“ I brought you flowers.”

Of all the people I expected to see framed in my doorway, Roman Davis definitely was the last person I thought I’d see there. Least of all on Valentine’s Day.

“ What are you doing here? ”

He shifted on his feet. For a baseball jock, math enthusiast, and all-around fairly popular guy at our high school, he seemed very nervous.

“ It’s Valentine’s Day.” He said

“ So?” I replied.

He rubbed his neck and sighed, seeming to try to stand a little straighter. Although it didn't matter to me. I had always found his dark turquoise eyes his best feature. Although that wasn’t all he had going for him. He had dark brown hair, which often fell in waves around a square jaw that led up to those gorgeous blue-green eyes.

Not that I noticed.

Or cared.

He took another deep breath, closed his eyes, and seemingly all at once, blurted out a string of words:

“ WillyoubemyvalentineJeanette?”

I gaped at him. He, however, seemed to have relaxed after saying what he wanted to say, and now stared at me expectantly.

“ Did you—”

“ I heard what you said.” I said, still gaping at him, “ I just don't understand why you said it.” And I meant it. I was the bookish girl who always kept her head down and did her work. I was also pretty plain, with auburn brown wavy hair, pale skin, amber eyes, and a light smattering of freckles.

Now he was gaping at me, seemingly perplexed

“ What do you mean you don't understand?”

“ I mean..” I said, feeling suddenly flustered. Words, I mentally screamed Why are words so hard for you now?! You're usually good with words.

I took a deep breath and finally settled on something. “ Aren't you with Lina?”

He grinned at that, and my shoulders instantly relaxed, relieved I hadn't said something stupid.

“ I broke up with her three weeks ago. Didn't you know?”

No, I wanted to say, No, I didn't know that. But instead, I, like the fool I was, blurted out something else. “ Why me? Why now?”

I was even surprised that he was awake and dressed for school at this ungodly hour. I, however, was dressed for my morning run in black sweats, Adidas sneakers, and my favorite deep yellow hoodie.

He grinned again, that familiar devilish smile setting my heart racing, before his face settled back into a soft gentleness, as if he needed to assure me.

“ I want you to go out with me, Jeanette Thornfield, because you are lovely and smart and pretty dang sharp-witted. I really like you, and I’ve liked you for a while now, actually.”

I gasped like a fish, opening and shutting my mouth, unsure of what to say. He laughed when he saw my face, and then smiled broadly, and at that, I couldn’t help but blush. His gaze immediately quieted, and his face softened around the edges.

“You can decide whether or not you want to go out with me. But I, for one, am sincerely hoping you’ll say yes.”

Say something!, my brain shouted at me: Say anything. Say yes!

“Yes!” I stuttered, my mouth finally catching up with my brain. “Yes, Roman, I would love to go out with you!” I smiled, and he smiled back, his giddy grin stretching the broad planes of his face.

“Perfect! I’ll pick you up at six.”He winked, and then strode back to his car, a red Toyota, whistling as he walked. I looked until his car swerved out of view, and then ran up to my room, screaming into my pillow. I couldn’t believe it. I, Jeanette Elizabeth Thornfield, a silly sixteen-year-old sophomore, was going to go on a date with Roman Davis, the cool senior baseball jock and insanely smart math fanatic. It seemed almost too good to be true.

I stared out the window, a blithe smile on my lips. In the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a shadow cross the lawn and head toward the neighbor’s house. Probably Mr. Eckman, I thought: Taking Billy out for a walk. Or maybe Mr. Jensen, chasing Billy away from his roses.

I smiled, not really caring who or what, still reveling in my happiness.

Only later did I find out I was mistaken.

I would like to say that I saw it coming. I didn't.

When Roman Davis came to pick me up for the Valentine party, my happiness had superseded all the wariness that I felt at his proposal.

Initially I had feared it was a prank or a bet or even worse - a pathetic attempt to make his ex jealous. The possibility of his proposal being prompted by either of those reasons instead of genuine admiration for me made me uneasy and a little sad but by the time he came to the door that evening, all my worries had retreated to the back of my mind.

I said goodbye to no one. Mum was at work, at one of her long shifts and dad was the same, except he was at another country. There was no one at home except my four siblings who were all too happy in their rooms with their headphones and video games.

Roman Davis smiled when he saw me come out in my baby blue silk dress, the one I bought for the winter dance last year.

