Chapter Text
The smell of iron from blood overwhelmed her senses as she opened up her blue eyes. The sky was no longer a starry night of Halloween but a blood red with a pentagram seal littering the atmosphere. Kat groaned as she stumbled up to her feet. Wait a minute… no they're not feet. They're cat paws now. Black fur and sweet white patches that make her look like she is wearing boots but thank goodness she still has her zebra print fuzzy leg warmers but still how in the hell did she end up having cat paws for feet?
She looked around and she could see buildings and rows of longer roads and strange looking districts that looked like she was in New York City but this ain't no big apple. She's from Keene, Texas she doesn't remember traveling to the Big Apple. There is a watchtower in the middle of the street, there are rows of buildings and stores that could make Las Vegas seem much more holy despite that place being a city of sin, and weird enough there are eyes on the buildings and Floors— red eyes with Serpentine pupils and they follow her while she's walking around them. Creepy!
“Okay, where am I?” Kat asked herself, “How did I get here?”
She let herself be wandered off down the street across what looks like so many sex shops then convenience stores I can see very strange looking creatures that somehow act like the worst human beings that you could actually find on Earth there is a guy with a serpentine face and a tail running after a woman with a paddle on her ass, a tiny man with horns and a dog like face watching tv, and there is a rave party out in public blasting music in the middle of the road where the cars are honking and employees of some kind of building up there that are literally held back knowing that their boss is going to fire them immediately if they tell them this reason was why they are late to work.
All those teenagers are weird looking too. Some are giant like a dinosaur some areas the size of her in height, some look like dogs some look like cats, some look like a weasel of some sort one is literally on stilts.
Kat have the audacity to call out to everyone while she was dragged into the party expecting her to dance but she yelled out,
“WHAT’S THE DILLIO!? This place is nothing but Buffy speak up in here!”
The teenagers of the Rave gasped as if she offended them. But she kept going,
“Like, No Diggity! Y'all are Fresh I know that. Keepin’ it real, getting crunk, and getting jiggy with yo’ Homies!”
The crowd are whooping like she is preaching at a protest. All the girls, the boy and the non-binaries and gender fluids are eating it up like she’s one of them.
“But like, can ANYONE explain what is going on before I start wiggin’ out?”
The giant girl, a Kaiju with neon blue scales and green markings on her arms, squats down to Kat's level. Clearly, she is the leader of the party, like the Hot mama of the gang party, Her eyes take in Kat's silhouette, Bubblegum neon pink pixie cut hair covering one eye on the left, black fur with patches of white— one around her mouth, on her eyelids like eyeshadow, on her finger tips and on her hind paws. But what makes her stand out even more is that… she has no stomach, just CD discs floating in place where her gut would've been. The Kaiju girl flips her hair out of the way.
“Boo, yer in Hell.”
The Black cat froze and blinked at her, “Ex-squeeze me?”
“Yer in Hell, Baby. Yer dead.”
“What?”
“Dead! D-E-D, Dead!” The crowd called out with some sympathy. That is a common reaction for newcomers to have.
Kat couldn't believe her ears, which flicked once then flattened to her head. “I'm… Dead? Like… what… how… why… for…”
This poor girl is lost. She died? SHE. DIED? On Halloween? Right in the middle of college? Damn, what a fuck ass waste! She hopped down to the makeshift stage where the Rave party watched her, the drivers coming out of their cars and the suits waiting for something to happen, forgetting their worries about their jobs being on the line. Her neon glowing tail sways as she tries to gather her thoughts.
The speakers started to play chords of low bassline to what sounds like something you could hear at a Halloween party.
“Okay. So I died
There was a car
A cat costume
A frat boy
And now I’m here
With Godzilla's cousin”
She points at the leader who raised a brow at her, then she points at a microwave headed guy in a band-tee.
“And someone with a microwave for a face”
He waves ‘hi’ like a goofball.
“Coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool”
It echoed through the place as the funky, sparse guitar, strutting beat drops.
