Everything happened in the blink of an eye.  Miriana had been crossing the street with a group of people one minute and the next she was in a strange dark forest.  Obviously she was at least unconscious and this was some kind of dream; at least that was what she was hoping.  The alternative was that she was dead.  Were that the case, then where exactly she was confounded her.  This certainly did not resemble any description of Heaven that she had read of, but it didn’t exactly resemble Hell either.  She hadn’t read up on all mythologies though, but she doubted Hell as supposed to look like a dense forest with lush vegetation.  So, exactly what happened and where was she?  Two questions that she hoped would be answered by someone in at least some kind of decent timeframe.

Miriana turned in a circle, but saw no path or anything that gave a clear direction out of the clearing that she was in.  There was just this jagged oval of a clearing where the underbrush was lower, then it grew higher again and the trees were closer together.  The canopy was still lush and green, keeping everything below in shade and relative darkness.  There were no sounds of birds or active wildlife that she could ascertain, which seemed odd for the middle of the day, but she wasn’t any kind of wildlife or forest expert.  Trying to decide which way to go was not easy, since she had no idea where she was and there were no ambient noises to guide her.

Finally, she just picked a direction and headed into the thicker underbrush and darker canopy cover.  There was no better or worse option, none of them seemed any different than the other at this point since there were no indicators of where she would find someone else.  Hopefully when she did find someone else, they’d be able to tell her where she was and how she got them from the middle of a busy intersection with no memory of it.  She’d never been camping or hiking, so this definitely wasn’t one of her friends playing some messed up kind of a prank, they’d know better than to drop her city girl ass out in the middle of the wilderness. Fending for herself meant using the microwave to heat up leftovers, not making her way through the wilderness.

****

“SIRE!”  A messenger came running into Djall’s  office.  He was out of breath and flushed, looking almost on the verge of panic.  This could mean nothing good for the ruler of the underworld, so there went his afternoon. “Yes?  What is it?”  He asked, leaning back in his chair.  Hopefully it wasn’t something too bad and he could get back to organizing the newest batch of arrivals according to what demon would be overseeing them.

“There was a problem with the afterlife routing algorithm and we’ve received…………a mistake.”  The color seemed to drain from the demon’s face.

“A mistake?” Djall’s dark eyes narrowed at the demon, who was nodding and simultaneously looking like he wanted to become one with the wall behind him.  “What kind of mistake?”  His head cantered to one side as he tried to figure out how they could receive any kind of mistake.  This was Hell.  Mistakes didn’t happen in Hell and you didn’t end up in Hell by mistake.  You earned your way here.

“Sir, the algorithm sent a murderer to Paradise, and an innocent human girl here.  She just landed in the forest of beasts.  She was supposed to go the other way.  There are a few beings arguing over whose fault it is, but we need to find her before the beasts do.  She’s done nothing wrong to be here, Sire.”  The demon’s back was pressed against the wall and he was truly terrified that his liege was going to cause him great pain from the look of displeasure currently upon his face.

“I have a completely innocent female IN THE FOREST OF BEASTS?!” Djall almost roared at the information.  Of all of the places for her to land, the one that was the most violent and vicious.  Of course, because having her land someplace “safe” in Hell would be to easy when the pompous pricks upstairs fucked up.  Instead he was going to have to go find her before she was hurt and he had to put a bunch of pieces back together.  Had he fucked over some deity that he’d forgotten about?  He didn’t think so, but the day was sure shaping up that way.