When we got into his car, he turned to the back seat and brought out a bouquet of shining black roses, offering them to me. I did what I always did when I got flowers - put them underneath my nose and take a long breath in. They smelled amazing, but I couldn't help but notice the odd choice of color.

He was still watching me with the car turned off and he looked at me with pure delight radiating from his turquoise eyes. I found it difficult to believe that he had any ulterior motives especially then when he looked at me as if was the source of all his joy.

I thanked him for the flowers and he said "My pleasure, m'lady" with a posh accent that made us both laugh. Then he turned on the car and started driving far away.

It all happened very fast, really. So fast that I could not latch on to all that happened and store it in my memory. But the patches I remember are enough for me to tell the story.

We were driving up the highway when he suddenly turned off the radio playing a slow romantic ballad that I was humming to. Then he started talking really quickly. I could not understand his speech in sentences but I was able to pick up on phrases like "terminal cancer" "might be last good day" and "hospice care" and I thought he was just telling me a story he knew of maybe from a book or a movie. But then his voice kept catching and his hands began to shake on the steering wheel, and I realised that the story was something that had happened in real life, possibly to someone close to him.

"I'm so sorry," I broke into his flurry of words.

"Who is the person to you? Is it your grandparent or another relative?" I asked, trying to sound delicate and comforting. I did not know how to talk to people in grief.

He took his eyes from the highway to look directly at me. His turquoise eyes were veined with red from crying. I heard his next words perfectly clear: "The person is me. I am dying."

He was still looking at me when he swerved the car out of the highway. I screamed as we tumbled and tumbled, each hit bringing a new pain to my body. The car caught fire at some point, I think, but we were already dead by then.

Now we are in Hell. Together.

I woke up to the sound of dripping.

It was thicker that water, dripping in slow, thick droplets and hit the ground with a soft, sticky pat. For a moment I thought it was blood, and maybe it was, but when I opened my eyes, the world around me didn’t look like any hospital or afterlife I’d ever imagined. It looked like a memory someone had left out in the rain. I was lying on asphalt that shimmered like ink, rippling under my palms as if it were alive. The sky above me was a bruised violet, pulsing faintly, like it had a heartbeat.

I sat up too fast and the world tilted sideways. My ribs ached, legs felt like they’d been filled with sand: I took a breath in and my mouth was flooded with the taste of burnt sugar and cold metal. The bouquet of black roses lay beside me, perfectly intact, not a single petal singed or torn. When I reached out to touch them, the petals shivered under my fingers, as though they were breathing.

I snatched my hand back.

“Roman?” I called out, my voice cracking. “Roman, where are you?” My words dissolved into the air around me.

I pushed myself to my feet, wobbling. My dress was spotless. Not a wrinkle, not a tear, not a drop of blood. As if the crash had never happened. But it did, I know it did, I remembered the fire, the blood the pain--

I remembered dying.

A soft crunch sounded behind me.

I spun around. A figure stood at the edge of the ink-road, half-hidden in the violet gloom. My heart lurched, thinking it was Roman, but then the figure stepped forward and I realized it wasn’t him at all. It was a human-shaped shadow, darker than the air around it, darker than the ground beneath it. It had no face, no features, just a silhouette carved out of nothingness, and in its hand was a singular, black rose.

My breath hitched. “Who--what--are you?”

The shadow tilted its head, as if studying me. Then it lifted the rose to where its face should have been and inhaled deeply, like it was smelling it.

I stumbled back, my pulse hammering. “Stay away from me.”

The ink-road beneath my feet rippled outward, like a stone had been dropped into it. The violet sky flickered. The air thickened. And then, from somewhere far off, I heard footsteps.

“Jeanette!”

I whipped around, relief flooding me so fast it made me dizzy. He was running toward me, his turquoise eyes bright, his hair tousled, his face streaked with something that might have been soot or tears. He reached me and grabbed my shoulders, his hands warm, too warm, like he’d been standing too close to a fire.

“Thank God,” he breathed. “I thought I lost you.”

I stared at him, my throat tight. “Roman… where are we?”

His expression faltered, and in that split second I saw it. The fear. The guilt. Then he forced a smile. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ll explain everything. I promise.”

Behind him, the shadow figure lowered its rose, and smiled a smile that sent a shiver through me, like a cold finger trailing down my spine.

