Gently swaying on a frayed section of cat5 cable, Iphigenia had already come to terms with her death. 

She welcomed it.

She had come to terms with it long before. It came long before she had even gotten herself remotely close to her predicament. She was dead long before she had gotten caught on the wires in the brightly lit office hallway. Iphigenia was person who had no purpose, no drive, no dream – No obligation to live. Sure, she was a mortal, living, breathing person that had the will to live. But was that a person that could be considered… alive? 

Iphigenia was no stranger to religion, but she was neither religious nor atheist. She didn’t know if there was heaven or hell, but she knew most certainly she was going to hell if it existed. Where else would a heartless psychopath that relished in the pain of others go? Certainly not to heaven. She had always debated: where do the mentally ill go after death? Should God have created each and every person, he certainly would have created her and everybody else who was wrong in the head. Was it a crime to be yourself? If it was, could you redeem yourself by seeking aid? 

It was now not a moot point. She had always embraced her odd tendencies and fantasies. She relished in it, and never sought help. She hated shrinks, but ironically found that being one herself might be appealing. Death always fascinated her. She felt sadness, but at the same time found it exhilarating, exciting, and this most certainly applied to herself. After all, it could come at the most random of times, from the most random of people. At any point in time, she could hold the lives of dozens of people around her in her hands; should she wish, she could be their judge, jury and executioner and nobody could do anything about it.

Iphigenia felt the cool breeze of the air conditioner and smiled.

The school and her family would be in an uproar when she was discovered. Most would be sad, shocked, perhaps even consumed by despair. Perhaps she her death would drive some to do the unspeakable, and she would see them again in hell. She would miss them as much as they would miss her. Many of them were good people. But she also knew that those that despised her would be relieved in her death. Those that she had threatened abused and cast aside would be glad to be rid of her perpetual menace, and she was happy for them. They would be freed of their obligations, their secrets safe, at least until the dead man’s switch in her systems would realize that its master was no longer alive and release its tantalizing information into the public domain. 

She only had a few regrets; being so careless as to accidentally off herself, and not being able to there for her friends for her own death. Those sorry bastards would never be able to cope, she realized. They’d only ever known her as a good person. She was judicious, fair, always there to help. She could still admit that about herself, despite it all. She could at least give them solace in never knowing letting slip her twisted hobbies, or what she wanted to do to them. 

But wouldn’t it be interesting to see your own cold, dead body in the morgue?

…

Darkness.

Darkness, and then suddenly, stunning clarity. Iphigenia felt her body distinctly slamming into some sort of ground. Did the wire finally give way? Her senses slowly came back to her. The floor felt more like rotting wood then carpeted office rug. There was a sickeningly sweet lemon smell in the air, but there was a distinct smell that the sweet scent could not mask. The scent of death, despair and hopelessness. She opened her eyes, and broke into a wry smile. 

The River Styx, the symbolic Viking funeral boat, and tasteless colorful watercolor painting that filled the surreal sky left no the doubt in Iphigenia’s mind of where she was. She became even more sure as she became aware of her ruined, lemon-piss soaked clothes clinging to her body. Only the devil himself would know how unstable and disenfranchised she felt at the moment. He knew her well. 

Iphigenia finally focused her fleeting attention at the passengers on the boat as it gently floated down the putrid river. They were comrades, fellow dead people. She shrugged internally; people died every second, of course there would be people arriving in hell along with her. In front of her was the pilot of the boat, but she could describe him more as a grumpy looking, queer little demon. He wasn’t what she have expected the ferryman of the Styx to be. 

Finding her fellow passengers speaking, Iphie could only grin in disagreement. Burning hell? What a joke.

“No, this exactly what I expected. The summation of your largest peeves, the embodiment of your burning hatred, rolled into a wonderful package of a river that I'd hazard to call the Styx.”

After all, hell is what you don’t want it to be.