing about.
…Okay, maybe you should have worded that a bit differently, because that sounds like you were doing something illegal. Which you’d never ever do, by the way. Said secret little hobby was actually quite innocent compared to criminal activities, and said secret little hobby was, really, just watching your favorite TV show.
You almost unwillingly stood up from your comfortable position in bed, but the boredom, which may as well have been killing you, ‘forced’ you to walk into the direction of your living room. You jumped onto the couch—damn, was that couch plush—and sat (Lied down? You’re not sure how to describe it.) in the strangest yet most comfortable position you could possibly place yourself in.
You grabbed the remote, opening the television and then proceeding to open Amazon Prime. I’m sure you get where I’m going right now, yes? I mean, a show literally just recently released on Amazon Prime; it was very popular too. So, yes, you guessed it— you were going to rewatch Hazbin Hotel, and you were going to fucking enjoy it.
You were very, very attached to the show and it’s characters. You’ve been waiting for Season 1 ever since you saw its pilot—how many years ago was that now? It's been a while since its pilot was released. Maybe around 4 years, give or take.
When news of a Season 1 was released, you waited in anticipation until you could binge the show. Safe to say you absolutely enjoyed it, it brought back a lot of nostalgia that you would’ve almost thought you’d known them in real life because it felt like seeing an old friend you cut connections with... You’re getting a bit sidetracked, aren’t you? Well, anyway, you could say the show and its characters completely enthralled you; hell, you had spent a lot of your free time researching about every single one of them.
In your mind, you humbly think you’ve perfected all their characters, you might even be able to imitate how they act completely. You would brag about that, if not for the fact none of your… ‘friends’ watched Hazbin Hotel. What a bummer. Maybe they did and just kept it a secret? I mean, who knows what that would do to their reputation given the vulgarity of the show. Not that it mattered to you, anyway, but a certain manager would like to disagree.
After finishing the show (Which, of course, included singing along whenever a musical number started), for whatever reason, you thought that taking a stroll outside was a good idea. Sometimes you needed a breath of fresh air, you know? Your manager probably wouldn’t approve of you going out without guards but… Well, who cares, really? Not you!
Probably the guards, actually… their paycheck relied on your safety. And your safety couldn't be guaranteed if you weren't around for them to guard in the first place.
Oh, well, sneaking out it is!
Shutting down the TV, you went back to your room, changing into a pair of neutral-colored clothing—it’s probably look more suspicious if you went all black—and a mask. That should do it! You should probably grab your purse too. You stuffed your makeup pouch, sanitizer, extra face mask, and of course—your money.
Then you opened the window as quietly as you could and swiftly jumped out of your window—successfully landing without any injuries. Hooray! You were used to sneaking out, after all, so it was a piece of cake for you.
It was nice, finally having some fresh air. The night, surprisingly, was free of clouds—which meant you could see stars. The walk was pleasant, no disturbances. Though, it was almost quiet to the point it was eerie… You brushed that thought aside, might as well just enjoy the alone time you have instead of fearing for your life when there was nothing to fear. It’s not like anyone would recognize you; you were skilled in the art of disguise!
...Well, nobody was crowding you, so you'd like to think you are.
It’s not like you could help wanting to sneak out, though! Being a star was so exhausting, you never expected it to be like this. Never expected having to claw your way to the top. You thought you could stop acting once you stepped off of the stage—but no. When you’re a celebrity, all the world becomes a stage, and you are only what the public wants you to be. You have to please them, be what they view you as, to be their little star—their revered idol, otherwise your career… everything you’ve so painstakingly built… will come crashing down.
Strolls like these were your only respite from the never-ending act you had to put on. You could never be truly and wholly honest with anyone but yourself. You could only be ‘you’ when you were alone. And you hated that. There were many times you wished that you were younger, much more free, able to express yourself, oblivious to the cares of the world. You’d much rather be learning the multiplication table than having to put a self-inflicted mask anytime you were even with someone.
