Disclaimer: Turning Red and it's characters are the property of (c) Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation Studios.

Elements are borrowed from God of War (2018) and Ragnarök, owned by (c) Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment.

C/W: Disturbing and gruesome themes, blood.


…and then reappeared.

Neither Stig nor Roar, not even Rudolf, had any words at all to describe how that felt.

If anything, it was like being there and not there at the same time. All in all, though, they took a moment to drink in their new surroundings. If not for the magic protecting them, they'd be really freezing by now. Even more so than they would be back in Niflheim. Because the sub-zero temperature down there was at unfathomable and inhospitable levels that no living human being would ever survive. Not only that, but it was quite dark. As dark and cold and vacant with an unwelcoming ambience everywhere like an open, yawning shallow grave.

Why was that? Because they had finally made it to their destination.

Their final destination.

(ᚺ)
Helheim (Old Norse: Hel / Nordic: ᚺᛖᛚᚺᛖᛁᛗ):
(HOME of the DISHONORABLE DEAD)

Great, plentiful and voluminous frozen ice was absolutely everywhere and even the ground was frozen as if they were standing in the middle of an Icelandic glacier. The souls they were with were now wandering around aimlessly with no clear cognizance of where they were heading or where'd they even go, but this was where they were meant to be, where all bad souls go in this Nordic afterlife of evil dead. They'd made their bed, now they must sleep in it. Now as for the realm itself, it was certainly dark, no doubt about it. Thick, black and gray clouds filled the skies up above with zero sunshine, adding into the dismal and gloomy appeal to this land.

And there was not a single tree or patch of green to be seen anywhere. After all, this was a realm devoid of all forms of life and not to mention it was a zillion degrees below zero down here with ice everywhere, so it would make total sense why nothing would ever grow here.

"So this is it, huh? The land of the dead." Stig commented, eyes floating around the lifeless environment (or lack thereof). "Didn't really expect much."

"Land of the dead is anything if not lively." Ratatoskr joshed from inside the backpack, briefly unzipping it to get a look around. "Dare I say it's like a graveyard around here. If the graveyard was frozen over."

But then he quickly shivered from the extreme cold before heading back inside. Rudolf turned a horror clenched his heart to see that the entrance they came in from was gone.

It just wasn't there anymore.

"Wha-….What happened to the entrance!?" He was beginning to panic. "How are we getting back?!"

"We have this." Stig confirmed, holding out the Skíðblaðnir cloth before putting it in his pocket.

"So Kris has to be around here somewhere." said Roar reasonably.

"But where, though?" Rudolf asked worriedly, looking around shakingly. "Where can we even start?"

"Quiet, knucklehead." Stig reached into his pocket and fished out the compass. "We got this, remember?"

"So how does it work? How will it work?" Rudolf eyed the object with wonder.

"Let me see. Help us find Kris." Stig whispered his order to the compass and held up for the others to see once it began to react to the goth boy's command. Around and around the golden rings went until they settled and the symbols aimed for the direction it requires them to head if they wish to find who they seek in this realm.

"Alrighty then." Roar nodded to it.

So they started their way through the world of unyielding ice and cold, following the compass's lead down onward the pathway forward. Now for the weapons, Stig possessed the longbow and the cloth ship while Roar was in possession of the ax while Rudolf held onto the strange cake, for what purpose they still didn't know. How they will assist them in surviving any potential dangers present in Helheim was to be seen to be believed sooner or later. First, they'd have to run into any of the dead, the Hel-walkers as they have been often called many times. The more they traversed the lifeless land, the more it felt like they were inside the Vatnajökull. A fierce wind blew in all directions like Old Man Winter was having a hissy fit.

GNIPAHELLIR
The Cave of Garm

What went entirely unnoticed by the trio of human travelers was the massive entrance to a deep and dark cave located directly above their heads that rested 50 ft. high overhead the ground where one can take notice of giant chains stretching out from the mouth of the cave.

And out from the deep within the darkness of that very disquieting cave, reverberating off the walls….was a spine-chilling snarl.

They stayed close together as Elsa ordered them to do so they didn't lose track of one another in this unappealing land of icy darkness and unrelenting danger. At the moment, it looked like they were in a small gorge of sorts judging by the way these jagged ices were aligned and formed. From somewhere behind them, it moved quickly like a flash. It jumped from one side to another carrying a resounding jingle of chains with it. However, when Rudolf looked behind him, there was nothing there and yet, his gut was telling him that something was out there, closing in on them, waiting for the right moment to catch them unawares.

