The fire consumed me, burning my flesh.

Burning my soul.

I knew it was the end.

I closed my eyes and accepted the oblivion.

And then I opened them.

I frowned. Wasn't I supposed to be dead?

Everything was just... white.

Inexplicably white.

No shapes, nothing. I couldn't see my body, I couldn't tell up from down... it was like my eyes were covered in a white cloth, except that there were no variations in lighting, nothing.

I felt a... presence. Like a faint tingling aura around me, gently pressing against my body (wherever the heck that was).

Sin of murder, murmured a voice. Sin of matricide, sin of suicide, sin of parental disobedience, sin of sexual immorality, sin of...

The voice kept listing 'sins.'

"Who are you?" I demanded. I couldn't hear my own voice.

The voice finally stopped listing 'sins,' but hadn't answered my question. Instead, the presence simply vanished.

"Wait!" I sputtered, but I knew it was useless: the presence hadn't walked away or left in a way that I could call it back somehow, it was just... gone.

Was I in an afterlife? I was, wasn't I?

I thought of Christian theology. I never believed in all that nonsense, but now, as I looked around me, I realized that perhaps some part of it was true. 

I was in hell. 

I knew it. That presence was listing my sins--from a Christian perspective, of course.

The whiteness of the space around me slowly cleared and suddenly I could see my body again.

Apparently I was naked.

And standing in a round, silvery room with mirrored glass on every wall.

Small silver orbs floated around me, and I frowned at them, reaching up to touch one.

It moved away from me, and then extended a small, sharp, needle-like appendage, apparently mechanical in nature.

All the orbs began doing the same, waving their little appendages around me, and I stiffened to avoid letting those sharp things near my body--especially my manhood, which I was very attached to.

"Amaro Boselli," came an electronic voice. It seemed to be emanating from all the orbs. "Age 17, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, Planet Gey-Oh-Gar."

"What the hell are you?" I said.

"Please wait, Amaro," said the electronic voice. The orbs kept waving their needles around me so I kept still, because I did not want any of my tender bits to be skewered.

I found my eyes drawn to the mirrors on the walls and sharply intook breath upon catching sight of my reflection. 

My eyes were pitch black, no irises, pupils, or scleras. My tongue was also black, and I felt a bit grossed out looking at it. Small swirls of blue scales swirled around my collarbone and across my chest, down the centerline of my stomach. Turning slightly showed that those swirls of blue scales went across my back and butt, too. Large, silver ram-horns sprouted from my red hair, curling around my ears, which were now pointed sharply. I hadn't noticed them before... but I had wings. Large, brown, bat-like wings sprouting from my back. Strange patterns resembling circuitry patterned my upper arms.

"Are you the one who killed Giovanna Bianchi Boselli?" asked the electronic voice.

The voice sparked the memories. Memories of what I had just done an hour ago, before I ended up here. 

I'd never forget it.