Chapter Text
It took a few years for Marcella to find her way in Hell, but then, she supposed everyone down here needed a little time to adjust.
For the first few months, she stuck to her old strategy of fleeing to the wilds, and she lost more than one limb because of it. She assumed the beasts down here would be no worse than the gators back home, a mistake, she took for granted how well-fed the gators were back in her little bayou…how well-fed Mister Al kept ‘em.
Down here, the creatures were always hungry, even after she watched them rip apart the poor Sinners that were foolish enough to follow her in here, they still looked at her with hungry eyes, that were never satisfied.
She tried singing to ‘em, like she sung to the gators, like she sung to Mister Al, but either the creatures were deaf or they simply didn’t care for music.
In either case she pities ‘em.
Even so, it doesn’t stop her singing, not when it’s one of the few things about herself she can recognise.
The first time she had seen her new face in the surface of a sulphur choked pool, she had cried. She knew something was different the moment she opened her eyes and saw aquamarine scales where skin kissed pink by the sun had once been, that and the tail that had wrapped her in its long coils in an attempt at comfort, but seeing her own face looking back at her with fractured recognition had made it all too real.
The yellow eyes staring back at her had swum with loss and grief, but it is a feature that remains untouched that causes her the most anguish.
Her hair, still long and brown, but matted and tangled as it had been in her last moment on earth.
She spent hours crouched there by the steaming pool, her clawed fingers running through her long strands again and again, movements frantic at first and only making the knots in her hair worse, but she had to get them out, she had to untangle ‘em, all so she could stop feeling those phantom fingers catching around the tail end of her plait, ripping out her bobble, undoing her hair, all so they could—
Turning away from those thoughts had taken all her strength and another round of tears.
Eventually though, she manages to lock them away in the same box she kept for her Daddy’s ‘bad days’, and returns to her assigned task, working slower this time, calming herself when her thoughts begin to race again with a tune someone else used to hum to her.
When the last knot comes undone, she wastes no time in plaiting her hair. It’s looser than she would like, but she’s never been able to get it as tight or as neat as Mister Al did, and when she looks into the water again, she can see more of herself.
It’s enough, it has to be.
The time she has to leave the wilds comes sooner than she would like, as she learns that a lot of the trials she had on earth have followed her down here.
The hunger wouldn’t be so hard to handle if the patches of nature she found were more like her bayou they almost resembled, but the differences have made themselves known and taught her more than one harsh lesson.
Her foraging skills that once helped to put food on the table when her wages from the diner were found by her Daddy, proved useless here.
None of the foliage is the same, even the plants that look similar to things she could eat turn out to be poisonous or carnivorous themselves, and all of the fauna is deadly, so gathering her own food is impossible, it leaves her with little choice, she has to turn towards the city.
Just like the nature of this realm, the city is a dark mirror to the world above.
Filth and corruption litter the streets and atrocities that were kept behind closed doors or committed only in the darkness of night, are played out freely in the streets in the middle of the day, and none of the citizens even bat an eye.
Marcella cringes at the thought of having to find work here, if there is even any honest work to be had, but she has to do something.
Walking at a quick pace she tries not to look the other Sinners in the eyes, in the hopes that she won’t draw attention to herself as she searches for a nicer part of the city, or at least a part that has more standing buildings than rubble.
Soon enough, she finds a main road and blends in with the traffic, following the heaviest flow of Sinners towards the more populated parts of the city, but she peels off quickly when she finds a street littered with all kinds of different shops.
Standing there, she’s struck for a moment with the fact that she has no idea what to do, how is she even supposed to start applying for a job? Does she go about it that same way she would back home? Or is there a completely different system she has no idea about.
Taking the safe route, she decides to stand and just observe for a moment while she also contemplates what type of job she even wants to do. Getting a job at a diner again would be great, but the thing that made that job were the people, the owner and his wife were both so kind, they treated her so well, letting her listen to the gramophone while she cleaned up at the end of her shift and giving her left overs whenever they could.
She doubts she’ll encounter that type of kindness down here.
There is another type of kindness though, a crueller one, that might not be so out of reach down here.
A memory with a sharp smile and dark eyes rises at the back of her mind and words soon follow.