My voice trembled. “Roman, what did you do?”

He swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I swear. I just… I couldn’t go alone.”

My stomach dropped.

“Go where?” I whispered.

He looked at me with those beautiful, broken turquoise eyes.

“Hell,” he said softly. “I brought us to Hell.”

And behind him, the shadow stepped closer.

I can always calm myself down.

It's one of my greatest strengths, I let nothing upset me for too long.

I can always trust myself not to react in upsetting situations... when the situation makes sense to me.

I look up to the bruised violet sky, then at Roman Davis who was in front of me with his suit perfect as it was when he came to ask me to go out with him. It already feels like a lifetime away. Despite my confusion and incomprehension at my new world, I was somehow also deeply aware that I could never go back to my life as it was before . This is irreversible.

"Why?" I finally spoke. I needed to understand. I needed it to make sense.

"I told you. I just could go alo-"

"Not that," I cut him off. "Why me? You had a lot of friends. Had an ex-girlfriend. Had family who cared about you. Had people who worshipped you with admiration. So many other people you could bring to Hell with you . Why did you choose me?"

"Because-" His eyes were full of fear - and guilt. He looked sorry for what he was about to say.

"No one would miss you, at least not too much."

"I checked," he continued, "I did some research and I figured your death would cause the least pain. You have four other siblings so your parents wouldn't miss you too much and you always stay alone at school so you had no close school friends either. I asked around to see if you had any friends outside school but-"

"So," my voice is strangely even, "you thought that because I didn't have anybody to grieve me, I deserved to die."

"No no," he shakes his head vigorously as if the idea is completely ridiculous. "I know what I did was terribly selfish. I just- When I heard that I was dying, I started trying to prepare myself for Hell. I read many depictions of Hell in different mythologies and religions. But I was still so terrified so I thought- I thought it would help to at least have someone to talk to, someone from my world who would keep me sane. I just didn't want to be alone. I can't be alone, I'm sorry."

As Roman talked, the shadow got closer and closer. So close that I could not ignore it anymore.

"What is that thing behind you?" I said.

Roman looked at me, obviously surprised that I no longer seemed upset at him. I was still a bit mad at him but I knew that it would fade eventually. I wasn't thrilled that he killed me but now at least I fully understood why he did it. That was enough to make it little better. Besides, there seemed to be more immediate danger around us. Processing my emotions would have to be done later.

"It keeps coming closer to you," I said, this time in a higher pitch since Roman seemed unbothered by my previous warning.

"Oh, the shadow dude," Roman says with zero panic. "He was present in several mythologies. He is our guide. He will guide us through the courts of Hell."

The shadow didn’t walk so much as glide.

Its feet, if it had them, never touched the ink-road. It simply drifted forward, the way smoke moves when the fire is gone. Roman stood beside me, hands clasped behind his back like a student waiting for a teacher’s approval. I, on the other hand, was my best not to hyperventilate. The shadow stopped a few feet away. The air around us three grew colder, like someone had opened a freezer door inside my bones.

“Roman,” I whispered, “that thing is not a ‘dude.’”

He shrugged. “He’s harmless. Mostly.”

“Mostly?” My voice cracked like thin ice.

Roman stepped forward. “We’re ready.”

The shadow tilted its head again, the same curious gesture as before, except now it felt less like curiosity and more like appraisal. Like it was deciding whether I was worth the trouble of devouring. The shadow raised one long, finger-like shape and pointed at me. A sound filled the air, soft at first, then swelling like a chorus of whispers layered on top of each other, each one slightly out of sync. Like a thousand people trying to tell me a secret at once.

“She does not belong.”

My stomach dropped. “Excuse me?”

Roman winced. “Okay, so, um… that’s the part I was worried about.”

The whispers grew louder, swirling around me like a storm. “She was not chosen. She was taken.”

I sighed. Great. these were the voices of the Fates, who knew I wasn't a sinner and knew I wasn't even suposed to be dead yet. "Thank fu--"

The shadow’s head swivelled toward me. I immediately regretted speaking.

Roman stepped between us, palms raised. “Look, I know I didn’t follow the… official procedure. But she’s here now. She’s with me. That should count for something.”

The whispers paused. Then, slowly, the shadow extended its hand, the one holding the black rose. The petals trembled, releasing a faint shimmer of dark dust that drifted toward me.