“First thing I see’s a lizard with legs
Steppin’ on cars and eatin’ raw eggs
No head, no name, but he’s got a theme song
And I’m over here like, what dimension went wrong?”
She was singing and rapping like she was on a music video as she points and roasts some people while she's at it. They could care less because that’s literally what they look like down here. A toaster frat sinner gets into her personal bubble, a sentient chair sinner clearly has anger issues and a stoner three eyed hell hound sinner with a hooved sinner was there, too.
“A toaster flirts, a chair screams back
A three-eyed dog asks if I sell snacks
Someone with hooves just tried to sell me a vape
And I’m still wearing glitter and dollar-store tape”
The rhythm starts to build with the crowd's harmonized laughing as Kat spun to a cord armed girl with binary numbers for pupils that changes constantly whenever she blinks.
“Asked a demon chick, how’d you get dropped?”
She said in beat, “strangled my boss with a laptop cord”
“Now her arms are cords and her skin’s all red
Down here, you are the way you bled”
Guitars began to crash in and bassline jumps as Kat started to dance on a driver's Caddy.
“Oh, well, I’ve been scammed
Thought death came with judgment, not a marching band
I was just a girl with a Walkman and sass
Now I’m stuck in a realm full of sentient glass”
“I didn’t cheat, didn’t lie, didn’t kill
Just told a frat boy no, now I’m on this thrill
I blinked and I dropped to this neon slam
Guess what, y’all?
I’ve been scammed”
The crowd roared, joining in! The drivers climbed to the roofs and hoods of their cars, workers were vibing to the music and the teens were filming on Voxtagram. Kat was lost in her ramble of a song turning Gritty and groovy with more chaotic instruments.
“A bathtub winked at me, a cloud burped fire
A goth-looking goat just offered me a flyer
Join our cult, we got weekly snacks
Nah, I’m good. I already signed yearbook backs”
She backed up to the group of drivers and danced with her like she’s that bitch!
“Some girl’s just teeth, some guy’s just steam
A weasel on stilts yells, follow your dreams
I ask, yo, how did you die, bro?”
He said, “you ever juggle knives while eating Jell-O?”
Kat jumped onto the Kaiju girl's hand as she was lifted up to the top of a semi-truck as the cat continued to go on.
“Everyone’s wild, but they all stay loud
Like Hell’s got rules—but just for crowd control
I’m the normal one, and that’s insane
But hey... what is death without a little shame?
Oh, well, I’ve been scammed
Got shoved in a place that don’t give a damn
I stood up once, and got flattened like jam
For calling out creeps in a college exam”
The girls on the truck with her bounced their butts up and down in sync with her, making the men go feral and one guy literally ripped his shirt open as he howled.
And somewhere down the street with loads of shopping bags from a boutique hell store, Vox and Velvette are in their element— and when I mean element I do mean Velvette on her phone all the time looking at her fans pages and blocking them while Vox is complaining about Valentino. He just broke up with him… again. Like always!
Vox stopped mid-stride, screen-face flickering as the bass from the rave rattled storefront glass.
“Why,” Vox said pleasantly, voice strained through a smile, “is there a spontaneous musical number happening outside of my broadcast schedule?”
Velvette didn’t even look up from her phone. Her thumbs flew as she blocked someone, unblocked them, then blocked them again.
“Oh relax. It’s trending,” she said. “Look. Hashtag ScammedInHell is climbing. Very organic. Very humiliating.”
Vox’s static crackled. “That’s not reassuring.”
Velvette sighed, finally glancing up. “You said you wanted authenticity. Congratulations. You’ve got a dead college kid roasting Hell to a beat. Teens love it.”
Vox leaned closer to a wall of a shop, watching the crowd lose its collective mind. “Is she licensed?”
“No.”
“Is she union?”
“Also no.”
“Then why is she outperforming three of our contracted acts?”
“Because she's a pick me slag, Vox.”
Velvette smirked. “And hasn’t been ruined by branding yet.”
Vox straightened, adjusting his coat. “I hate ‘yet.’”
