The End in the Beginning

Prologue:

Almost none of the gods alive knew what the world had been like before the Great War or what came before the fates: Asteria, of the dark, and Eos, of the light. They were all that was left of that bygone era, a golden age that had ended in darkness. The fates created the beginnings of everything that still existed today, out of a history no one could verify. A history of blood and one in which almost nothing survived. A history that saw the world left in ashes and rot.

While almost no one knew the truth of what had happened in those forgotten days, the fates had shared the tale a time or two and it had passed through word of mouth that way. What was commonly known was this: in the old world, there were primordial creatures with divinity as powerful as the fates themselves. Creatures like the essence of the earth and sky and moon and all the elements. There had been monsters too, great and fearsome beasts of unfathomable power and thirst for blood. The first set of creatures had no desire to rule to world, existing mostly without bodies or thought and the second set only sought chaos and destruction. So Asteria and Eos decided to rule it all.

The first beings the fates ever created were the Titans, a giant war-hungry race created from stone and Ichor. They lived only to fight and fuck and serve. Their brute power crushed any opposition that moved against the fates. And with their purpose solidified, the Titans had been the fates' most loyal subjects, true and fearless as they guarded their queens in their rule of the world. Many primordial creatures and monsters fell to the Titan army in those days.

The land had been so prosperous without as many monsters, the fates crafted humans from clay to work the fields and craft goods. They were happy to live a life of subjugation, serving their fates and the immortal Titans. Some even mated with Titans and created half-breeds. And in that there was a divine order and a lasting peace. Everyone respected the hierarchy of power. Fates at the top, Titans in the middle and humans at the bottom.

But when the fates grew bored and began to create again, the beings they made were powerful, almost in equal measure with the Titans. These new beings would come to be known as the gods. The Titans grew resentful of the gifts the fates bestowed upon those gods, because it was more than raw strength. They could wield elements and cast spells, they could draw forth light or dark power to use at will.

In the story the fates told, the Titans were power hungry and covetous at their core, though the fates didn't know that until it was too late. The Titans saw what they could have had and rebelled, starting the Great War with no intention of letting either fate live. Or any of those new gods either. Asteria and Eos wrangled the whole pantheon of gods to face the Titans and still, they only managed to imprison them in a cell so deep in Tartarus it only existed in nightmares. And it had been at great cost: the whole pantheon of gods fell as the world was plunged into fire and darkness. Even the old primordial creatures and monsters were lost to the destruction.

When the ashes settled, the fates formed the first new clay men and the first women of the new world, breathing life into their imperfect forms until they were made real. And from those first new forms, their lines flourished into the seven billion people that now covered the earth. They'd created the first new gods too, using the human body to amplify their Ichor until they were made immortal. Determined to never make that world-ending mistake again, the fates vowed never to create another Titan. And in the era of new gods, power and strength was never given absolutely. Every god had a weakness to balance a strength.

They continued to create again: plants, animals, even monsters. Everything was a product of them and their power. Their strength was a fact that kept them in unchallenged positions of power among the new gods. They did as they wanted and answered to no one. Though humans bowed to the gods, the gods bowed to the fates. And in that, the original order was restored to the world.

Humans knew very little about anything, hardly better than the beasts that roamed the land and as time went on, they even forgot that there were gods altogether. They thought the world was full of wonders of faith and intuition. They came up with a plethora of explanations about how things worked and whose chosen divinity was all powerful. The gods found the widespread ignorance and their own anonymity exciting, perfect for playing games with the humans, a blood sport of sorts.

The gods knew more than the humans but even then, they didn't know anything substantial about the fates or the Titans. Even the goddess Dodona, the reclusive oracle of the past, knew nothing meaningful about the fates or how they came to be. Or if she did, she wasn't sharing. She was the last goddess remaining from the old world, the last of the original pantheon. And because of it, she was seen as a traitor to her kind.

Among the gods, secrets were a form of power, knowledge was often used to control, and in the case of Asteria and Eos, not enough was known about their origins or weaknesses to ever give a god an advantage. So everyone relied on the common well of knowledge about what had happened in the old world.

The only problem with the well of common knowledge turned out to be that it was all lies.

---

The wet grass dewed against Angel's back as she stretched across the lawn in front of her. Shivers rippled through her unnaturally thin form. Her clothes barely fit, jeans slipping low around her hips. How had she gotten so small? Already a petite-framed girl, the thinness didn't seem unnatural, but it was noticeable. Her clothes were covered in a dark splatter she didn't recognize. There were large splotches and little specs as well.

She shifted and lay her head fully into the grass, her thick, curly hair splayed around her. It was paler, and her blond highlights had grown out to the ends. When had her hair grown? It must have been down to her butt from the look of it. She reached up and brushed her tear-stained cheeks. She didn't remember crying. She parted her fingers through the blades of grass, letting herself study the details of the night clouds and the stars above them and the nothingness above that. The quietness of it all was eerie. Aside from the sounds of crickets, there was nothing. Even the breeze didn't blow. She looked back at the house she came from, which was equally quiet. She didn't recognize it at all. Whose house was it?