“You’re a good singer, I’ve heard you sing before.”
Shaking her head, she doesn’t allow the rest of the memory to play, not when there’s so many ‘what ifs’ attached to it.
Taking a deep breath, she walks towards the first shop on the street.
“How about we make a deal?”
Marcella has come to hate this phrase and even though it isn’t directed her way, she cannot help but shiver at the sound of it.
She remembers the first time she heard it, years ago when she had been sat alone at a table outside a café, spending her hard-earned wages on a grainy coffee and a stale pastry before returning to her shift at the book store she had found tucked between a tailor’s and a hairdresser’s.
Looking up she had been met with the sight of a Sinner with long blonde hair and pink skin, who wore a matching shear pink robe that hid nothing. “I heard you singing, doll, and the moment I saw the face that went with that voice, I knew I had to have you, so what do you say? I can offer you a good price, protection, wealth, fame, just name it and its yours.”
The woman held out her hand as though it was that easy, as though Marcella should have been leaping at the chance.
“No thank you, mam, I already have a job,” Marcella said quietly and politely, keeping her eyes turned towards the white pages and the black scrawl of the book she was reading.
The scrape of painted metal chair legs against the cracked pavement had Marcella wincing and fighting not to look up as the Sinner took the seat opposite her.
“What’s your name honey? Go on, you can tell me, after all us gals have got to stick together, especially down here.” Marcella heard the Sinner batting her eyes in a way that she was sure was meant to be alluring, but it hadn’t tempted Marcella.
Feeling uncomfortable, Marcella tried to remove herself from the situation. Closing her book and standing, she took one last bite of her pastry, lamented the fact that she wouldn’t have the chance to finish it, and tried to walk away. “I really should be getting back to work.”
“At that pokey little bookstore?” the Sinner had asked in such a sweet voice that it would have sounded charming, if it wasn’t so completely at odds with the way the woman had snatched Marcella’s arm the moment she tried to walk past her.
“What can a job like that possibly do for you? It’s a dead end, darling. I am offering you the opportunity of your afterlife here,” the Sinner continued, ignoring the way Marcella tried to pull her arm free from the vice like grip that had her trapped.
“Thank you, but I am not interested,” Marcella said, even as she had looked for a way out of the situation.
The Sinner hadn’t listened. “Oh sweety, are you new here? You must be new, because this is just not how it works, nobody says no to me, especially when I am being oh so kind as to ask first.” Marcella can clearly remember the way the woman had placed a sharp manicured finger under her chin and forced her to look up. “So, tell me yes and we can get on with signing this deal.”
“No!” Marcella shouted.
Desperate and cornered she felt something rise at the back of her throat, as all of her instincts screamed at her to unleash it, but before she could, that perfectly manicured nail turned into a sharp claw.
The line of red it drew across her throat was so deep that she was shocked that her head had still been connected to her body.
Unthinkingly, her hand flew to her neck to try and stem the flow of blood, but the pool of red beneath her had already expanded to the point that she could see her own wide eyes, filled with shock and fear, reflected back at her.
Distantly, she was aware that the Sinner who did this had said something, but all Marcella could hear was the pounding of her own dead heart.
Before the darkness spreading in the corners of her eyes could fully take her vision, she had seen something fall in front of her face.
She blearily recognised it as a business card of some kind, as it came to rest on the pavement beside her hand, treacherously close to the pool of blood that would have made it unreadable.
After that, her senses left her and Marcella couldn’t help but wonder what happens to you in Hell when you die…again.
She got her answer when she came gasping back to consciousness.
Face down in the now sticky puddle of her own drying blood.
Standing, she had run from the café, back to the book store.
The owner, an owl looking Sinner had barely given her a second glance, even with the blood that had covered the front of her shirt, just a quick reprimand of, “go clean yourself up, it’s hard enough to sell books down here without you getting blood on them!”
Marcella had thought that was the end of it, had hoped, after all, what more could the Sinner do to her after killing her in cold blood.
She was wrong.
The next day the Sinner had appeared again, stalking into the bookstore as though she owned the place.
By the way the owner reacted, she may as well have.
“M-madame Cordella, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he stuttered, only to be completely ignored.