"You know, I feel we should be remembering something." He brought up to the two, stammering.

"What do you mean by that, exactly?" asked Roar, one single eyebrow lifted.

"Maybe because, well…. who am I kidding?! How can I remember anything!? " Rudolf erupted with panic, clutching the hard cake tightly. The tree squirrel popped back out.

"Don't worry your pretty little head." promised Ratatoskr, patting the poor boy. "Nothing's gonna harm either of you while I'm around. We're like a team, you and I. Nothing can stand in our way."

SLAM!

"Aaaaahhhhhhhh-hhhhhhhhh-hhhhhhhhh!"

The boys all screamed helplessly in abject terror when suddenly, from out unreservedly out of nowhere, a larger-than-life wolf-like hellhound beast jumped down from the icy hills above and landed smack down on the ground in front of the trio, blocking their path ahead and preventing them from pursuing it any further.

"Except that one!" Ratatoskr retreated back into the backpack for safety. "...ooh, trail mix."

"Oh, great another one!" Stig complained.

Now this one was far larger than Fenrir, however, for it reached roughly to just nearly about the size and height of a freighter. It had pale, ghostly white, faded fur and it was chained up by the ankles with gigantic rusted chains tailored to the towering beast's immense size. And what's more terrifying and intimidatingly gruesome and calamitous about this new giant hound monster was it had a snarling, drooling mouth full of dangerously sharp teeth and canines good enough for tearing into delicious flesh without effort and most devastatingly enough, it's lips were drenched in….. blood.

Blood that spilled all over its fur in front of it as if it had a huge, juicy meal of human prey, but apparently not nearly enough to satiate its dreadful hunger. And its eyes…..its eyes were clouded, glassy and milky, withholding most assuredly nothing behind them. Not a single soul to be seen from within them.

Garm (Old Norse: Garmr), the Blood-Stained Guardian of Hel's Gate and the prisoner of the cave of Gnipahellir with a carnivorous taste for human flesh and the terrifying ability to consume and devour entire metaphysical concepts with just the snap of his jaws was ready for a brand new meal and with the three boys in front of it, they seemed enough to fill his belly. It's only rare that a couple of succulent, fresh living mortal humans stumble into Helheim, land for the dishonorable dead, and haphazardly find their way into his neck of the woods. He would certainly kill to have a meal like that.

The gargantuan hellhound snarled and growled at the three terrified teens with a predatory gaze in his empty, soulless eyes with a malicious and murderous intent as he slowly edged closer to them with his fierce, fang-bare, bloody mouth gaping open with eagerness for a sample of soft flesh, forcing the boys to back away as the monster of a hound inched nearer and nearer.

A humongous 56 ft. tall guard dog covered in blood? Now that really should've been critical information to give them right from the get-go.

"Does it really need to be THAT big?!" Roar screamed with horror as the beast zeroed in on them.

"Uh, hi!" Stig tried to greet it politely, hoping to be able to communicate with it and maybe bring some manifestation of compassion within the beast. "Hello? Would you mind….letting us through?….maybe?"

The only answer he got from Garm was guttural growling. No words could be heard or translated from any of that.

"No? Okay." So the hard way it was gonna be.

Rising to the instinct of defense, Stig reached for the longbow and aimed its Bifröst arrow right at the guard dog's face with such impressive point-blank accuracy for a boy who hasn't done archery in a long while.

To their immediate surprise, however, Garm simply caught the arrow with his mouth.

"Blæst." said Stig.

KA-BOOM!

The magic arrow exploded in Garm's mouth, taking it by total surprise and the force of the abrupt blast knocked the massive hound back away, tumbling to the ground like an oversized rag doll. It seemed like it did the trick, though the teens kept their guard up and waited tensely and carefully for any detectable movement, waiting to make absolutely sure that it was actually dead.

It wasn't.

Garm lifted his head back up to glare furiously at the boys, Stig in particular. The arrow didn't help at all. All it did was piss him off.

"Time to go." Roar whimpered wimpily.

Then they all ran for their lives as Garm roared, picking himself back up and chasing after his prey with unrelenting fury. While still running, Stig shot more arrows at it and shouted " Blæst! " every single time they hit the stampeding mongrel, but their explosions were ineffective, only urging the hungry mutt to pick up more speed.