She looked to her right, following the rows of cookie cutter houses down an endless street towards the night. They were barely visible in the dark, looming like monuments. The streetlamps left a strange glow everywhere, casting pretty sparkles across her naturally tanned skin. Nothing about her surroundings felt particularly real. Looking left down the street was much the same. She felt alone in the vastness of it. And the quietness. She couldn't see a single soul. No one walking. No one in their windows. No lights flicking on as they watched tv. It was as if she were looking at a street of empty houses which made no sense. Perhaps if she closed her eyes, something would become clear. Her long lashes fluttered. She really did feel exhausted. Why was she so tired?

She had just begun to lower her lids when a sudden sound startled her—it was a car door slamming shut. She snapped her eyes up to see a black Jeep in front of the house two doors down. Four pale figures in vests craned their necks, scanning for something. One bounded up the walkway of that house and burst through the door. She should have felt worried at least, but her head was quiet and tired. The other figures spread out between the houses, each heading for a door.

Another one suddenly kicked in the door of the house next to hers. She noticed the sound of crickets suddenly died in the air and everything became several degrees colder. Angel tensed but still didn't have the energy to move, watching as a figure approached her door. Boom, then silence. Anxiety started creeping into her. Why couldn't she move? Why couldn't she react at all? Who were these men? A few moments later the figure emerged, shouting "All clear inside" before looking toward the grass, "Wait! I've got something!"

The exhaustion strangled her senses, overwhelming her undernourished body to the point of unconsciousness. She couldn't hold her eyes open anymore as the figures surrounded her. A light blasted across her face then she felt a stab in the neck and the cold wave of sleep crashing over her. Her eyes closed just as a voice came near her face, "A human girl?", then sleep overcame her.

The men looked down at the small figure of a girl. She looked as if she hadn't eaten in a long while or slept, for that matter. The most disturbing part of her was the blood. She was covered in it. But she appeared to have no wounds so it wasn't her blood. Even though there were obvious signs of stress on her body, she was remarkably lovely. She had round, soft-looking lips, a delicate demeanor and symmetrical features. How had she ended up in the underworld? How had she ended up in the underworld, alive? It was practically impossible.

"What should we do?" Zero asked, clicking off his flashlight and shoving it into his vest pocket. He looked to the group's leader, Brazz.

"Uhh, shit. A human? A living human?" Daw asked to no one in particular. It shocked them all.

"Someone radio it in," Brazz insisted, tossing the empty sedative syringe into his black satchel. When no one moved he singled one of the men out, "Rig, radio it in, dammit."

The burlier one of the four, Rig, headed back to the jeep to call in the discovery to dispatch. Hell had become remarkably efficient in recent centuries. They had lots of modern advancements which made managing things easier. He struggled to remember the protocol on unauthorized visitors. Is that really what this was? No one would put themselves in hell. It just didn't happen. When he reached the radio, he punched in the right frequency and called in.

"Dispatch. Over."

"Copy. Dispatch here. Over."

"Dispatch, I need to call in...," he hesitated for a moment, trying to decide on the best protocol definition to fit this scenario, "I need to call in a breach. Over."

"Copy. A breach of what nature. Over."

"A human kind, dispatch. Over."

"Sorry repeat. Over."

"A human has breached a hell house. Over."

"Copy. Sector and house? Over."

"Sector 5927. House number as follows: 982-54364-512-23. Over."

"Copy. Noted. Return with offender. Over."

"Copy. Over."

Rig jumped back out of the jeep and headed towards the group where Zero and Daw were in the middle of a heated argument. He couldn't focus on that, instead he wondered what Hades would do with the girl, what he would do to the girl. He wasn't one to take a breach lightly. In fact he was likely to be violent towards even the lightest offenders. He shuddered to think about it.

"We should have just put her back," Daw insisted taking several steps toward Zero, "Why call it in at all? What Hades doesn't know, won't kill us!"

"That's cruel," Zero gasped, "She's so small. And if you saw inside that house, you wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"It's not protocol to ignore a discovery," Brazz cut in, "So it was called in and that's final. Imagine if our king found this out for himself and wondered why he was never informed? Do you think death is the worst he can do Daw?"

That stopped the argument from going any further. And they both settled away from one another.

"Rig. Put the girl in the back of the jeep, let's get going," Brazz ordered, "We've disturbed enough houses tonight."

Rig lifted her body and was again shocked at how small she was. Up close, her beauty was even harder to deny and he couldn't help but feel swayed to be gentle with her.

It only took him a few long strides to reach the vehicle and with one hand holding her in place, he lowered the tailgate. With a small but gentle motion, he deposited her onto the padded floor area between their seats and closed the gate. One at a time, they each skirted around her tiny frame into their seats in the back and Brazz jumped into the front seat. No one had any inkling of what to do from that point forward but they knew, without a doubt, it would be a long night.