Cordella walked right up to Marcella, knocking the books from her hands and seizing her by the chin. “Ready to go sweet thing?”
Marcella didn’t think, she just acted.
Nails clawing, teeth gnashing, feet kicking, she had tried to pull away, only to be laughed at before she was back handed into a bookcase which gave way beneath her.
Cordella’s tinkling laughter had echoed through the shop, loud even over the sound of splintering wood and falling books.
“The deal is still on the table love,” Cordella simpered while placing her shoe against Marcella’s side before delivering a powerful kick that forced her onto her back.
Marcella gasped but still managed to glare up at the Sinner, even as she positioned the dagger like heel she wore above Marcella’s heart.
“Or do you require another lesson?” Cordella posed, waiting for an answer.
Sounding braver than she had felt, Marcella had managed to hiss her reply, “I said no.”
As if it were a blade, the heel slipped between her second and third rib and again Marcella had found herself falling into that awaiting darkness as the light faded from her eyes.
When she had awoken the second time, she was not in the same place she had fallen.
Surrounded by bloody and broken books she looked around to find that she had been dumped in the alley behind the bookstore, next to the single overflowing dumpster that was used by all the buildings along the street.
Pushing herself up, she heard the crinkle of shifting paper and looked down to find a letter and the same business card as the day before.
The letter was short and to the point.
‘I don’t need Overlords on my doorstep, you’re fired!’
That had set the trend for the next almost decade of her afterlife.
Cordella has not given up; she seems to find Marcella’s continual refusal and her subsequent death as nothing more than a fun little game she can play in her spare time, until Marcella gives in.
She won’t though, Marcella has very little to her name, so few things of value that she can claim as hers alone, she’ll never part with her soul, not for any price.
It helps that she’s not so clueless anymore, as luck would have it (or maybe a little unexpected kindness) some of the books that were thrown out of the store with her have proven quite useful.
Blood soaked they may have been, but they were still largely legible, and they gave her a lot of insight into the daily workings of Hell.
The ones she treasures most are the books that detail Overlords, the nuances of soul deals, a few introductory guides to general magic and innate Sinner abilities, an encyclopaedia of hellish botany, and a history book that she isn’t too sure about, as it reads more like a fairy tale.
She sometimes wonders what she would have done if she hadn’t been able to read them, if she hadn’t been able to find out for herself the unspoken rules of Hell that so many of its denizens took advantage of.
Another thing to thank Mister Al for.
She thinks about him, not often, but sometimes, when something happens that reminds her of him. Marcella can’t help but wonder how he’s doing up there, if he managed to become a radio host like he wanted, if he ever visited their little stretch of bayou again.
Part of her hopes he didn’t, because it’s easy to guess what he’d do if he knew.
She can still remember the look he got that time he saw her Daddy raise a hand to her.
If he knew…
With a shake of her head, she returns to her work.
Currently, she’s working at a flower shop, well, that’s what it’s called, but it ain’t like any flower shop back on earth. Most of the flora is poisonous, and those that aren’t want to take a bite out of you with teeth that would look more natural in a gator’s mouth, or rip into your flesh with thorns as sharp as blades.
It’s while she feeds a flower that resembles some kind of bird with petals that spread out like wings and leaves that look like tail feathers, that she hears that hated phrase again, spoken by a Sinner that can’t be a very powerful Overlord, if he even is one. Tall and lanky, wearing a suit that looks half burned and with a face to match, the Sinner propositions the only other customer, “come on, it’s in your best interest, all this territory is going to be mine soon, best to get ahead of the crowd. Do we have a deal?”
The Sinner he is talking to, a short rabbit like woman, whose nose twitches with nerves, hesitantly reaches out clearly about to accept the offer, but she pulls back at the last moment with a shake of her head.
Ear’s pressed flat against her skull and feet tapping with anxiety, she retreats back until she is pressed against a flower display, only to nearly leap out of her skin when one of the flowers tries to take a bite out of her tail.
Marcella has seen enough.
When the burnt Sinner moves to close the distance between himself and the rabbit again, Marcella sings.
“You have no place here,
No deal to make,
For this poor Sinner’s soul,
Is not for you to take.”