"The bomb arrows aren't working!" hollered Roar.

"This is WAY worse than the SkyDome!" Stig screamed as they darted through the canyon of ice and back the way they came to evade their slobbering, snarling pursuer.

"At least the giant red panda mamma kaiju didn't want to EAT US ALIVE!" shouted Rudolf.

As far as they could tell, Garm was restrained with chains, so obviously he cannot venture any further than he wanted to. Their best bet at the moment was to try and hide and wait for it to lose interest. They had just passed the Gnipahellir cave with Garm still chasing after them, now starting to gain on them. Luckily, they saw a small crevice in the icy ground that looked big enough for all three of them to fit.

"GGGGRRRRRGGRRRRAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRR!"

But then Garm went for the pounce. He lunged at them with his fanged jaw wide open, but they scattered out of the way in time for the colossal guard dog to slam against a frozen wall, which cracked and shattered ice rocks from the solid impact.

"Hey! Blæst!"

To disorientate him, Stig fired another Bifröst arrow at his face to buy him and his friend some time to make their way over to the crevice, plunging themselves down in their out of sight just as Garm regained his bearings and charged over to the hole where his new game was hiding, sniffing around and trying to claw the hole open wider to get at them.

The boy kept themselves hidden inside the hole, holding their knees together as they tried to come up with a plan.

"Ahhh!" They all yelped then they saw a rotting corpse of a Viking sitting there on the ground next to them with its eyeless, sunken eye sockets staring right towards the living mortals. The ground shook as Garm banged on the opening to try and get in.

"He's gonna giving up yet." Stig panted and wheezed.

"Maybe he just wants a belly rub or scratch behind the ears." Rudolf vainly suggested.

"Would you like to test that theory?" retorted Roar.

"No, thanks."

"What did you boys do to make him so mad?" asked the voice of the squirrel from inside Rudolf's backpack with a mouth full of trail mix.

Suddenly, the rumbling stopped and they all waited for a sound. It was suspiciously quiet for a moment. But they didn't like it.

"Is he gone?" asked Roar with a whisper.

Against his better judgment, Rudolf volunteered to peer his head out of the hole and get a good look around. For a second, he couldn't see the massive mongrel anywhere.

"AHH!" He screamed when Garm appeared suddenly and tried to chomp at his head, but he ducked back down, just narrowly avoiding the giant teeth.

"Between the trajectory of the sun and the moon, I'd say PROBABLY NOT!" He yelled, heart pumping in his chest.

"What if we tossed that guy out there!" Stig pointed to the dead body. "Will he even take the dead ones?!"

"Are you kidding!? That dude barely has any meat left!" Roar complained in disagreement. "I didn't come all this way just to become dog food!"

"Wait. The cake!"

That's when he remembered the Hel cake that the He-Witch had given them before they entered Helheim. Now he was starting to realize who and what he was referring to. However, Roar and Stig's faces turned sour when they saw Rudolf was eating a chunk out of it.

"DOLF!"

"I'm stress eating, okay!?" He argued with his mouth full. "This really tastes bad. Could've used another beaten egg…."

"Give me that." Stig hissed, snatching the cake from him.

He waited for the hellhound to stop pounding against the crevice's entrance and building up enough arm strength, Stig tossed the Hel cake out of the hole like a basketball far enough away from them.

Albeit taken aback, Garm nonetheless stomped over to the strange confection and gave it a curious sniff. And then surprisingly, his murderous demeanor vanished as he gave a somewhat delighted hum and grabbed the cake off the ground. With extreme caution after waiting a couple seconds, all three boys peaked their heads out of the hole to see Garm marching away with the Hel cake in his mouth back to his cave like a domesticated house dog.

"Come on, fellas. Now's our chance." Stig whispered to them and they quickly, but stealthily, crawled out of the hole.

While the guard dog was occupied with his treat, the trio made a clean getaway and they stopped once they were at a clear distance from the cave where the imprisoned hound was and took this moment to catch their breath.

That was definitely a close shave.

Unzipping the backpack, Ratatoskr poked his head out and looked just as pleased to see that Garm was finally gone.

"Ha! See? I told you! Teamwork! That's all it took." He celebrated while they frowned at him, since he was hardly any help at all.

"…by the way, you're out of trail mix."


Back in Asgard, preparation for the ritual was about to commence. It was to be set in the Rift where Mei and Ming had discussed things over to Wu about their little plan to finally take care of their red panda situation. Despite how strained things were between Ming and her mother after their clash of egos, she managed to fight her negative feelings back to explain everything to her.

