When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

There was no up, no down, no left or right, no sun or moon, no stars, no sky. There
was only the cruel, infinite white tundra and the flurry of snow that gripped Nifelheims
capital Gadara, a city whose grand, imposing walls stood proudly. The drawbridge
remained eternally closed, as it had for the past three years. Anyone entering the city now
came through an underground tunnel which was normally blocked by a hefty stone that
took the strength of several men to move and could only be moved from inside the walls.
Snow crunching under his boots, the cold gnawing at his bones, Stephan Hale trudged
through Gadara's desolate town square, not even so much as wincing when his weight
shifted to his hastily bandaged right leg. Stopping, he stood at the door of an inn whose
warm light pierced the darkness of the snowstorm. Stephen hesitated, breathing out a sigh,
then heaved the door open and stepped into the inn.
A hearty fire crackled in the fireplace across from a bar where six men with scraggly
beards and broad shoulders were seated. The rightmost man glanced over his shoulder at
the new arrival, but whipped his head back around at the sight of Stephen. He whispered
some comment about a mercenary into the ears of his companions, and they continued
their chatter in hushed voices.
Stephen passed them without sparing a glance, and turned through the bar's
turnstile to glance into the kitchen. There was only a young woman fervently washing
dishes. Stephen passed back through the turnstile, now attracting the attention of the
bearded men, who glared at him silently. Stephen didn't exchange a word as he turned
around a corner, into the hall, up the stairs, and to the fourth floor where a sturdy locked
door stood shutting out the rest of the world. He rapped his knuckle on the wood, and
shuffling footsteps came from inside.

When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

"Hello?" rang a voice behind the door
"Hey. My trip got cut short, so I'm back early. I thought you would want to know as
soon as possible, but I didn't think you ..." The door's lock clicked open, and Stephen
grasped the handle so that the force on the opposite side couldn't swing it open, but no
force came, and the lock instead clicked back.
"Could you light a match?" the voice warmly questioned. Stephen pulled a matchbox
out of his right coat pocket and lit a single match so that the dim light would allow Mary to
make out his face in the darkness. The lock clicked open again, and Stephen crossed the
threshold into the living area.
"I'm sorry. I was so tired from work these past few nights I almost forgot." One
couldn't be too careful these days. Yes, there were people, other survivors, but it was the
shades that were the foremost threat these days. If a shade outwitted a man, he was as
good as dead already.
Its alright. No harm done. Marys eyes drifted down to Stephens leg, the one that
he had bandaged himself after coming face to face with two shades, and her eyes grew
wide.
Its all right, Mary. Its just a scratch.
Well, youve at least got to let me clean it. Lay down on the coach. Stephen
complied, and Mary returned a second later to have him recount the events between his
departure and present day.
The shades had come unexpectedly, as if they were demons that had ascended from
hell to wreak havoc on the world. The first instances of shades people saw in scattered
areas near Nifelheim's coastline, stealing away the lives of hunting families in the dead of

When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

night. Next, they were found in small villages, to which soldiers were futilely sent to
protect. Then, they moved northward and slipped their way past Gadara's front gates. The
royal family had then found it best to make themselves scarce, taking a grandiose but
sturdily built ship out to sea in the hopes that one of their allies would give them sanctuary.
The boat returned scarcely a few hours after its departure, its masts having been cut clean
off and swallowed up by the sea. There hadn't been a soul onboard. That night, three
people within the city walls were slaughtered by the shades. The next, a few dozen. Within
mere days, the city's population was taking losses passing the hundreds, but the people had
survived due to the leadership of Duke Larrington. The duke had been despised by the
people due to his impatient, miserly nature, and even more-so by any and all mercenaries
for eradicating even the pettiest of shady dealings in Gadara, but he was the most
experienced out of all the nobility that hadnt accompanied the royal family in their
doomed voyage. He happened to cross paths with Stephen, who had taken a less direct
route to his next job to visit the then-pregnant Mary. Larrington initially arrested the
mercenary, but came to be impressed by Stephens perceptiveness and resourcefulness,
even though he himself abhorred the thought of ever recognizing Stephen publically. The
Duke had Stephen divulge his observations and used those to destroy or drive out every
shade in Gadara, then had Stephen assigned the lowly job of a messenger.
As a messenger, Stephen always traveled on foot, despite the frigid winter season. Anybody
who set out on horse or carriage was attacked by the shades. He was sent from town to
town on foot with a sack of letters, many of which were never delivered to the intended
recipients. The populations of most villages had been more than halved. However, they had
never been completely decimated. Whenever he reached a new village, he delivered any

