It had become my routine, every morning, a tea party with the devil. Though I doubt he’d enjoy me calling it that, the pompous bastard, even if it is an entirely accurate description of the strange event.

It had been this way since my last breaths on earth ended, and I found myself surrounded by rough, scorched brimstone that rose to the shadowy celling. I was at the top of smooth hewn steps, as if I had been walking up them, and I faced the iron wrought gates of hell.

That was my first morning. It had been a lot of yelling and screaming, and crying on my end, but I still met the devil and sat down for tea. Earl Grey; this guy was old.

And it wasn’t the bitter tea, or constant screaming Lucifer sometimes willed into an ensemble hell-worthy, but the brutal cruelty of this place that had me falling in love. Maybe everyone around me including myself thought it was a mistake at first, but some people aren’t cut out for cloud lines streets, or green tea.