Wu was already eager to follow along with the plan, since she, too, is unwilling for a three-year-long wait. So she assembled the aunties and here they were all there in the Rift together with Odin, Freya, Týr, Frigg and yours truly, the He-Witch.

"Was it a good idea to send those boys down there?" Wu asked strictly.

"Only three of us could be allowed into the afterlife and Stig and the boys are the only ones closest to Kris." Elsa explained to her.

"And Mei-Mei isn't?" Ming seemed surprised by how that sounded to her.

"Relax, mom. They got this. I'm willing to bet on it." Mei patted her mother's arm.

"What about that Rudolf kid?" Lily asked with a mother's worry. "He's probably scared out of his wits down there."

"If he's with Stig and Roar, then he's got nothing to worry about." Elsa waved her concerns off, though undeniably, she had a few of her own at the moment. What if something were to happen to those three down there?

"Are you sure it was really necessary to separate Kris's soul from his body back at the concert?" asked Ping, wondering out loud with maternal solicitude. "I mean, Kris was pretty much stuck here in these realms for the past seven months."

"It was the only way." explained the primordial enchanter and gatekeeper with unrelenting surety. "If he had stayed merged with Thor for too long, he would've died. Being within the body of a powerful god is far too much for a mortal mind like his to handle."

That dire explanation was followed closely by a uniform gasp amongst the group. As for Ming on the other hand, she gulped and sweated crazily at the thought of nearly being the cause of Kris's grisly demise back at the SkyDome. And the thought of him being trapped in Helheim with the Goddess of Death only made this notion far more painful to think about.

"Let us begin." The He-Witch instructed with some items and a large stone bowl for ritualistic practices on the ground.

"Are you sure about this?" Wu hesitantly asked just to be sure.

"This won't rid you of the red pandas, but you'll be able to transform freely." He answered her in a matter-of-factly manner.

"Yeah, but…we'll still have-"

"Mom, please. Maybe it's time we stop trying to lock our pandas away." Ping took her mother's hands and caressed them gingerly.

"She's right. After all, they are still a part of us, all of us, whether we like it or not." Helen backed her cousin up.

Wu wanted to object, but she didn't. She had grown up being told that the red panda was dangerous, a mistake, a curse, a disruption to their perfect, flawless lives. But after everything she had witnessed starting with Mei refusing to cooperate in the ritual months ago, she had not the will to disagree with how much the red panda truly meant to them as a whole.

Meanwhile, the He-Witch pulled out an awl and the stone bowl first.

"What are you….?" Chen was confused by what he needed those for.

"You'll need to give blood for it to work."

"What? Are you serious?" That made Wu feel sick.

"It's the only way." He shrugged. "So that anyone else within your bloodline will be affected and so that this shall carry on in future generations. But not without taking this first."

In his free hand, he clutched a root vegetable that was pale with a radish-like appearance.

"Yak-root. Traditionally grown in Jötunheim. I use it as a natural pain-killer." As he spoke on, he placed the vegetable into a smaller bowl and started to mash it up until it was homogenous to a paste.

All Lee women were naturally hesitant to actually cut themselves for this ritual, but they had little choice if they wanted to return back to their lives when they got home after this. So each of them congested a portion of the Yak-root paste. It tasted sour, but they forced it down their throats.

Next was the tricky part; giving blood. While they waited for a nanosecond for the Yak-root to do its job, take effect and nullify their nervous system, the He-Witch fetched the awl and one at a time, each reluctantly came forth and pierced themselves on the sharp needle, but not without wincing from the feel of a sharp point impaling their flesh.

Then they allowed their blood to drip into small puddles into the stone bowl until it got bigger. It was finally over. The hard part. Mei was still sucking on her finger.

And now it was time to commence the ritual.

"It is time." He announced with a shaky sigh.

All Lee women were made to form a circle around the bowl of their blood in the center, crouch down and join hands. Mei was feeling quite nervous. She had already accepted her red panda.

What if it didn't work? What if she loses the red panda? What if-

Ming tightly held her daughter's hand and gave her a comforting glance and nodded to her with a watery smile as a way of telling her that it's alright now, that the red panda will still be with her.

Wu gave the same gesture, having finally accepted that the red was part of her as well.

Odin, Týr, Frigg and Freya all closed their eyes, clasped their hands and cleared their minds as they began to throat sing.