The lyrics are quiet, more whispered beneath her breath than actually sung, but they still carry throughout the room, filling it with her own power in a way that has the plants that occupy the shelves turning towards her, and the ears of the rabbit Sinner perking up to catch the soft trace of the melody.
Marcella isn’t even sure this will work, the Sinner’s that have been influenced by the hypnotic suggestion she has found she can lace into her songs were weak, either fresh arrivals or people that had no will to fight.
The few times she has tried it with anyone that boasted any real power, it has never ended well. She’s had mixed results with Cordella’s goons, some of them dance along to her tune like puppets on strings, while others react a little, with stilted confused moves as though they were drunk. The rest are unaffected, too strong willed for her limited abilities to have any real influence, but she’s been practising recently, so perhaps…
For a long time, nothing happens.
The room remains silent apart from the sounds of the rabbit Sinner’s uneasy tap, tap, tap, the ruffling of leaves, and the low hiss of shifting vines, but then, slowly at first, the burnt Sinner shifts.
One foot slides across the floor, pulling back from where he stood within the circle of the rabbit Sinner’s personal space, and once it moves the other follows.
As if in a daze, the would-be Overlord shuffles towards the door, swaying precariously on unbalanced steps the entire way. Marcella watches in silence, going so far as to hold her breath when the little broken bell above the store door gives a depressing little trill as the Sinner opens the door, but to her great relief he doesn’t even blink at it, merely continues along his way.
Still, Marcella doesn’t move, not until the Sinner disappears down the street.
Slumping against the counter she sighs with relief, only to choke on it when she is hit with the potential consequence of what she has just done. Her stomach drops as she imagines what could happen should the aspiring Overlord remember what just happened.
She isn’t worried about him, not after having proved that her abilities can work on him.
No, what she’s concerned about is the rumours.
Cordella always has feelers out for her, so Marcella won’t be surprised if the Overlord ends up walking through the front door tomorrow, the picture of smug satisfaction even as she plays at their sudden meeting being nothing more than happy circumstance.
Sharp nails dig into the half-rotted wood of the counter behind her and her teeth lodge themselves into her lip to the point of drawing blood.
She’s going to have to run again, quit her job and run to the wilds, survive on what she can out there until enough time has past that it’s safe for her to look for work in a completely different part of the city.
When she thinks about having to give up the name she’s currently using, it makes tears spring to her eyes.
It’s the one she’s been able to use for the longest, a whole two years.
Inspired by a travelling singer she saw as a child, a beautiful lady with dark strawberry blonde hair, who had a voice as lovely as a northern cardinal. It’s a fond memory and she’s grown fonder of the name, even though she knows she shouldn’t have.
Her spiral is suddenly interrupted by a shy quavering voice and a tentative hand on her own, where it has been raised to tangle her fingers in her hair.
“Um, a-are you okay?” asks the rabbit Sinner.
She retreats with a squeak the moment Marcella looks at her, nose twitching and ears standing in clear alarm when she tries to back away from Marcella, only to trip over her own feet and fall straight into a table loaded with some of the stores most vicious stock.
Marcella is by her side in an instant.
Grabbing the Sinner by the arms she manages to pull the woman up, but the plants have already done a lot of damage.
Blood drips freely from the poor lady’s back. Her white cotton tail, or what remains of it, is dyed red, which makes it all but disappear into the matted and bloody dark brown fur that has been exposed by the rips in her dress.
Without a second thought, Marcella starts humming.
Louder than the almost whispered words of her previous song, but still gentle, calming in the way that the lyrics of her song were commanding and tempting.
Gold light covers the wounds that dig deep into the rabbit Sinner’s back and soon enough the gouges torn into her flesh begin to close. Skin knitting together like yarn being crocheted into something whole, until clear hide forms beneath Marcella’s hand.
Pulling back, she is met with the wide eyed but grateful stare of the Sinner she has helped, but Marcella doesn’t trust it, she can’t.
Giving a smile, she stands, ready to walk back behind the counter and pretend none of this ever happened, but the Sinner grabs her hand in a steel like grip forcing Marcella to stay put.
“W-wait!” the Sinner stammers, her red eyes locking onto where she has seized Marcella’s hand. “I- no, what I mean is, um…thank you?”
