There ain't a single word I can think up to describe what hell felt like. I heard all kinds of words growin' up. Turmoil. Horror. Terror. Not a single one of 'em can even come close. Even now that I am out of it and am here in the black I smell the blood and the formaldehyde. I can hear the laughing and the awful gush of my knife pressing into that poor darlin' of a frog. I can feel the fire in that mean teacher's breath. How would I go about describing that? I bet ya Cordelia could come up with a perfect word. She sure was smart. The smartest woman I ever met.

Cordelia is the last thing that I remember about the human world. We was all in that circle and just before I laid down I took a look at her. Her face sure was pretty, and seemed to be sure that I would be right back. She smiled and even gave me a wink. You know, if I was gonna be trapped in hell, or even here in the darkness, I sure am glad that she was the last thing I saw. Even if she couldn't see me.

I guess I should tell how I got to be here in the darkness and not in hell with the frogs and the death and stuff. When the hell first started I knew it was just a place in my mind and that I had to get out. Then by the third or so time of havin' to kill that poor innocent creature I had lost everything. There wasn't no sense of time or anything really. Just fear and awful, awful death and shame. That pain was just so big that I couldn't feel nothin' else. I couldn't think about nothin' else.

Now, I have no way of knowing, but I must have been trapped there for years. They sure do know me good to have a hell that tortured me like that. I can't hardly think of nothin' worse. It wasn't too long after I had lost count of the lives I'd taken with that blade, my hand forced by that evil man, that a voice I knew real good came to me. It was just before I pressed the knife down on that frog again.

"There you are! You must truly pride yourself on making it taxing on an old witch to find you. Now Misty, put that knife down!"

"Myrtle?" I had stammered among all those terrible kids laughin' at me.

"Well it's certainly not the pope." She said in that weird voice of hers.

That was when it all came rushing back into my brain: The test, the seven wonders, the coven, Ms. Cordelia... I had been takin' a test and I must have failed it somethin' awful! When I looked around everything else had frozen but me and her.

"Myrtle how'd you get here? Is this some sort of trick and if I trust you somethin' even worse is going to happen?" I had started to cry all over again by then.

"I suffered the fate of burning at the stake for a second time, this time at the hand of your beloved Cordelia. It was what was right though. Because I had gone willingly I was spared from my own personal hell. However, my atrocities on earth could not go unpaid for. I now am responsible for finding lost souls, for righting cosmic wrongs... and you my dear are very lost and have gone very wrong."

"What's that all mean then?" I was still sick and shaking from all of the bad stuff I'd been through.

"You were born with one of the purest souls in history Misty Day. You are kind and true and only resort to anger and negativity for things that are right. For you to be locked in hell for all eternity would be one of the worst tragedies imaginable. However, it is still up to you to find your way back."

Myrtle is always talkin' in riddles and fancy words and it makes my head spin.

"But I don't know my way back! That's how I got stuck here in the first place!" I plea.

"I can't give you all the answers or take you there myself love, but I can get you started. We are going to leave here, and you will never have to come back." I can't even let her finish before I'm all blubbering and huggin' on her.

"But Misty, The place I am taking you is not easy. For some it is a form of torture in itself. You will remain there until you can figure out how to get back. All I can tell you is that your key to the real world is deep in your heart. When you find what is at the core, then you will open your eyes where you feel the most at home." She held my hands real tight so that I would know how serious she was.

"I don't have to kill nothin' at the place I'm goin' do I Ms. Myrtle?"

"No My dear, there will be nothing there for you to kill. Only, the dark."

And all of a sudden she was gone, and the awful classroom was gone, and I was in an all black room. The room seemed to go on forever and it was real dark. Everywhere I looked it was dark. Now, real world Misty probably would have got real scared and thought of the coffin and of Madison and been real panicked. But not now. After all I'd seen, this was the safest and happiest I'd felt in forever! I just had to figure out how to get to the next step.