"Allr at hafði kombeforer oss. Gefossr allr maktinn til binð ok megin. Allr spirits fran above ok á, vér beseech þú!" The He-Witch chanted as if he were in a trance. "Allr at hafði kombeforer oss. Gefossr allr maktinn til binð ok megin. Allr spirits fran above ok á, vér beseech þú! Allr at hafði kombeforer oss. Gefossr allr maktinn til binð ok megin. Allr spirits fran above ok á, vér beseech þú!"

It looked like it was working. Elsa, Jin, Shan, Adam, Charlie and Tom all watched as the Lee women were beginning to twitch and convulse and spasm as their bodies gave off a bright, demonically red glow. Due to this, they all started to wince and let out exclamations the more and more they all convulsed and quivered as if they were becoming possessed.

And then it happened. Spirits of their red pandas each were extracted from their bodies one-by-one the louder and erratic the He-Witch's chanting got.

The blood in the bowl then defied gravity. Crimson droplets hovered upward, danced lazily in mid-air as the women hovered as well while their red pandas started to spin around in a circle.

And around and around and around yet again. The Lees' bodies had stiffened and they fell unconscious while their red panda spirits spiraled in accelerated speed as the He-Witch's incantations sped up and picked up in volume before silencing his chanting.

The red pandas sped up as well.

They spun and spun in a bright, glowing red circle above and before everyone's eyes and then when they all came together, merging with the blood…there was a blast of red, flashes all over that would nearly blind those who saw it.

And darkness followed.

Then silence.


"Hey, Stig! Hey, Roar! Roar, Stig! Fellas, help! Help!"

Rudolf shrieked and wailed as he ran blindly through the icy landscape after getting separated from the other two. His armband was glowing as he ran around on every which way and as it flowed even brighter, it must've meant that he was getting closer to his friends.

So were Stig and Roar as they ran toward the direction of their friend's cry. Their armbands glowed brighter than a glow stick until finally they found each other, coming to the panting Inuit teen's aid.

"What happened?" Roar piped worriedly.

"What's the matter?" As did Stig, holding the boy's shoulder.

"I was lost! All by myself!"

Then the concerned and frightened faces of his friends turned into annoyance by his abysmal worries at such a worst time.

"Why-!" Stig angrily eye-pokes him and Rudolf snarls at him like a mad dog.

"What am I, huh? Chopped liver?" Ratatoskr quipped as if offended.

"Oh, yeah. That's right. I forgot about him." Rudolf smiled with relief, pointing at him like he's showing their World Tree squirrel companion off. "It's alright, you guys."

SLAP!

"Oh!"

"Come on, you! We don't have time for this shit! Kris is counting on us!" Stig commanded, bellowing with impatient irritation.

So with that out of the way, the quest was on once again. The compass took them onto a northwestern path as it seemed, though it can be excruciatingly tough to navigate thoroughly in the land of the dead, where there's no existing magnetic field. However, that was no challenge to the Light of Alfheim and with a little bit of light elf magic.

From far behind, watching them from afar as they prevailed, there was a sinister pair of glowing, inhuman eyes from a dark opening in the ice wall, glaring menacingly.

Hissing, scowling, waiting.

Moments of hiking later, they kept following the compass's lead. Within reason, they needed to stay on the path it was leading them on since it was made prominently clear that it was the only thing that was helping them find their lost friend. It couldn't be explained, but all of the sudden, Stig felt a presence that was bodiless and incorporeal.

And he felt it…..in his head….in his ears…

….whispering….

'Maybe it's time he got rid of Alex.'

'Maybe it's time he took him somewhere far away…where we won't have to deal with him again.'

'That wiggling little pest will never find his way home again.'

'I said shut the fuck you, you little parasitic scrote-fruit! God, you're fucking irritating!'

'He should've died in your womb, bitch.'

'I should've used a fucking condom.'

….voices.

Voices that sounded hauntingly familiar.

Voices that he tried to drown out for years like a resonating ruckus from the house next door.

Voices that he can only remember hearing from-

"STIG!

The distressed yell of Roar snapped him out of it and just as he was finally aware of his surroundings, he saw that they were being pursued by the dead.

Hel-walkers. The rotting remains of those who once lived arose from their deathly slumbers when they sensed the living within their vicinity. Their eyes glowing an otherworldly green as he moaned and growled atrociously and now it was time to put their weapons into good use.