Marcella’s smile becomes a bit more genuine after that, but she’s still worried, even as she uses the grip the Sinner has on her to help her stand.
“It’s fine, how are you feeling?” Marcella questions, already making plans to run.
“Oh, I, yeah, I’m fine, thanks to you,” the Sinner says, a little more confidently. “I’m Miri…” she pauses, clearly waiting for Marcella to give her own name.
Marcella shouldn’t trust it, but then again, where’s the real harm when she won’t be using her current name for much longer anyway.
“Celia,” she answers.
After talking to Miri, and finding out she was fairly new to Hell, as well as having some time to think about it, Marcella decides that maybe she is being a bit too rash.
The burnt Sinner probably won’t remember much, if anything about their brief encounter, and any memory loss will likely be chalked up to a long bender, hopefully.
She can give it a few days, use the time to make some extra money and to grab the supplies she will need to make living in the wilds again just that little bit more manageable. All she has to do is be careful, listen for any rumours that might be circulating about her and keep an eye out for any of Cordella’s goons scouting out the area.
Three days pass like this and Marcella just gets more and more anxious, to the point that she’s nearly jumping out of her skin every time she hears the little doorbell ring its sad trill.
Such is the case when she’s standing behind the counter, going at a bouquet of hell roses with clippers she has conjured herself, because the ones the shop owner threw at her on her first day were blunt and useless. She flinches so badly at the quiet sound of the bell, that she nearly takes the head off the rose and one of her fingers with it.
Looking up, she cannot help but sag with relief when it’s just a few regular customers.
Misses Craighall is the first to enter, an old looking Sinner in both dress and appearance, with a face like a tombstone. She’s followed by Pastor Frederick and Miss Chang who are duck and smoke themed demons, respectively.
Marcella cannot help but be happy to see them, not due to any personal attachment or good will between them, but because she knows if there is any fresh gossip, these three will have it.
Making herself look busy, she pretends to be measuring out a length of ribbon she will need for the flower arrangements she is working on, while keeping all of her focus on the three that are loitering around off to the side of the store. They’re somewhat shielded from her view by the trailing vines that hang down from the ceiling in that part of the shop, just waiting to strangle any careless Sinners that get too close, but she can still hear them fine.
“He’s made quite a splash, I’ve never seen such a speedy rise through the ranks of Hell,” comments Miss Chang. She has her fan up in front of her face, making her harder to see than the other two, but the green smoke that makes up her hair is dancing with clear amusement.
Misses Craighall scoffs, drawing the full attention of her two companions, “Thine chatter is too brazen, Miss Chang. Dost thou truly believe the Overlord’s of old will allow such an audacious challenge to go unpunished. If so, then thou art blind to the true workings of Hell.”
“I am not so sure, Misses Craighall,” rebuffs Pastor Frederick as he plays with the tattered rope strung around his neck. “Two Overlord’s, one of them ancient, renowned, and well established to the point that so few now live to remember a time when they were not an Overlord, have already gone missing after speaking ill of him.”
“You’re talking about Thema and Robere. Both of their empires crumbled overnight, their territories left for other Overlords to fight over like discarded scraps, but that’s not even the worst of it.” The way Miss Chang says this has the other two leaning in, silently begging for more details, she doesn’t leave them in suspense.
“Last night, something funny started happening with radios all over town, lights flickering on the displays, static choking up the airways, and no one able to get a signal. Then the screaming started, just one voice at first, but another soon joined it, a man and a woman’s, high-pitched and full of such torment you would sooner claw your own ears off than continue to listen to it.”
Marcella has stopped pretending to see to the flowers that lie before her, too enraptured by the story that is being told.
“You speak in jest,” accuses Misses Craighall, who looks at Miss Chang with wide eyes, clearly not believing her own words. “A Sinner cast down barely two seasons ago wouldst not have the strength to maim, let alone capture an Overlord such as Thema.”
Miss Chang chuckles and finally drops her fan, revealing a clouded smile that never seems to settle. “You would think that, but I have it on good authority that it was definitely them.”
“From whom?” questions Pastor Frederick.
