I gently beat my wings, hovering above the cafe, looking at the city.

What could I do?

I could either sign into slavery now, or wait a week until I was forced into it.

Or I could get someone to commit murder or suicide...

No. Not an option. No effing way. That was not on the table. I was not going to do it.

Slavery it was.

I was going to become a slave.

The tears flowed. I cried floating in the sky, a helpless broken demon in a superficially beautiful but twisted hell.

God hadn't been good to me. Life hadn't been good to me. Hell hadn't been good to me.

Would any existence ever be good to me?

I wished I could just cease to exist.

I didn't want to be in this hell. I didn't want to be anywhere.

But I couldn't die here in hell.

So I was stuck for eternity.

Eternity was a very,

very,

VERY

long time.

I flew down to the hotel doors and dashed to the elevator and up to the hotel room. I didn't want to be out in the (hell) world right then.

I threw myself on the bed and sobbed because I didn't know what to do.

Somehow, between sobbing and laying in bed I fell asleep again.

When I woke up from my rest, filled with dreams that were distorted memories of that hateful monster woman who called herself my mother, I was more clear-headed.

Slavery was the only option.

I'd had so little autonomy since my father had died, and I was going to lose it anyway.

I might as well exert my autonomy before losing it for who knew how long. For this week, at least, I would try to do something with the last of my free will.

I breathed in deeply (and unnecessarily), and then breathed out.

Okay.

Slavery.

I was never going to tempt anyone to my sin.

Slavery would be the rest of my eternity.

I broke into another sobbing fit.

What did I want to do with the last of my autonomy?

Maybe I could look for an arcade... or try some fancy 'food'... or maybe see if there was a library around here?

I got up decisively. I'd look for a library. I loved reading books. It was an activity that I had done in secret for solace when I could get away from that monster's evil presence.

In the hotel lobby, I went over to Selkeda's desk. 

"Hey," I said. "Uh, do you know any libraries around here?"

"Yes," she said in the bored voice I had grown somewhat accustomed to. She tapped something on the glowing blue computer. "Here, you can find it on your soul panel."

"I... oh," I said, as I felt a faint tingling around my ears.

"You can pull up your soul panel by saying 'soul panel,'" said Selkeda. 

"Right," I said. "Soul panel."

Immediately a glowing, translucent blue rectangle appeared in front of me. 

"Whoa," I said.

"No one can see it but you," said Selkeda, yawning.

"Oh, wow," I said. It appeared to have a profile page, with an image of me (when had that been taken?) on the left and information about me on the right (who wrote that?). In the top right there was a small envelope icon with a 'one' in a circle next to it, just like every e-mail app I'd ever seen back in the mortal world.

Also, the amount of information they had on me was creepy.

But this was hell. Not only was there a horrific caste system based on your capacity to do evil, there was most likely also information control of some kind.

A civilization of immortal beings with varying levels of supernatural power and unnatural traits like horns and wings needed to be controlled, didn't it?

Well, I had one week to do something interesting and memorable. Something that might comfort me before I was consigned to eternal slavery.

Okay, I would start at the library. You can never go wrong with the library.

I tapped the small email icon and the location-feeling I had gotten before when I went to the hotel/apartment/dormitory popped into my head. 

I walked out the door and decided to use my wings again. My first flight had been when I was sad, and hadn't been all that amazing, but now I was feeling a bit better and I flew fast, feeling the breeze along my body, the rush of speed. 

I landed at the library and walked inside. Like most other buildings in this part of the city of Satanoni (not that I'd been to any other part of Satanoni, or anywhere else in hell--were there other cities in hell?), it had a huge doorway covered in a strange, possibly magical film, and its ceilings were very high. 

Silver shelves filled with books towered above as high as the eye could see, and an enormous crystal dome let dim red daylight into the chamber.

Could I find a book in this enormous room?

Time to get searching.