When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

letters addressed to the remaining survivors, taught them what he could about combatting
shades, and left in a day or two with a promise that help would come to lead them back to
Gadara or to restore order and recreate their communities. However, the particular village
Stephen had returned from had been different. No survivors. He had arrived in the early
afternoon, and he had continued to search till the sun began to set, then decided that his
only course of action was to return to Gadara. The snowstorm began after that; it had
surrounded him, consumed him, till he could barely see a few feet in front of him. Not that
there was much to see, what with the sizable tundra. But he had still caught a tiny flicker of
red light forty feet to his left, then another thirty to his right. A wolf fifty feet in front of him
howled at the hidden moon, abruptly ended when it let out a dying yelp. The shades had
begun their hunt. On his right, a girls voice commenced a howl of horror.
Hey! Whats wrong? Stephen had yelled as he broke out into a run, even though he
had realized the deception. The voice only shrieked with greater intensity. The snowstorm
parted, revealing a hooded figure. He ran up to it, put his hand on the shoulder, and the
figure turned with a mechanical motion. Behind the hood lay a contorted mass of silver
wires taking the shape of a theatre mask. It smiled back at him, twisting its coils so that the
mask appeared to be laughing at him. Stephen stood there stunned, truly stunned, not a
false emotion like the concern he had shown for the howling voice. The coils reached out of
the sleeve, forming a sharp blade. Stephen still stood there stunned, then snapped back as
the shade raised to strike him. He pulled a hammer from the belt at his side. He took a
swing, but instead of hitting the mask shade, he swung it around to hit the shade poised
behind him, the one that would have actually struck had it been given the chance. The
shades seemed to relish fear, and they wanted Stephen to be horrified once the blade

When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

pierced his chest either when he hesitated or once he attacked the shade in front of him.
Instead, all of the thousands of silver wires and coils that extended from the shades bloodred core became visible as the blow cracked the core and the masked shade whipped its
coil wires out to strike Stephen. He leaped forward instinctively, and a group of the longest
wires only grazed his right leg, creating a gash across his mid-thigh through sheer speed
alone. Stephen twisted himself around to face the still-laughing shade. He raised the
hammer once more and flew towards the shade, furiously swinging the hammer down
against the mask. On Stephens third swing, the shade dislodged its coils from the ground
and darted across the tundra. Stephen, gasping for breath, fell to the ground and rested his
head on his knees until his breath returned to a steady pace. He shuffled over to his sack,
fell down once more, and yanked a roll of gauze which he wrapped around the gash.
Stephen then got up and continued walking.
Stephen leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes, his wound cleaned and
bandaged once more.
Can I just ask one question? I dont want you to answer if its too much for you,
though. What was it about the masked shade that bothered you? Mary asked while also
attempting to avoid upsetting Stephen.
I saw that mask, and I got the feeling that the shade had chosen it specifically for
me, Stephen sighed wistfully. When I was six, I had wanted to be an actor and join one of
those traveling troupes that occasionally stopped in town, but of course my father wouldnt
have allowed it. He told me that in our line of work, we were actors. We couldnt show any
emotion except when it was a means to an ends or become too attached to any one case or
client. He said it was a cruel world, and that the only way we had a hope of a better life was

When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

living the way we did. But eventually it got to the point where I couldn't remove my mask.
Becoming faster and stronger became first priority. There was little time for anything else.
He had me do my first big job when I was thirteen. There was no time for anything else.
Suppressing emotion became second nature to me. Some people say that I'm an
underappreciated genius, others call me a cold-hearted criminal, but I just feel...
"Why do you think happened at that village?" Mary asked, trying to change the
subject, before realizing the precariousness of this question was almost as great as the first.
"I have no idea. Maybe the shades got bored and killed all the inhabitants, maybe the
people decided to up and move somewhere that might be safer. I couldn't find any clues."
Stephen spoke with a straight face, but Mary somehow recognized that the topic greatly
upset him. Stephen saw this, and tried to take his mind off of both topics.
"Can I see Molly, before I get to sleep?" Mary nodded. Both of them got up and
walked down the hall to the second door, which Stephen gradually propped open, careful to
make sure that it didn't creak. Molly's round face slept turned towards the door, the light of
the moon illuminating the child's tiny features. Stephen gave a slight smile at the innocence
that knew nothing of shades, and Mary felt a wave of relief wash over her.
"You aren't going to leave again soon, are you?" Mary whispered uneasily.
"No. Larrington told me that the next time I would set out would be a week from
now. He's sending out groups of soldiers to bring people in some of the nearby villages
back here, and he assigned me to be in one of them, so you're stuck with me for a while."
They smiled at each other in the darkness. Stephen shut the door, yawned a good night, and
drifted back into the living area where he fell back onto the couch. Hopefully, none of his
dreams would have the masked shade in them tonight. But even if they did, he wouldn't

When Youre Going Through Hel, Keep Going

stop struggling, wouldn't stop resisting. Even should he be dragged to the depths of some
icy hell, he will keep going.