With a gasp, I surfaced and found myself once more in control of my body. My hands that had been futilely trying to push him off me abruptly stopped pushing and went instead for his eyes. It was a clumsy attempt, with my limbs moving slow as molasses, but my nails scraped across his face and one nail managed to poke his sensitive eye. He rolled off me with an angry yelp of pain. Then just stared at me in confusion and the beginning of fear.

"What the fuck? Your hair, eyes… your entire face and body… how the fuck did you change it like that?"

"I can do many things," I said, anger — rage — emanating from me. "Did you think Hell was going to be so easy?" My body shook as I forced myself to stand. Stand and not fall over as I spat my next words at him. "Unending pain awaits you for the crimes you have committed in life and would have continued in this afterlife. You will not find pleasure here, only pain. An eternity of suffering."

Terror filled his eyes, and ugly guilt twisted his face. Without a word, he turned and ran from me as if the demons of Hell chased after him. If only that were true. Two particular demons I would have welcomed gladly at the moment.

"Is that true? Are we dead? Are we… damned?"

I turned and saw a man lying a dozen yards away on the ground, turned toward me on his side. He wore a business suit and tie. A human, somewhere in his fifties or sixties. A second guy, young like me in his early twenties, Hispanic, with jet-black hair slicked back in a ponytail, lay a short distance behind him. He had made further progress, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. The sleeveless T-shirt he wore revealed muscular, tattooed arms. Everything about him screamed gang member.

Two men from diverse backgrounds, about as far apart on the social and economic scale as possible, and both looking to me for answers. But I had none to give them.

"I don't know," I said.