March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

THIRTEEN (II)

"You've been here before, little one. And you are here to fulfil a very important role in our history, one that has the potential to save not only you but the rest of the Universe."

Yup, I have officially gone insane. My brain was definitely making all of this up, I was definitely in some fever dream or comatose state that was allowing my brain to comprehend weeks of time in a dream state into what was probably a few hours.

"Do not mock our existence, flicka," Frigg ground out. "Your brain could not possibly come up with the mental capacity to dream up figures such as us."

I laughed at that, breaking my stone walls once again, and Phrer, who had remained silent through all of this, grimaced at its sharpness and harshness. "Isn't that how you all came into existence in the first place?" I countered. "Through the imaginations of your believers?"

"Actually," Freya spoke, "no, it's not. But now is not the time to discuss such matters. I would recommend reading about rather than attempting to have someone explain it on memory-"

"And what the hell are you talking about? I've never been here before. I'd remember if I'd been here before," I shot at Phrer's father.

"Technically, you would, yes," he started, "but because it was not your time when you first came here, and you still believed that you were human, your memory had to be cleaned of the days you spent here."

Not my time?

"Yes," he answered my unspoken question. "Not your time. In fact, you were five years too early last time."

Five years?

...the file.

"What?" Phrer demanded, staring at me. "You read a file?"

I glared at him indignantly. "Oh, please, it's not like I could read the damned thing. It's all written in runes. The only thing I could tell was that, judging from the pictures of the previous entries and mine, I had been scheduled to spend eternity in Helheim. Which makes no sense since you so clearly expressed a disliking towards sending me there this time around!"

"Yeah, because before we sensed what your soul was, what lineage you were from, we were going to be forced to send you there. That's where all suicide victims are sent."

I froze at that, and Phrer quickly covered his mouth, as if he hadn't meant to say that. Suicide victim? I don't remember committing suicide five years ago. I had been utterly depressed after Koralai's death, and I remember drinking heavily, but I don't remember dying, nor do I remember waking up in a hospital bed.

"That's because we managed to restore your body to how it was before a heavy night of drowning your sorrows in alcohol and painkillers to just a heavy night of alcohol," Odin stated, his voice bored, like he was simply reading off the stock market readings in the morning paper rather than telling someone that they had killed themselves but were sent back because Destiny had deemed them not yet allowed to die.

"Not Destiny, child, for he is but an unfortunately callous messenger for the Fates. They are the ones who are in charge of what must take place; Destiny simply goes about to ensure that things are set in motion to fulfill their purpose," Freya spoke. It took a minute for her words to sink in, and even then, the only thing my mind focused on was that she had been able to read it, so I built the mental barrier harder.

"Besides," the only god whose name I had yet to know began, "we could not allow you to be sent to the hospital. The surrounding areas of which you inhabited were... unwelcoming... of people such as yourself. You should really pay more attention to where you move."

I refrained from scoffing; was this god really scolding me because I had failed to do proper research on the area I lived in? Which I had, in fact, done, but I had been too preoccupied with Dom and the others finding me if I left.