Part III
Cousin Danny took me to his apartment. I never even knew I had a cousin, well he is super nice to me. He looks like he's around 16 years old, he was a purple hedgehog, he had bat wings and a devil tail just like mine. Cousin Danny had a nice smile, with his crystal blue eyes.
While walking to Danny's apartment, I saw a little bit of Hell. It looked just like Earth, a city, except everything had a shade of red and black. The people were the same; some were grouchy and some were kind just like Danny.
I had a lot of questions for Danny about Hell and Death. Like, the temperature, why am I not burning up? Isn't Hell hot? I'm not sweating or anything.
"Cousin Danny, how hot is Hell?"
"Hell is around 210 degrees, if we are lucky it can be around 250 degrees"
"210?! If it's that hot then why am I not burning up?!"
"You're dead, heat doesn't really matter, it could be below zero degrees and you wouldn't care"
"Oh..."
We finally got too Cousin Danny's apartment, it looked like any other apartment, nothing really different. (A/N: except of courses the shade of red and black) Danny was in room b4, when Danny unlocked his door, behind it was the messiest apartment I had ever seen! The furniture was all wrong, bits of trash and food were all over the floor, and I noticed the kitchen counter had food stains that looked permanent. And Danny expected me to live here...
"Oops, sorry, forgot I left this place a total mess. Oh well, too tired to clean. Amy, I'm going to go get some food from the kitchen, ya must be hungry, right?"
"Ya, pretty much"
"Alright then" Danny walked to the kitchen and looked in the fridge. I tried to sit down on the couch, but I kept tripping on bits of trash on the floor. After tripping like a million times, I got to the couch. Danny came out of the kitchen and approached me giving me a sub sandwich. I took it gratefully.
"Danny, do you think we should clean up your home? It's like super messy...."
"Yes, I think so... but too tired...." Danny sat back on the couch beside me and closed his eyes. Well, I don't want to live somewhere where it's trashy, I am going to clean it up myself.
I took a broom and started sweeping the kitchen floor. I got a trash bag I found and picked up the trash and bits of food on the floor...yuck. I washed the dishes, cleaned the bathroom, and through all of this Danny slept on the couch. After hours of cleaning, I collapsed on the couch exhausted. I genitally shook Danny trying to wake him up.
"Danny..?" Danny opened his eyes.
"Baby Cousin Amy...?" Danny looked around at his new clean home amazed and I think scared. "Ack! Where am I?!"
"You're in your now CLEANED home, ya like it? It took me awhile but I cleaned it all"
Danny was silent discovering new things in his apartment. "Amy! I didn't know I had a rug! Wow!" He noticed the dishes were clean, and the not-so- trashy floor. "Thanks Cousin Amy!" Danny hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
"You're welcome" I said while Danny was squeezing my ribs. Finally his tight grip loosened and he let go. I glanced over at the clock on the wall, it said it was 6:01PM, no wonder I am hungry, it's dinner time. Danny's and my tummy rumbled at the same time.
"I guess you want some food...right?" Danny had a worried face.
"Yep, I'm sure hungry"
"O-ok...uh....well... um, Amy I'm not a good cook. Your food might be-"
"Burnt to a crisp? It's OK, I'll cook" Danny sighed in relief. I entered the kitchen. Danny followed.
"So, where do you keep the food?" I asked opening cabinets full of stupid cans. Danny showed me the pantry and took out a steak in a package and handed it to me. I took the steak and broiled it in the oven. Danny's mouth watered as he started at the steak with big puppy eyes.
When the steak was finished, Danny sat at the kitchen table drooling for the steak. I placed the steak in-front of Danny. When I sat down to eat my piece of steak, I looked up to see that Danny had already eaten his piece.
"Jeez, you're that hungry?"
"Yep" said Danny belching rudely.
There was a long silence, and my head was full of questions. I couldn't take it anymore, I had to get my questions answered.
"Cousin Danny, how did you die?"
Danny looked at me with saddened eyes, he took a deep breathe.
"I got shot..."
"Oh, who shot you?
"My partner..."
"Why would your partner shoot you?"
Danny closed his eyes and took another deep breathe. I could tell he was getting ready to me his Death Story, so I got ready to listen.
"I was on the run, the police was chasing me, me and my partner, Alex. Alex and I stole banks, and we were pretty good at it. It was bank after bank, we traveled a lot."
"Didn't you miss family?"
"Of course I did, but my mind was on stealing, I didn't care for my family at that time. Alex was good with a gun, he would scared people with the gun while I went in the back and took the money. But Alex promised that he would never murder, only use the gun to scare off. After all, we were robbers, not murderers"
"And you never got caught?"
"Only once, the police got ahead of us while we were heading for our get- away car. Before you knew it, we were behind bars. After we took our time in prison, they let us go. After that we had no where else to go. I knew my family wouldn't except me, and Alex's folks were dead."
"What is prison like?"
"It's horrible, at night you could hear a lot of screaming, in the day time it seemed like they were torturing you by putting you in the darkness for countless hours. Alex and I didn't know what to do next, so we went back to stealing. But you see, we've been in prison for some time, and we lost our touch. There were lots of mistakes, like dropping the gun, tripping while running away from the police, and dropping the money. Alex and I were getting frustrated at each other for our mistakes."
"So what did you do then?"
"Alex claimed the money was his, since he did most of the work, at least he thought he did most of it. We began to argue, arguing turned into cussing, cussing turned into beating, and beating turned into murder. Alex, my partner and friend took his pistol and shot me. I remember him promising that he would never murder anyone, I guess he was lying..."
"I'm sorry, Cousin Danny..."
"Yeah, yeah, Alex is in prison as we speak, for stealing and murdering. Anyway, enough about me, how did you die?" Danny was talking about it as if it was no deal of a deal. I was still adjusting to being dead, but I still told him to get it off my chest.
"It was late at night, I was walking to the store to get some desert when a car had hit me"
"Ouch.."
"Yeah..." I finished my steak and it was time for bed. Danny didn't have an extra bed room, so he let me sleep in his bed while he slept on the couch. He gave me one of his really big t-shirts to wear for PJs. Danny tucked me in and kissed me good-night. While Danny was walking out of the room I stopped him.
"Cousin Danny, what are we going to do tomorrow?" I said in the darkness.
"Well, I'm going to go to work. You, I don't know. You can walk around the city if you wanted."
"Ok..."
"But, please be careful, there are some places where it is not safe"
I nodded and turned around to sleep. In my head I was thinking of my friends up in Earth, I miss them so much. I wish I could see them. I wonder what they are doing right now? Oh well....