The snow gently fell, like tissue gliding from heaven. The sight of it could only be described as pure beauty. The white flakes rested on my nose as I sat on the hill top, gazing at the vast amount of snow covered trees that stood ahead of me. Some were withering, reaching the end of their lifespan, while others were only beginning to grow, ready to take on new challenges for the rest of their lives. It was the first time snow had met these ancient giants in many, many years.

It looked as if the trees were thanking the heavens for it, for the branches were raised up high, while fewer drooped wearily, awaiting there peaceful, cold death. The trees were drenched in snow as if they were coffins, which gave me a feeling of bliss.

It was a serene way to die: seeing something as gorgeous as the snow falling. It was too bad I wouldn’t be able to experience such a calm death as the spruces and ferns that populated the forest. It all comes with my territory.

I rose to my feet as the soft, numbing, pure snow fell off the rear of my jeans. I looked towards the east and saw in the crimson lit sky that the sun was rising. I crouched down and leaped into the white abyss of snow that rested peacefully beneath my feet, waiting for me to join it, wanting me to finally lay at rest as it had, but I knew that rest was for the weak, and if you join the weak, then you would become weak, it was one of the basic principles of life. And being weak was the absolute last thing I needed during an eerily harsh winter such as this.

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As I trudged through the heartless icy desert that relentlessly shoved me on my back numerous times, I knew that I could not lower my pace, for time would not let me. The only thing that my brown eyes gazed at was the infinite shroud of snow that obstructed my path to my destination. The numbing cold bit at my body every second. It started at my toes, feeling like a lick from an animal primarily, but grew to the arms, feeling more like chomps than licks, until finally, it got to my head, literally slowing my thoughts by the minute.

Trees were becoming less and less prominent every couple of miles, so I knew I was getting close, but every single step I took felt like an eternity. As the cold gradually ate away at my consciousness, my vision became decreasingly accurate. I now faced the obvious fact that I was dying. Maybe I could die peacefully, I thought, like the trees. Deep down though, I knew that a calm death for me couldn’t be. This death in the heartless clutches of the freezing winter blizzard would be agonizingly long. Peace was not meant to be in my life, but my life was meant to bring peace, ironically. I silently said goodbye to my life, my love, and my mission. My vision faded to black as my thoughts danced away in the wind with my last words, “My redemption has been… broken.”

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I fluttered my eyes open, my vision slowly returning to my retinas with figures coming back first being followed my colors. I sat straight up, leaning against a tree, still numb from the bitter cold. My whole body was covered in tiny shards of ice, which decorated my clothing like a pharaoh’s jewels glinting in the sunlight.

A red liquid steadily raced won my upper lip, starting at my nostrils, resting near my facial hair. The warm feeling of the liquid was ironically comforting, and let me know that I was still a mortal. With the little strength had left, I rose my arm, wiping the blood off of my lightly trimmed moustache, my arm weighing a ton. I attempted to make my legs move, but it was, unfortunately, to no avail. The mortal body that I was trapped in still had a ways to go before it got back into tip top shape. Surely I should have died by now, I thought. My heart was pounding, so I damn sure was alive. When I blacked out I could feel my heart stopping, my thoughts slowing, hell, I could even feel my blood freezing over from the extremely low temperature in this hell-hole. I didn’t understand how I was still here, but it didn’t matter.

Snow still surrounded me like darkness during the night, but patches of grass melted in the shroud, like stars in the midnight sky as I observed the ice encompassing me. I banged my head against the tree, in frustration, as I sat there trying to reminisce on my journey as a once distant question came to mind: How did I get here? My memories were a little fuzzy due to the removing of my halo but I still could remember the fact that I wasn’t sitting under a tree when I blacked out. I could practically feel myself gripping the sloshed snow, my head feeling like it was just hit with an axe and then… nothing.

After minutes of deep thought, I subconsciously put my hand on my head and felt something. I knew how I got here. A barrette fell out of my hair as I thought, It was her. It had to be, for she was the only one who would care enough to go on a dangerous journey such as this, especially after I specifically told her not to. Hell’s Angel is what I called her hehehe, I thought. She would never stop trying to save me, and I loved her for it, but I hated it too.

The sun glimmered brilliantly, giving light to all that was in The Void. I prayed for the brave little girl who saved me, hoping she would make it back safely, and stood feebly on my two feet, as they shook like toothpicks supporting books. I inhaled deeply and walked towards the sun, knowing that I was not too far away from the gate. This gate would not only decide the future of my life, but the rest of the world, Midas and Earth included. Who knew that you could get kicked out of Hell for something so trivial. I turned towards the sun, leaving my regrets behind me, while putting a foot one at a time in front of me.