“Some of their own people, so many of them stumbled into my den after their bosses went missing, allowing my opium to dull the pain of suddenly finding themselves without a master.” She takes a drag of her own opium pipe, adding more smoke to her hair before continuing, “Thema’s own product handler was there herself when the radio started acting up, you would think that she had seen a ghost, the way the haze in her eyes lifted, her stare completely focused on the radio as the dials span on their own and the channels never settled.”
Miss Chang pauses for a moment, entirely for dramatic effect, and despite the fact that they know this, it still works so well, as all of her listeners find themselves leaning closer, hanging off her every word. “When the screaming started it was as though she was possessed, her own cries nearly drowned out those in the broadcast for a moment, but then she snapped and took a knife to my poor radio. Tried to pry the damn thing open as though she believed she could free her poor master if she only got the thing open, and all the while calling her name: Thema, Thema, Thema, it would have been pathetic to watch if it hadn’t been so terrifying.”
The shiver that runs down Miss Changs form spreads across the room with an insidious efficiency that leaves Marcella feeling cold. To the point that she has to hug herself and rub her hands against her arms in order to return some feeling to them.
It’s Misses Craighall who finds her tongue first. “Thou cannot speak truly, it wouldst be a reckoning such as Hell has never faced. That a fresh soul should wield such untamed power…”
Pastor Frederick for his part, grabs his cross and quietly starts praying which spurs a loud laugh from Miss Chang.
“Clutch that trinket of yours all you want, for all the good it will do you down here, and Misses Craighall, if you still don’t believe me, then all you need to do is buy a radio.” Taking another long drag from her pipe and filling the air with sickly sweet smoke, Miss Chang grins wider with lopsided malice and warns, “That’s all the Radio Demon needs to reach you.”
The words hang in the air for as long as the smoke does, but Misses Craighall soon finds her stubbornness again and waves the cloud away from her face, with a dismissive, “preposterous.”
Pastor Frederick finds his next, but it is still a bit tied when he starts to speak. “Mayhaps w-we should change the subject? Have you had any more news on the state of the renovations for that abandoned hotel?”
Eager for a change in topic, Misses Craighall grabs the new line of conversation as though it were a lifeline. “Abandoned, half-finished and left to the fingers of decay that already cling to it, but none dare move to claim the territory while the Morningstar’s shadow still blankets the grounds.”
Their conversation continues from there, ebbing and flowing while they idly walk around the shop, before finally coming to an end when they place the same orders that they always end up making.
The three depart together, leaving Marcella alone with her thoughts, which are a little bit lighter now that she can assure herself that there are no rumours about her and the little trick she pulled.
Looking back on it, the three gossips hadn’t mentioned Cordella at all, which is strange.
Cordella is a woman who lives for scandal and drama, going so far as to be the one to stir it up whenever she thinks there isn’t enough of it.
But then, no news is good news, right…
Only time will tell, and until then it is best for Marcella to use the time she has to prepare, which for the moment means putting her head down and focusing on her job.
The next few weeks pass in a haze of nerves and determination.
Marcella works herself to exhaustion every day, giving up her days off and working overtime just to make her small nest egg a little bit bigger.
More than once she’s found herself nearly falling asleep behind the counter, only to be snapped out of it by the ringing of the doorbell or the snap of an opportunistic plant, but she tells herself that it will all be worth it and that she can sleep when she’s hiding in the little cabin she’s managed to rebuild in the wilds.
Well, she calls it a cabin, but it’s more of an abandoned fishing shack, but she’s managed to patch it up so that the roof don’t leak no more.
It’s kept her safe thus far, tucked away so deep in the eldritch bayou that no other Sinner is crazy enough to go that deep, the beasts that haunt it are still a bit vicious but they’re familiar enough with Marcella now that they leave her alone so long as she keeps feeding ‘em, they even put up with her singing now, preferring to laze beneath her while she hums a tune instead of circling the tree, looking for any opportunity to lunge up and grab her.
It’s far from perfect, but compared to the alternative…
Wrapping up for the day she locks the store door (for all the good it will do if someone wants to break in) and takes the cash box up to the apartment the owner owns on the floor above. The willow demon yanks the door open before Marcella can knock and snatches the box and the key from her hands, before slamming the door shut in her face.