I stepped back. “Nope. No thank you. I don’t want whatever that is.”

Roman grabbed my wrist gently. “It’s okay. It’s just a mark.”

“A mark?” I hissed. “Roman, I am not letting a faceless shadow stamp me like a library book.”

“It’s not like that,” he said, though his voice wavered. “It’s just… proof. That you’re allowed to be here.”

“I’m not allowed to be here,” I shot back. “You kidnapped me into Hell.”

He winced again. “Borrowed. I borrowed you.”

The shadow’s whispers sharpened, slicing through the air. “She must be marked.”

Roman squeezed my hand. “Jeanette… please. If you don’t take the mark, they’ll separate us.”

I froze. That scared me more than anything: because despite everything, some part of me still clung to the one familiar thing in this nightmare. Him. And that terrified me more than the shadow did.

I swallowed hard. “What happens if I take it?”

Roman hesitated. “You’ll… be bound to me.”

“Bound,” I repeated flatly. “As in…?”

“As in… we go through the courts together. Our fates are linked.”

Safer. In Hell. With the boy who killed me. Fantastic.

The shadow lifted the rose again, waiting and my heart hammered, instincts begging me to run, even though there was nowhere to run to. I turned, almost, but Roman’s eyes, those stupid, beautiful turquoise eyes. were pleading. And it worked.

“Fine,” I whispered. “Do it.”

The shadow pressed the rose to my chest. Cold fire spread through me, searing and freezing at the same time. I gasped, clutching Roman’s arm as the whispers crescendoed into a single, unified voice.

“Bound.”

The rose dissolved into smoke, and the mark burned beneath my skin, unseen but unmistakable.

Roman let out a shaky breath of relief. “Thank you.”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy watching the road in front of us as it started to shift, spiraling outward like a whirlpool. The shadow stepped aside, gesturing toward the swirling path ahead. Roman squeezed my hand.

“Welcome,” he said softly, “to the First Court.”

Roman tried to tell me everything he knew about Hell while we walked to the First Court.

He knew a lot surprisingly. I kept interrupting his long rambling to tell him that and then he would say "thank you" and launch back into detail about the differences and similarities between the depictions of Hell in different mythologies. He seemed really excited to find out which mythology or religion was the most correct.

"The Greeks and Romans lose a point since we didn't see Cerberus, the guard dog, at the gates," he said, counting off with his finger as if he was really keeping a tally of the points. "But they were right about the Fates and their power over the thread of life so that's one point to them."

"You're having so much fun in here," I said, an observation. "I think you might the first soul ever who's had this much joy in Hell."

"Yeah, you're getting it," he said, excitement dripping from his tone. He was smiling at me as if throwing some of his joy at me and expecting me to catch it. I remained as I was.

He continued speaking with his near manic joy, "All we are now are souls drifting through the Underworld, as the Greeks called it."

Then to prove his point, he reached out to touch me. I wanted to flinch at the sudden contact but I couldn't because his hand went right through me and I couldn't even feel it.

"Yes," he cried out. "I knew it should have happened by now." Then he started saying something about a point to another mythology.

While he talked, I noticed for the first time that there was something wrong with his voice, something hollow about it. I realised that I had subsciously attributed it to the emptiness of the landscape but now I remembered that he didn't sound this way the first time we spoke here. That is, when our material bodies still clung to us. Now, we are just souls and our bodies don't exist anymore.

This was already getting too much for me to process. But I can't break down right now. I need a distraction.

"Does this mean that we can haunt the living?" I interrupted Roman's ramblings. "Now that we are ghosts?"

He gave me a wicked smile, "There might be a bridge that flips the Underworld to the top and then we can look down on the living and haunt them."

"How many mythologies?" I asked, wanting to know the likelihood that it was true.

He hesitates, "I read that one in a fantasy book."

"No," I whispered, losing all hope.

"Hey, all these ideas have to come from somewhere you know," Roman attempted to comfort me. "You never know which one might turn out to be the real thing."

Up until now the 'shadow dude' has been gliding in front of us without any interruption or indication that he exists to guide us. But now he suddenly stopped, seeming to remember his role and stretched out its hand in towards us.

Now that we were no longer material at all, he didn't need to make up words to communicate meaning to us - he was giving us the knowledge as it was, pure and without language. Yet we understood perfectly.