More than anything, you wanted freedom. Freedom to act the way you wanted, freedom to live life the way you wanted, freedom from the scrutinizing eyes of others, freedom from having your every action analyzed, freedom. Just… freedom. You wanted the entrance for the gilded cage you were trapped in to finally be open, for you to escape the loneliness you experienced every single day, for it to all… stop.
You shook those thoughts away. It was no use being so depressing, you were a star, for God's sake! Stars are meant to shine, to burn bright; a star like you wasn't going to dim out any time soon. If you were going to go, you were going to go with a bang.
Your chest tightens, and you feel a drop of water on your face. Huh, was it drizzling? Too bad you forgot to bring an umbrella—well, whatever! It's probably only a little drizzle, as the weather check earlier said that there’d be none. You can walk it off.
You walk a little more and feel your stomach grumble. Right. You had skipped dinner, again. Well, I suppose that means a trip to convenience store—yay! Food... you were a little hungry, so you walked with a lot more pep in your step going to the convenience store. Hm, what could you buy at this tim—
…What?
Your trail of thought stopped, as the ground beneath you gave way into emptiness. You let out a scream in pure instinct, clawing at whatever could keep you from falling—but there was nothing you could hold onto. You were falling. You closed your eyes, bracing for the impact, as if that’d stop the impact of a fall.
…But there was nothing. You peeked, opening an one eye, almost scared to what you’d see if you opened them.
You were… floating?
The only thing you could see around you was darkness. Nothing else. There was no light, no nothing, it was empty. A void, if you will. Not a single noise could be heard. Nothing at all.
This was… weird, and so so very strange. You were floating, and your fear of heights did not help at all. You froze in place—What if you fell if you moved? How far would the fall be? Would you die?— Die? …An empty, dark void. Are you dead? Was this how death felt like? Emptiness? Were you going to be for eternity? Was this purgatory? Your own personal hell?
…No. No, you refuse to believe you died. You couldn’t have died. You don’t remember anything about dying—Remember. What do you remember? You remember walking. Walking... to the convenience store. You remember thinking. The feeling of falling. But not dying.
You wait.
You wait, wait, wait, then wait some more. But there’s only so much you can do while being frozen in place in a place filled with emptiness, so you move. You move, and when you do nothing happens… thankfully. You look around you, left, right, then behind. Something catches your eye—there was… a light?
A small flicker of light, sure, but it was a stark contrast to the darkness surrounding you. A tiny, inviting warmth. You wanted to move towards it, reach out to…
You’re not sure how you would even do that, though. The only thing you even tried to move was your head, and even that took more effort than it normally should. It felt like there was some force—gravity, perhaps? You felt lighter, though, like you were submerged in water.
But you aren’t in water, you’re sure of it. You could still feel the rhythm of your own breathing—maybe it just… worked similar to water? If you applied your own force, propelled yourself to the light, would you move?
You tried, and sure enough… it succeeded. You floated—swam?—your way to the light, the surrounding area getting warmer and warmer the nearer you got. Almost to the point it where it felt like you stuck your whole body in an oven, you wanted to pull back at this point—but you… couldn’t?
The nearer you got, the more you were pulled in; like some indescribable force was pushing you towards the light. The light was almost blinding—was this how witches felt like when they were burned at the stake? You wouldn’t want to experience that, though it didn’t seem like you had a choice now anyway.
Your surroundings become more red as you get nearer, eventually encasing everything in red.
Wind.
The sudden feeling of wind rushing past you surrounds you as you fall down; it’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once. It's a force that engulfs you, pulling at your clothes, whipping through your hair, and pressing against your body with an almost tangible weight.
It scares you.
You barely manage to gather the courage to open your eyelids—almost afraid that your eyes will fall out if you do. But you open them anyway. And what you see is more red. There’s not much you can see when you’re squinting your eyes, but there’s two… spheres? A white sphere, and a red sphere. It’s hard to make it out completely before you have to close your eyes due to the force of the wind.
You push your knees closer to your body, curling up into a ball. You don’t know how to brace yourself for the impact of falling, but you try to anyway. You feel yourself crash. The world encased itself in darkness, and you slip into unconsciousness.