Used to this, Marcella waits patiently until the owner slides her wages beneath the door.
Not bothering to count the bills, Marcella descends the stairs and stuffs the money into a sewn pocket on the inside of her blue gored skirt.
It’s a long walk back to the tiny apartment she manages to keep but Marcella enjoys it, especially after such a slow day, with so few customers.
The streets are usually pretty empty at this time, too early for most of the bars and speakeasys in this part of the city to be open so it’s just some stray Sinner’s looking for any stores that are still open, or those like her that are walking home from working late.
Except that isn’t the case today.
The pavement in front of her is packed with souls, so much so that they spill out onto the road uncaring of the occasional car that passes nearly running some of them over. They’re all crowded in front of one shop, jostling and pushing to try and get a good spot.
Marcella knows it’s the radio store without even looking at the sign that hangs above the crowd, she’s admired its wares so many times as she’s walked past and had even been saving up to buy one, before the fear that Cordella might find her again forced her to change her priorities.
Curious, Marcella joins the crowd, keeping to the edges while she tries to get a fix on what everyone is waiting for.
“Should be starting soon,” whispers one Sinner to her left.
“Stop pushing! It’s not as if you need to see it!” shouts another.
“Who do you think it will be this time?” questions someone else further ahead in the crowd.
“I don’t know, but if the trend continues, well have any Overlord’s gone missing recently?” a different Sinner answers.
It is at the mention of missing Overlord’s that Marcella remembers the conversation she had been listening in on nearly a month ago now.
Her suspicions are almost immediately confirmed as she hears the name, “Radio Demon,” whispered with both fear and awe.
Having heard the rumours, Marcella moves to pull back and continue on her way but suddenly finds herself surrounded by the crowd that she hadn’t noticed was growing bigger.
“Shhhh, it’s starting!” cries a tall demon whose standing near the front.
Just as Miss Chang had described, the sound of screeching static fills the air before fading into the discordant chatter of the radio trying to tune, snatches of different stations playing over each other until it finally settles.
“Salutations, for those who are just joining the broadcast welcome, my name is Alastor, the Radio Demon and tonight I have a very special treat for all my listeners,” introduces the voice on the other side of the radio.
Continuing to speak with that perfect Transatlantic accent the host goes on without missing a beat, “tonight’s guest is a very special ‘Lady’ with a far-reaching reputation, a doll who liked to gad about town and paint it red, but I am afraid she will be dancing to quite a different tune from now on…”
The pause that follows is filled with the low crackle of static that only seems to make the tension rise higher.
“Why don’t you say hello, Cordella?”
The first shriek is so heart wrenching, drawn out, and pain filled it overtakes the air with a sense of dread that has Marcella’s heart freezing in her chest.
The second is even worse, so high-pitched that Marcella is shocked when the glass window of the radio store doesn’t break beneath the sound of it, but she can’t stop herself from listening, not when the name that was just spoken keeps playing on loop in her mind.
Cordella, he had said it was Cordella, is that true? Despite herself Marcella tries to see if she can recognise the Overlord’s voice, but the screaming is too foreign, something she has never heard from Cordella before, so she has nothing to compare it to.
If it is though.
Something curls in Marcella’s chest, something that feels traitorous and dirty, something that she never likes feeling because she recognises it all too well.
Raising a hand to her face, she takes a step back and the crowd lets her because it gives the Sinner’s around her a chance to get closer. Like this she is able to make her way to the edge of the gathering, but the cries of torment are still so loud.
Running, Marcella doesn’t look back, but the screams still follow her down the street, echoing in her ears and imprinting themselves into her mind until she can hear them even when the sounds coming from the radio fade into the distance.
Entering her apartment Marcella slams the door shut behind her and slumps, hands over her ears to try and block out the screams that are now trapped inside her head.
She sit’s there for so long, frozen with a dark mix of emotions that she does not want to acknowledge, but something in the corner of her eye catches her attention and in her heightened state she cannot stop herself from looking.
It’s just the full-length mirror that she hung on the opposite wall six months ago, cracked from where it was salvaged from a dumpster where someone had thrown it.
What she sees there makes her want to smash it.
After all, she recognises this smile, and she hates herself for it.