Roar grabbed the Fimbulwinter ax and used it to slice at the zombies out for blood.

Although, the ice the ax generated had little to no effect on them since they were already dead and their in a realm of cold, the frost blast is packed was powerful enough to harm them, proving helpful as Roar chopped away at their limbs and bodies to keep them at bay, despite the nauseating feeling he received in his stomach while dismembering the undead.

Rudolf had to sit this one out, unable to fight back and too petrified by their exanimate assailants. He just sat there on the frozen ground in a fetal position and counted to 20 in his head.

Stig whipped out his longbow and fired more of those explosive Bifröst arrows at the undead, the magic word setting off their explosions, blasting them into pieces. Roar swung his ax right at one particular zombie about to attack Rudolf, the spiraling armament was aimed for its neck and it chopped its head clean off.

And as Roar held his hand out to test the weapon's magical capabilities, the ax flew right back into his palm.

"Ok, cool." He commented in amazement, before vomiting on the ground. They may have been dead already, but just the thought alone of chopping someone up and killing them was still horrifying and made him feel sick.

"Is it over, you guys?" squeaked the scared Rudolf.

"Come on, get up." Stig said, him and Roar picking him up. "There may be more. Let's keep moving."

As long as they kept their guard up and their weapons on them, nothing can go wrong henceforward.

But they needed to make sure they were on the correct path as well. Cannot risk straying from the path or else they'll get lost. Their armbands only allowed them to find each other again, nothing more. The boys kept onward, passing through ice canyons and passageways. Anything that wasn't made of or covered in ice was artificial.

A wrought-iron gate, for example.

And as they walked, spine-chilling sounds were heard in the distance, though it was hard to pinpoint where. Scary sounds like the ghostly moaning, wails of anguish, the squelching of a metal blade slicing and hacking up flesh. It was ghastly as it was devastating.

Just then, Rudolf jumped onto Roar with a loud yelp when he heard a noise close by.

"Ow! Rudolf!" He yelled in surprise and tried to pull the boy off of him, but Rudolf held onto him tightly.

"Is it dark out already?" asked Ratatoskr, perceptively looking up and around.

And he wasn't wrong, either.

The land around them started to grow darker the further they went. All dimmed light from the eternal overcast was slowly diminishing until it was starting to look like eternal night. And with the increasing darkness, they were starting to lose sight of where they were even heading and even Stig was beginning to not see where the compass was pointing.

"We must be getting close." Stig noted, remembering that Hel was stationed in the darkest part of Helheim and it's been commonly speculated that Kris would be inside her hall.

"I can't even see the path anymore." Roar complained from the engulfing blackness enshrouding them the lifeless environment like a cloak of death, quite fitting for the land of the dead.

"I'm not too fond of the dark." Rudolf whimpered.

Suddenly, to their surprise, the compass gave off a bright glow, helpfully illuminating the way for them.

"How convenient." Roar was impressed. At least, they have a light source now.

The Light of Alfheim is on their side now.

Now they can see better now as they move forward while the land is now completely enveloped in jet darkness until nearly nothing could be seen in front of their faces if not for the illuminating compass. The Light of Alfheim was able to reveal more human remains, forgotten dead warriors still adorned in armor and weapons. Some were even frozen against the mountainous glacier walls.

"You know, I've been thinking." The squirrel said suddenly.

"Yeah, what?" asked Roar.

"Afterwards, they'll probably tell tales about this." Ratatoskr explained grandiosely. "The story about how three human boys entered Helheim alive with the adventurous squirrel to save the descendant of Thor from the Goddess of Death. After bravely fighting off the vicious guard dog Garm and-"

"Garm? That's the dog's name?" Rudolf chuckled.

"Of course it is. May I continue? I'm on a roll here." said the World Tree squirrel a bit rudely. "So anyway, they heroically battled the Goddess of Death…..uh, to the death and saved the Son of Bengt! Gad, how do I do it?"

"You came up with all that just now?" Roar said amusedly.

"You bet I did." The squirrel nodded. "With that in mind, they write names for us in the textbooks for ages and ages to come."

"Our names?" remarked Stig with disinterest.

"Well, yeah. Ratatoskr the Guardian of the World of Yggdrasil….dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot…uh, dot - Scary Dark Kid, Beanpole and the Lummox. You see how my brain works? It's like a lightning bolt shot down from the sky!"

