Alexander found himself on a dark road. The road was made of dirt and had a look like millions of people had used of the years. At the edge were a few dead trees. There was no moon in the sky, yet the entire environment had a grey shade thrown upon it. There was a mist that made it impossible to see farther than 3 metres in front of you. The only sound came from a river in the distance.
When he thought about it, Alexander couldn't seem to remember how he got here exactly. It reminded him of Inception. 'You never remember the beginning of your dream.' With that in mind, he decided to follow the road, heading towards the thundering of the river.
After a little while of walking, he came past a tree. Now, the fact that there was a tree was not that weird – there were plenty of those – but as soon as Alexander passed it, the tree caught fire. Within a matter of seconds, the entire tree had been reduced to ashes. In the spot where the plant had been, there was now a man. He was clothed in dark green armour and a golden cloak. On his silky, shoulder-length black hair was a horned crown made of gold.
As would be expected in this situation, Alexander could do nothing but be paralyzed with confusion. It's not every day you see a man dressed in old armour come out of a burning tree.
"Hello, you still here?" The man snapped his fingers. When Alexander still didn't respond, he snapped his fingers and his clothes changed into jeans and a Guns 'n Roses t-shirt.
"Better?" He asked. This time Alexander managed to mutter a simple 'yes'.
"So, Dude, apparently you've won the grand price. You're going to help me run a little errand. Any questions?"
"Well, for a start, who are you?" Alexander asked, having regained his tongue.
"Yes, of course. My name is Loki, God of Fire and Trickery, son of Fárbauti, father – mother – to Fenrir, etcetera.
"You mean like, "brother of Thor" Loki?"
Loki seemed to be confused for a second before answering. "No, that's something the comics made up, more question?"
Yes," Alexander said, "Where am I?"
"Hate to break it to you in this way, but you are well on your way to Hel."
"Hell, I expected a little more fire and stuff."
"No, that's Hell – double 'l,' this is Hel, single 'l'. It's the Norse variant on the whole deal."
"So, this means I'm dead?"
"Yep, but here my "errand" come in. I might have found out a way to get you back into the narrative. All you've got do is kill Hel – She runs the place."
Loki presented his deal like it was just another day at the office. Go and kill a god.
"So, how exactly do you kill a god?" Alexander asked the god in front of him.
"Not my problem," He answered, helpful as ever, "I'll help you out. I'll give you a guide." Loki opened his hand and revealed a blood red raven. "This little guy is Flœrd. He's supposed to help you whenever you're too stupid to figure something out, good luck!" With that he fell backwards and vanished in the flames.
Recovering from this extraordinary experience, Alexander decided to do the only logical thing that came to mind. He decided to go to Hel.

After a long walk through the mist, Alex came to the river. The river looked like a lot of blood was really eager to get away from this place. Next to the river was a sign that said "Gjallarbrȗ, treat with care." The bird looked towards Alexander and immediately the man heard a voice in his head.
"It's Norse for Bridge over the Gjöll – That's the river. Gjöll means loud." The voice croaky and high-pitched, the voice you'd suspect from a raven. Next to the river was a giant. A female one. As soon as she saw Alexander, she came up to him for a quick check-up. From the beginning of time, it had been here job to guard the bridge and make sure only people that have actually died across. After a couple of seconds, she apparently decided that Alexander was dead enough to go through, and she stepped aside. Alexander crossed the bridge, surprised by how easy it seemed.
A steady bit of walking later, Alex came across another sight of wonder. The road passed right through a battlefield. Men from all ages were engaged in the most peculiar battle in the history of war. Vikings versus Vikings, Romans versus Teutons, Redcoats versus Bluecoats, Allies versus Nazis. Armies from all ages were fighting each other, stuck in a battle that seemed to have started millennia ago, and which probably wasn't due anytime soon.
The weirdest thing about the whole ordeal was that the path to Hel led straight through, and as Alexander started making his way across, no-one seemed to mind him, let alone notice his existence. When a Viking's axe almost hit Alexander in the face, he tried to dodge, but he was too late. The Axe passed right through him, along with his wielder.
When the battle was crossed, Alexander came to the next obstacle on his way to Hel. In front of him was a wall. When I say wall, I mean a big wall. The thing was as wide as the eye could reach and about 20 metres tall. Not only that, the wall was also extremely polished, leaving no way to climb it. To add to the madness, there were also a bunch of chickens.
"Eh, Bird. You have any clue what do here?" Alexander asked, still feeling weird asking advice from a bird. To his big surprise, the thing actually responded.
"Well, you could try to jump it. It's either that or throwing a chicken's head over."
"Jump it or decapitate a chicken?" Alex asked in himself. He would have been a fool for not at least attempting the first option, which turned out to work pretty well.
When Alexander was in the air, he could see the battle still raging on behind him, and in front of him was Helheim, the kingdom of Hel. It was a dim, grey place, but not quite as torturous as it is made out to be. In the middle of a dead garden was one great hall. Outside of the garden's fences were millions and millions of deceased souls, patiently waiting and audience with the queen.
When Alex landed, he managed to land in the most inconvenient spot he could have landed: the back of the line. Luckily for him, the queen of Helheim had an agenda of her own, so he was led into the hall at once. On his way, a few million sombre and sad faces stared at him. Alexander felt his guilt creeping up, knowing that they had to wait another eternity until they were let in. He couldn't have been more wrong.
Inside, the hall looked even bigger than from the outside. A thousand bone pillars held up the roof, so high dark clouds formed on the ceiling. At each pillar was a guard. Skeletons and souls dressed in uniform from around history, doomed or honoured to protect their queen until Ragnarök. On the back end of the great hall, there was a throne equally great. It seemed to be carved out of a giant's skull, with a satin seating where the nose would have been. Alexander wasn't sure if giants had horns, but he was sure that their eyes were not rubies. Nevertheless, it made quite the spectacular sight.
On the great skull throne sat Hel herself. She was dressed as if she had a funeral later today, with a black gown covering half of her face. The half that was uncovered was a pale but beautiful half, with white blond hair covering it. When she stood up, the gown fell off, revealing her other half. What was revealed was a skull. Half of the skin on her face was gone. The skull was as pale as her skin, with her eye half hanging out of his socket. She made an overall terrifying sight.
"Welcome, human, to Helheim."