Her phone buzzed again. She groaned. “Ugh. Valentino’s texting. He says he is watching the stream and he said and I quote, ‘That ass bounce is paying rent by the millions’”
Vox didn’t look away from the screen. “Wait, really?”
Velvette turns her phone and it shows Kat and the other girls on a semi-truck lifting their butts up and down like basketballs. Vox is not going to lie. Valentino was right about saying what he said because that hip control is from experience.
“...Damn.”
Back in the streets, Kat was still performing. Stomping, kicking, spinning and flipping.
“I didn’t praise sin, didn’t roll with the damned
Just told a dude buzz off, now I’m part of the jam
No court, no trial, no halo, no exam
Just paperwork filed under
You’ve been scammed”
As everyone else starts to dance around her and enjoy the party. Drivers shouting, some teens are getting rowdy with other boys and girls, the workers are just planning excuses for them to give the Vox, Kat was trying to understand what happened and what she did to be here. She is trying to recollect on what she did to be sent down here to Hell. Did she damn myself by lying about her age when she was like 16 to go to a club with her bestie Birdie? Or something? And then thinking about Pastor Son’s, Jericho and how pissed off he was after her saying,
“Go fuck your sister, ya Skeeze!”
“You judged him”, she said as male sinners bumped to the beat.
“You judged him” she repeated.
“Was that enough?
Was that really all it took?”
Billboards started to glitch and show trippy oversaturated Neon screensaving visuals from strobing hearts to triangles, squiggles bars and inverted crosses.
“My family wore crosses and thrift-store pearls
Danced to Queen and prayed for the world
I didn’t even curse ‘til senior year”
Then Kat stopped and looked up to a floating white board that she realizes that was Heaven and screamed
“So why the hell am I here?”
The beat went harder now as the crowd joined to shadow her. Workers to her left, Ravens to her right and drivers on their cars at the back.
“Oh, well, I’ve been scammed
But I’m still standing in this dumpster jam
No strings on me, no soul on demand
If this is Hell, then I’ll make my brand”
A VoxTek woman and a raver sinner struts to Kat's side as she spins and drops low. They followed her moves to every hip pop and jump and drop as she continued.
“I’ll spin these CDs like blades in hand
Burn mixtapes sharper than heaven planned
And if I’m here? Then I’ll be damned
But I won’t break”
They all froze for three beats and she smirked. “I’ll expand”
The crowd went wild as the music started to bump up the hype. Streams littered the for you pages of Voxtagram and Vtube with #ScammedInHell and #CassetteKat and photos are taken of Kat in her prime. An Electrical current sparked through the computer of the DJ, causing the guy to panic. The music cut out and the audience froze.
“Guess I’m staying
Sucks for you” Kat said, flipping the double bird and right on cue, the thunder broke out and there materialized behind Kat, standing Vox.
Silence didn’t fall. It died.
The rave didn’t stop so much as evaporate.
People screamed. Someone dropped a speaker. A raver sinner tripped over a traffic cone and face-planted into a demon in fishnets. The semi-truck girls scattered like pigeons with ass implants.
A guy tried to run, slipped on spilled glitter, and just accepted his fate on the pavement.
Drivers abandoned their cars mid-honk. One teen vaulted a hellhound. Another vanished in a puff of smoke yelling, “NOT WORTH IT!”
And the workers.
Oh, the workers knew better.
The moment Vox appeared, every VoxTek employee went dead quiet, eyes wide, souls leaving their bodies as they collectively remembered every minute they were late.
They didn’t run.
They slinked.
One by one, stiff and casual and pretending this was always the plan, they turned and walked straight into VoxTek Tower. No eye contact. No talking. One guy even straightened his tie like, Yep. Work. That’s where I’m going. Always was.
The doors slid shut behind them.
Gone.
Kat blinked.
She turned in a slow circle, neon purple tail flicking wildly.
“…Where the fuck did everybody go?”
She looked down at the empty street. The abandoned cars. The dropped phones are still livestreaming nothing. The silence rang in her ears.
“What did I do?” she asked the air. “I didn’t even finish the song!”
Behind her, Vox cleared his throat.