He moved out of the way and there was a small gate now in front of us. The Maze of Memories. It led to the Court of Pride, the first Court and it was our link to the living. Or as I'd rather call it - the place where ghosts have a little fun.

"Looks like we get to do some haunting after all," Roman says beside me. "Shall we?"

The gate was small enough that I could have stepped over it, yet the moment I approached, it towered above me, stretching upward, twisting into the violet sky like a spine made of bone and smoke. Hell clearly didn’t care about physics. Roman, of course, looked delighted.

“This is incredible,” he whispered, as if we were standing in front of a museum exhibit.

The shadow glided to the gate and pressed its hand--if it was a hand--against the surface. The bars dissolved like ash in water, revealing a corridor of shifting walls. They weren’t stone or metal. They were translucent. Like frosted glass.

My breath caught. “Are those--”

“Memories,” Roman said, practically vibrating. “Ours. Or… yours, mostly. The Maze shows you what you left behind.”

I stepped closer. Behind the nearest panel, I saw my bedroom. The messy desk, the stack of library books, the yellow hoodie I’d tossed on the chair that morning. My siblings were in the hallway, arguing about whose turn it was to use the bathroom. Everything was so normal it hurt. I reached out, and my fingers passed straight through the wall. The image rippled, then sharpened, as if reacting to my touch. My siblings froze mid-argument. My youngest brother, Billy, turned his head sharply, like he’d heard something.

“Roman,” I whispered, “he can hear me.”

Roman shook his head. “Not exactly. The Maze lets you brush against the living world, but only as echoes. They feel you the way you feel déjà vu.”

Billy stepped closer to my bedroom door. “Jeanette?” he said softly.

My chest tightened. “He misses me.”

Roman’s expression flickered. “This is why the Maze is dangerous,” he said quietly. “It shows you what you can’t go back to. What you can’t fix.”

I tore my gaze away from the panel. “Then why bring me here?”

“Because,” Roman said, “we need to get through it to reach the Court of Pride. And because… haunting is the only fun part.” He grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

The shadow drifted ahead, and the corridor stretched open like a throat. The walls pulsed faintly, each panel glowing with a different memory: my mother asleep at the kitchen table after a night shift, my father on a video call from his business trip in Japan, my sisters on wash day, Marnie wearing my bonnet. Every step forward felt like peeling off a layer of myself. Roman walked beside me, hands in his pockets, humming under his breath. He was trying to act casual, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. A panel to my right flickered. It was Roman’s memory.

He was sitting in a hospital room, pale and thin, hooked up to machines. His mother sat beside him, holding his hand, crying silently. Memory-Roman stared at the ceiling with hollow eyes.

I swallowed. “You didn’t tell me it was that bad.”

He didn’t look. “Didn’t matter anymore.”

“It mattered to them.”

He flinched.

The shadow paused ahead of us, as if waiting. The corridor split into three paths, each one darker than the last. The shadow raised its hand, and knowledge poured into my mind like cold water.

Choose the path that reflects your truth.

Choose wrong, and the Maze will keep you.

I shivered. “Roman… what does that mean?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “The Maze tests your pride. It shows you the version of yourself you’re most afraid of being.”

“Great,” I muttered.

Roman didn’t laugh. The three paths pulsed, each one glowing faintly with a different colour, gold, red and blue.

Roman stepped toward the red path immediately. “This one’s mine.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “It feels like me.”

I stared at the remaining two. Gold shimmered like sunlight on water. Blue flickered like a dying flame.

“What happens if I choose wrong?” I asked.

Roman hesitated. “You won’t die. You’ll just… get stuck reliving the worst parts of yourself until you figure it out.”

“Oh. Lovely.”

The shadow drifted behind me, its presence cold and heavy. It didn’t speak, but I felt its impatience like a pressure in my skull.

Gold felt warm. Comforting. Safe.

Blue felt cold. Sharp. Painful.

I opened my eyes. “I choose blue.”

Roman nodded once, approving. “Good. Pride hates discomfort.”

We stepped into our separate paths and the moment my foot crossed the threshold, the Maze sealed behind me with a sound like a heartbeat stopping. I was alone. And then the walls lit up, revealing the first memory the Maze wanted me to face.

It was Roman, standing in my doorway, holding his stupid bouquet of flowers. Except this time, when he said “Will you be my valentine?” his eyes were completely black. And he wasn’t asking.

He already had his hands around my neck.