"Yeah, that would explain it." Stig muttered with a dramatic roll of his eyes.

"Good, you can be our mascot." suggested Roar sarcastically.

"Mascot? Why you buffoon!" Ratatoskr snorted, looking insulted.

"I knew this was like Arcana Encanta!" cheered the ever-avid Inuit boy.

"Oh my god…." Stig halted in his tracks when something far off caught his eye instantly.

"More walking dead!?" Rudolf shrieked in terror.

"No, look."

All of them looked ahead to where he was pointing and at the same time, all of them were astounded. Even though it was too dark out for them to see aside from the light provided by the Light of Alfheim, they could distinctly discern a massive hall in the distance. It may have been larger than any other hall they've seen before. It was of a gothic architectural aesthetic, completely shrouded in darkness and mystery like a dark and ancient mausoleum withholding and in remembrance of those long begone, very much so like a haunted house. Blackness and ghostly green decorated it's very walls with a long, wide bridge leading into it, which had giant stone statues with grotesque features on either side facing each other and their ghoulish faces looking down judgmentally like the gargoyles lining up the flying buttresses of Notre-Dame de Paris.

ÉLJÚÐNIR
The Hall of Hel

Souls of the damned were crossing the bridge looking despondent and desperate. As for the boys and the compass's version of a cardinal point aiming in the direction of that shadowy edifice, it would seem that they were heading in the right direction. They found where Hel was residing and if Kris was in there, that's where they were heading.

"How about that, huh?" Stig exhaled, almost feeling relief that they found where his brother was allegedly detected.

But just as they were about to press on, the apprehensive Rudolf grabbed both his friends' arms to stop them for a moment, sweating in rivulets.

"Wait a minute, fellas. Wait. I….I gotta get him outta there? " He stuttered along with his quivering body.

"Exactly." Roar nodded. "This is why we're here."

"But, uh…what if the compass is wrong? What if he's not in there?" Rudolf suggested lamely, getting cold feet about entering the home of the Goddess of Death. Lord knows what kind of horrors awaits them inside.

"Oh, come on. You're not chickening out now, are you?" Stig eyed him down with a stern glare, making him tingle.

"What, me? Hell no!" Rudolf denied, shielding his terror behind a straight face. "I'm not afraid. I'll go in there and I'll find Kris and bring him home. I'll tear the place down if I have to, but I won't stop until I find him. There's just one thing I need you guys to do first."

"Yeah?" They asked.

"...talk me out of it." His fallacious bravado was gone now.

He even started slinking backwards step-by-step, but his friends annoyedly grabbed his arms before he could get any further away.

They needed to soldier on and face the music if they were going to save Kris. They can't give up and turn back now. Not when they've already gotten this far and they were already at the fortress of Hel herself where the compass indicates Kris's exact location. More listless souls were nearby, dejected trudging onward towards Éljúðnir as if they were upset that they've wound up here in Helheim, final resting place for the dishonorable, but are defeatedly accepting their fate whether they like it or not. Anyway, the trio stayed close together as they kept forward and forced any fear they had at the moment down for Kris's sake.

Pretty soon and with no time to spare, there they all were at the edge of the bridge of the damned Gjallarbrú, which they needed to cross first. Now that they were up close, the giant statues were massive and they appear to also function as the bridge's abutments for maximum suspension and by design, they looked like they were holding the bridge up with their large hands. The trio edged closer and closer to the bridge and stopped for a moment to gaze upon the large doorway into the hall that was just 199 ft. (200 m) away from them according to the bridge's center span.

They were just about to cross Gjallarbrú when suddenly from out of nowhere…a towering silhouetted figure suddenly materialized in front of them appearing to be gaseous and made of darkened ashes with a slender form, horns on its head pointing in opposite directions and glowing red, demonic eyes.

Modgud (Old Norse: Móðguðr), the sacred bridgekeeper and the Guardian of the Gjallarbrú was standing right before the three, stopping them from crossing the bridge of the damned.

Rudolf was quick to cling to Roar and Stig in terror of the shadowy figure suddenly appearing before their very presence.

"Och, bridge guardian. I should'a known." Ratatoskr rolled his eyes.

"Nafn." Modgud demanded in a hoarse tone.

"Hello…?" Stig greeted hesitantly.

"Nafn." She said again, more pointedly this time around.

"She's asking for your name." Ratatoskr translated for her to the goth boy.

"Oh." He sighed before getting down to business. "Stig Falkenberg. My friends, Roar Wagner and Rudolf Stein."