It sounded like a channel changing.
Kat froze.
Slowly, she turned.
And there he was.
Tall. Smiling. Screen-face glowing with her own face staring right back at her. 7 ft tall Menace with a tail coat that looks like a shark's tail, biomechanical with sharp jagged teeth that could make Jaws look like a guppy.
“Well,” Vox said pleasantly, static buzzing under every syllable, “that was a hell of a debut.”
Kat stared at him.
“…Who the fuck are you.”
“ Oh, you're a newcomer. Oh how fresh of a catch.” he purred with his artificial charm, like a Game host meeting his contestant with his arm outstretched cybernetic claws glowing teal, “The name is Vox, Darling. Overlord of Television.”
“Overlord?”
“Yes.” He said as he took her hand and shook it with so much force that she would get dizzy from it, “Down here in Hell, there are Overlords who rule districts here in Pentagram City. You my dear are in the Entertainment District. My turf.”
“Okay I'm sorry, but aren't the Princes of Hell supposed to have their own Turfs, not Overlords?” Kat laughed at what she was hearing.
Vox just smirked at her cluelessness, “Sweetheart, you are not hearing me clearly. I am saying what is true. Overlords rule Turfs here in the city. You, my sweet little stray kitten friend, are in the Pride Ring.”
“Okay, so?”
Vox paused, studying her like a screen buffering.
“Huh.”
He smiled again, slower this time.
“You really don’t know how lucky you are, do you?”
“What do you mean lucky, Scrub?” Kat narrowed her eye at that as he circled her.
"You're a youngster," Vox hums. "But good on the CDs, though. What are they—pirated movies?”
She snorts. "No. Burned playlists. Actual music.”
He nods slowly. “Good enough. Velvette’s been whining for new tracks anyway. You’ll handle content for all three of us, then. Simple.”
Kat scoffed, bristling.
“Dude, what do you mean simple? I am standing right here—half-ass lookin’ ass, fiberglass-havin’ ass skeeze.”
Vox stopped. Slowly, he turned his head toward her.
“Okay—listen, kitten—”
“Oh hell nah,” Kat snapped. “Do not call me that. Fuck off with that.”
He blinked once. Then smiled again, unfazed.
“…Right. My mistake.”
A beat.
“Kat, then? Or—what is it actually?”
“Cassandra.”
“Great another islander, whoop-dee-doo.” Vox said to himself in annoyance.
“But my homies call me Cassette Kat. I burn CDs. Cassettes. Music.”
Vox’s eyes lit up, screens flickering faintly. “See? I knew I was on the right track, kitten—”
“FUCK off with that!” Kat hissed.
He didn’t even acknowledge it this time.
"Listen, what I'm trying to say is that almost every newcomer has the same results. They go down to hell with no one they know, no food, no water, sometimes no clothes but the ones that are on their backs and a mental dice for them to roll. You're one of the suckers who turn into a jackass.”
Kat opened her mouth—
“And before you say it—no,” Vox continued smoothly. “Whoever you knew up there? If they die, they land here just as broke and lost as you did. So that’s a fun little double whammy.”
Her jaw tightened.
Vox smiled wider.
“What I’m saying is—I’m offering you a job because no one else will. Most newbies don’t get that luxury. They get sidewalks. Alleyways. Whatever creeps are prowling tonight.”
Kat’s tail sways slowly in irritation that this TV screened head man was speaking facts against her.
"Remember this so you can record it into your CDs right? No address. No cash. No backup. No food lined up. No place to sleep tonight.”
He leans in just enough for the words to land.
“It’s me—warm bed, food, clothes, a roof in our tower, or you step back outside and roll the dice with the creeps and the crazies. I hear there’s a lot of former priests down here. Nostalgic types."
Kat was silent with narrow eyes, her ears flattened to the back of her head, her neon purple tail swaying and a scowl on her cat-like face.
"Butt-munchin Beeotch."
"I didn't hear no so that must mean a yes." He smiled with his teeth as he guided her with his hands on her shoulders.
"Welcome to Hell, kitten. Trust us with your journey.”