"Well, this looks fun, doesn't it?"

The landscape was grey. Just grey. Nothing else but grey. My eyes were being slaughtered by grey. My feet were submerged in grey. My clothes were grey.

Greyscale was killing me.

"Shut up, Inferno." Alex caustically murmured.

"Why should I? At least I'm trying to have some fun in this miserable excuse for a place." I rummaged around in my pocket before extracting a timetable we had both been issued. Yes - as well as the fact life was as bland as Donald Trump's speeches, we were made to go to classes.

Greyscale and school was killing me.

"Okay," I murmured, squinting at the text. "Yay, we have trials!"

Alex actually walked to a nearby wall and whacked his head against it.

"Careful mate, you'll lose even more brain cells!"

As you can probably ascertain, life wasn't too peachy in Purgatory. The lessons we had to endure made my brain wail like a constipated baby, the people we met were as enthralling as ant porn, and our sanity was quickly eroding.

"Losing my mind would be a sanctuary," Alex muttered. "Are you sure this isn't Hell?"

-----------------------

"Today, we will be reflecting on whether we have been mainly good or bad in our past lives." The professor drawled, voice as slow as a narcotic snail. "Before you is paper. Start with naming one good deed and one bad deed you have done. Failure to abide to tasks is punishable by expulsion and permanent life in Purgatory jail."

Fiddling with my pen, I started with good deeds. Every life I enter is immediately blessed. Seems pretty accurate.

Bad deeds. Being engaged to the chick Satan showed his donk to.

"Hey Alex, I bet you have some ideas for bad deeds, huh?"

"Shut up Inferno. As a matter of fact, I do have an answer for the good side of things."

"And what's that? Roping my fabulous self into everything?" I smirked and made a grab for his paper.

"I'm not going to tell you!" Alex immediately retorted, snatching his work back and firmly glaring at me. "What I put is private, alright? Now bog off you obnoxious sod."

"You're just grumpier than usual because you haven't wanked in the last few days." I grumbled, pretty proud of myself for that one.

"Has everyone done?" The teacher yawned, head slumping on his desk.

"Yesssssssss." A few people chorused, voices devoid of any enthusiasm.

"For twenty minutes you will think of more and more good and bad deeds. At the end of the exercise, you will count up each column and see which one... which one has the most." As soon as he had finished speaking he started snoring. Someone go and get Ofsted: this guy needs a teaching award.

"Good deeds." I murmured, pen at the ready. "Attempting to help someone get into Heaven, though that failed big time and that is why I'm here right now. Sacrificing myself for the needs of cowards. Accepting my screwed fate. Looking after my handicapped friend. That sounds pretty accurate, right Alex?"

He looked pretty venomous. "Bad deeds." He started. "Not killing Inferno at the first opportunity." Okay, I shut up after that.

At the end of the allotted time, I had wormed my way into having more good deeds than bad. I'm pretty sure some of them weren't so legitimate (being ridiculously good looking for the good deeds, for example) for another bad deed, I had simply put: rendering girls unable to sleep and staying loyal to their existing partners.

After handing in our sheets of paper, we had to go to physical training. This was the worst thing in Purgatory, believe me. For a whole two hours we were made to run, play football, lift weights, wrestle, build rafts and learn to survive in the wild.

As you may have noticed in the parts of the report in which I've been running, I ain't the most in shape guy around. Sure - I dont have a hideously rotund belly, but I'm no stick man. In Hell, there were no gyms. All of them had been burnt down long ago, or over run with gangs training to kill people.

Holy Satan, I almost miss the darned place.

On the other hand, Alex was pretty good at all this malarkey. Once I asked him for a piggback, but he just accused me of wanting to rape him and carried on with the cross country course.

Admittedly, I'm not the absolute worst. I mean, there's some fellas who probably spent their whole life sitting in front of a TV belching and eating beef jerky or something, so at least I was better than them.

"Three more miles to go! Hurry up! Are you people or wimps!"

"Wimps." I answered as I stumbled over the marker, sweat trickling down the nape of my neck.

"Three more miles! Get to it or you'll never get out of Purgatory!"

Satan forbid that.

With one mile left, I was contemplating my existence. I was as tired as a sloth - and as slow as one. I was saturated with sweat. Cursing fervently under my breath, I just sat down. "To Hell with this."

"Seriously dude, you need to get in shape." I looked up, and Alex was there. He wasn't out of breath, nor looking like he was about to shrivel into a ball of exhaustion. He must've finished ages ago, and ran back here to mock me. Yay.

"Thanks." I said sarcastically, voice raspy.

"Come on Fern, you can do this." Surprisingly, he held out his hand for me to take. Upon clutching it, he hauled me up. "One mile to go. That's not far."

"What... the duck... are you doing?"

"Helping you." He rolled his eyes, and started practically dragging me along.

I was not expecting that.