I had finally made it. The swirling vortex that held discoveries of the past and the mysteries of the future lay suspended in mid air directly in front of me. Lightning cackled as the sphere spun in front of me at a vicious rate, mesmerizing me. Various colors turned rapidly. The sight of the gate to my destiny comforted me and gave me a feeling of success. I laughed, I cried, I bled, and I lived through it all. The prequel of my mission ended indefinitely.

I took a step not more than half a foot towards the gate. “The ones who go through world gates regularly make this looks so easy.” I thought. As I stepped closer, I felt my back tense up, feeling the closeness pf regaining one of the many things that I had lost due to my treachery. In my mind I could still feel the flames warming my backside as I glided through the hellish atmosphere seeing the faces of the tortured. It felt like reality but it sadly wasn’t. It soon would be though after I completed my mission on the world that lay beyond this gate. All I had to do was take another step or two and Earth would be my new domain. Finally, I took those agonizingly long two steps, waiting to be engulfed by the collage of colors when the worst had happened. A shadowy aura stood not but two feet behind me. It was instantly recognizable. As I turned, I gazed at the black wings with white on the tips of each individual feather; I saw the jet black hair and eyes full of malice. I smelled the hellfire and smoke stemming from his skin. I heard the screams of the thousands he and I killed together. I felt the sting of his fist impale my hip. And as my body leaned into the loud portal I tasted the bitter blood in my mouth, but mostly the taste of failure.

Thunder struck the Earth with a great force as I lay curled up in the alley like a baby in the womb. Pouring rain drenched my hair and my clothes were a couple of sheds darker than they normally were, not to mention a couple of pounds heavier. As I awoke, I ignored the searing pain in my side, and realized that I had made it. The portal carried me to Earth but where on earth was I?

. I crawled towards a close by garbage dumpster as my arms forced myself to sit upright once I leaned against it. The area near my right kidney was throbbing as it felt like I was stabbed in the side. Then I remembered: Novus. He caught me off guard, but I was gonna damn sure make sure that he wouldn’t do that again. IT would not only cost me my new life if he did, but his as well. But a question still lingered in the pits off my mind: “Why didn’t he kill me?” This question would have to wait for another time for I first had to figure out where the Hell I was.

My legs were weary but they had just enough strength in them to get me to a local diner where I could get my head straight. Then, as I rose up, I smelled something. I hadn’t been on Earth in awhile but I would always know the smell of its food. I walked out of the alley, using the wall for support. Limping across the traffic strewn road, I moved swiftly for a crippled person. The horns from the automobiles that littered the streets blasted my ear with a force that could’ve ruined my ears permanently. I wanted to just kill them all but that would put my mission in jeopardy. Furthermore, I couldn’t kill them if I tried for my power was weak.

After what seemed like monotonous hours, I stepped into the yellow and black palleted diner. A gust of cold air raised the hair on my skin as soon as I walked in. The sound of country music filling the diner to the point that I noticed the music more than the smell of the delicious food that was cooking. I wasn’t a fan of country but I dealt with it as I sat down in a booth, taking in the smell of the food, remembering Earth’s perks.

The feeling of Earth was a great one to feel, especially after all the shit I just went through. My thoughts were interrupted by an old red-headed female, wrinkles sprinkling over her face.

The old hag spoke with a Southern American dialect as I picked up a menu and quickly surveyed the list of food they had. “What’cha eatin’ hun?”

I tried to crack a false smile and lowly replied, “I’ll have the Baseball Special with bacon and hash browns. Oh, and coffee please. Black.”

She put on a giant smile and replied, “We don’t have anymore hash browns cutie so what else would you like?”

“Oh… strange, I’ll have grits then.”

She repeated part of her earlier statement, “We don’t have grits.” What kind of diner didn’t have half the food they sold? Earth people were so juvenile sometimes. “I’ll have toast then.” She nodded her head, wrote my order down, and hollered the orders to the chefs and came back to give me company in the late night. She patted her fiery red hair and began our conversation with a simple question. “So what’s your name, stranger? You don’t look like you’re from around here, New York maybe?”

“The name is Malus.” As I finished my statement an idea came to mind. I should make my name seem more Earthly. “But I go by Denzel… Denzel Jacobs. I’m from…” I struggled to remember earth cities so I just blurted one out. “I am from Tokyo!” Judging from the look on her face I said something wrong. She couldn’t blame me though; I had been in Hell forever.

“Ma’am, where exactly am I? I’ve been traveling and… Uhhhh… forgot.”

She looked at me with abnormality and said, your in the United States of America, Georgia specifically, The Peach State.” I chuckled as she mentioned where I was.

“Home sweet home… hehhehheh… Home sweet home.” I grabbed a newspaper as I waited for my food searching for three things: a cover-up job, a house, and any strange sightings. As I searched, an article caught the corner of my eye. It was titled “Teaching job available, Dogwood High School.” My search for my Hell Shards had now begun.