Chapter II

Brown eyes awoke in the dark, searching for some focus, information. White soft skin felt the sheets beneath it and caressed them. Nostrils flared with the sense of mould. Hears detected screaming from afar.
Movement is felt… The moldy smell intensified… Light is seen…
A woman with a candle holder walks in slow steps to the bed. She sets the candle holder on the table and it surprisingly lights the entire chamber. She sits on a throne-like chair, crosses her legs and stares at the bed, smiling mischievously. The uncomfortable moments of stillness were passed with the studying of the sheet’s movements. Soon, the woman propped her chin, on the fist.
- How long will you pretend to be a sleep when you are awake?
No answer was received.
- It is not at all without irony, that during the long sleep, you’d pretend to be sleeping.
This sentence caused an abrupt movement. The sheet flew and the occupant of the bed sat and saw the hostess for the first time.
This woman was the source of the moldy smell that invaded all of the room. Her legs were decomposing, as a corpse that has not buried, but her upper body and face were that of a beautiful lady. She wore a green gown; open almost down to her navel, exposing almost the entirety of her corpse-like skinned breasts; her legs were revealed by the opening of her dress, which seemed to be as a robe, rather then an actual dress. Behind her neck, the dress extended a long self-standing collar, which stood higher than the woman’s head. He black hair cascaded to her shoulders.
- I can safely say that sleeping as done you good, my dear girl.
– Am I dead? - The woman on the bed fearfully asked.
– Wasn’t that what you wanted? - That was her answer.
The woman looked at herself, and found herself wearing a white tunic; she looked around the room, and recognized nothing. Nor the bed, nor the table, nor the chairs, nothing looked recognizable, even though they were all usual objects, all seemed different. She rose from the bed and the touch of the ground also felt different to her feet, she walked to the end of the room, where a mirror was propped against the wall, and as she looked at the mirror hopping to finally recognize something, she was devastated to see she could not recognize herself. On the mirror stood the image of her death, her blue red-stained gown and the axe, her companion in death, were her only recollections. She turned to the woman in green for answers she needed not phrase.
– I am Hella, and this is the Underworld. - The woman stated as she rose from her throne-like chair. - You are dead. You’ve taken your own life. - She approached her in soft steps. - That was your death, Haldora. - She said pointing to the mirror. - And this is who you will be from now on!
Haldora opened her tunic and saw her scar; the line ran from her chest to her stomach and seemed to pull her skin into it like into an abyss.
– When that scar is healed, the world of the living will no longer be in your head and you will be ready to start again.
– Where is he? - Haldora shyly asked.
– There is no he! - Replied Hella, hinting her rage at the question, and then living as softly as she had arrived.
Haldora caressed her own scar, as if it were a baby… Her expression, as sad as a childless mother.