God Complex

Chapter 4: Psychopomps- Hel

There was a time before the Psychopomps. Before contract killing became her job. Before she was forced to grow up in a place that shared her name, a cold prison: Hell. Rejected by the rest of her Aesir people because of her lineage, she resented her father. He gave her this face and blood that Odin hated so much. Hel and her brothers had been made to pay for their father's transgressions against the old Aesir king.

"Why are you doing this," Hel asked Odin the day he and his men came to her home. She asked but never got an answer. That one-eyed curmudgeon stared her down, silent even as she cried, even as she begged him to tell her why.

"W-we haven't done anything wrong!" she screamed to the Aesir soldiers who dragged her from her room. "Why won't you say anything to me? Please, why is this happening?!"

Still, they hadn't answered her panicked questions. They tied Hel's hands behind her back and threw her down beside her Jotun mother, Angrboða. Her mother was still. So still that the unmoving sight of her caused an eerie feeling to bloom in the pit of Hel's stomach. Her mother laid there face down in a puddle of tears, hands bound to her ankles.

"Mum, do you know why they're doing this?" Hel questioned. "Why? Mum, h-hey, say something...are you okay? Mum!?" More questions went unanswered.

Her eldest brother was thrown into the sea. The other was bound and dragged away like a dog, doomed to the cage. They tossed her into Hell. By then she'd given up asking questions.

That cold, wet, place became her home. Most of her time was spent by an old river where she skipped rocks and watched souls sail by. Sinners came up the river in droves and were sectioned into one of the many circles of hell. Hel had to do her best not to be caught by any of the archdemons that would roam around searching for escapees.

A life of hiding, scavenging and watching persisted until the day a ferry, unlike the others, stopped before her and a woman adorned with white lilies stepped off. Despite her colorless wardrobe, not a speck of dirt stained her outfit even as she trudged over to Hel. There was no doubt in Hel's mind that there was, in fact, a woman before her. Yet there was something about the way she moved. How silent her footsteps were, and how this realm's unending acid rain never touched her skin. It was as if she wasn't there physically but still had a presence.

"What exactly could a girl as young as you have done to end up here?"

The woman's voice was like a distant star to Hel. Even though she could hear it clearly, something told her everything inside the woman was long dead.

"Come here. Let me get a good look at you."

Hel wouldn't let the woman touch her and tried to run away but the woman appeared behind her.

"Good. You won't open up to a complete stranger. You're smart. I can find some use for you."

She made an offer to Hel that day. An offer to take her away from the perpetual cold, the stone that stretched far as she could see, and most importantly, Odin's watchful eye. Word is that a new reform was coming down throughout the nine realms. A new law had passed that meant the very nature of death was going to change, so someone like Hel was about to become very useful.

She remembered being whisked away to a domain of scattered lilies. Stone architectures crudely formed from the ground overrun by the white flowers. Hel followed the woman into a megalith that sat at the center of the island surrounded by water that was somehow murky and clear at the same time. They walked down several dimly lit corridors, and Hel could hear the structure shifting about with every step they took. The woman in white before her stopped once they reached a dungeon.

Hel looked up at the ivory haired woman. The regal-looking goddess stared into the jail cell across from the two. Her cold violet eyes fixated on a frail figure behind the bars. Hel saw her too, a sickly thing with pale skin and maroon hair. Beneath her was a bed of black feathers. The girl trembled as her eyes flashed between red and blue, and her lips parted as though to ask for help, but she didn't make a sound.