"Hví eru þú hí?"

"Uh…."

"She wants to know why you've come." translated the World Tree squirrel.

"We're here to find my brother, Kris Bengtsson. We were told he would be here." Stig explained to the mysterious bridge guardian, who was quiet for about a couple seconds later like she was taking some time to consider his words.

.

.

.

.

"Berár."

And with that, she disappeared, allowing them to pass.

After taking a sigh of relief, the boys stepped forth onto the bridge and started their way across it while ignoring all the other poor souls. Rudolf, in spite of himself, curiously approached the pile of ashes of where Modgud appeared from. But then suddenly, she snapped back to existence right before him with her demonic eyes piercing his soul and he fled back to the others in terror. The massive bridge of the damned ran directly above Gjöll, one of the eleven Élivágar rivers; an endless long and deep, poisonous, acidic, hazardous, bioluminescent and spectral river of ectoplasm consisting of many damned souls unlucky enough to fall right in it, all of them wailing pain and agony from the river's corrosive waters burning them to the core, which made Rudolf wince and shutter.

Not helping much either were the statues. All of them looking down onto Gjallarbrú and all traversing it with those grimly condemnatory eyes as if to challenge anyone to continue across or else they face a fate far worse than death. Without denial, they made the boys increasingly uncomfortable and inwardly wondered how Kris was able to cross this bridge and into the hall of Hel without shrinking under these statues' gazes. Making a desperate effort to ignore the series of ghoulish faces, they all sang a Nörthfölk song verse together quietly.

After what felt like an eternity, they were finally at the doors to Éljúðnir.

This was it. Moment of truth.

Taking a moment to catch their breaths, they all looked at each other. All of them were nervous, but they finally made it. All of their time and all of their tiresome effort has led them straight here to this very point and now they were assuredly close to freeing Kris from his horrid imprisonment. Mei needed him more than anything and so did they.

Without wasting another minute of their time, Stig stepped forward and pushed onto the door. However, it was very heavy so Roar and Rudolf helped him out and all three boys pushed with all their might to get the monumental doorway open. It had taken a lot of strength and it took very little time for the door to slide open, but at last, it was open nonetheless and they had found their way in.

"Shall we?" Stig asked his friends.

And together, they were inside the hall of Hel. And then suddenly, the door closed back up by itself.

It was dark and cold and audibly still in that hall of the dead, much like a grave. Not a shred of light to be seen, save for a couple of small torches on the wall high above them as sconces, but not even they were sufficient enough to provide a convenient light source in the sinister darkness all around. However, just because it was dark, doesn't mean they couldn't see anything at all.

In fact, the exterior design and decor was, to an obvious degree, very macabre in accordance with the realm of the dead. It was like they were walking through the ruins of an ancient castle. There were cobwebs, dust and unearthly mist below them, dead bodies of warriors strewn about the place and it wasn't uncommon for them to pass one disturbed soul that was unsurprisingly in an eternal state of inner turmoil. To that end, one spirit was sitting on the ground with her head in her hands anxiously and one was banging his face against the way over and over again.

It frightened them, even Stig who always had a creepy fascination for the ghastly and lurid. As much as the Light of Alfheim helped, navigation through the dark halls of Éljúðnir was controversial and cumbersome.

As they entered one area in the vast emptiness of the hall of the forgotten souls, they were startled by what looked like…

…a foot.

An ashy human skeleton foot that dropped right to the floor from above. Hesitantly looking upward, they were revolted to see a chandelier-type object hanging from the ceiling composed entirely out of human bones and deer antlers while covered in icicles and some dead bodies hanging from it, few from nooses and a couple impaled on the sharp antlers.

The most grotesque, dangerous and disturbing form of ornamentation fitting for the afterlife.

"If you boys need me, I'll be in here." Upon seeing it, Ratatoskr covertly retreated inside of Rudolf's backpack, zipping it up. "Not that I'm scared, it's just I prefer to be safe inside this thing."

But they kept onward despite the horrendousness of the ambience of the abode within them around every nook and cranny. That slippery Goddess of Death was hiding around here somewhere in the shadows and Kris himself had to be around where? Stig had half the mind to shout out for Kris and hope for an answer back, but if there's anything he's learned from watching horror movies, it's that you never shout out for anyone and even ask if anyone's there, because otherwise you alert the killer of your whereabouts.

Make no mistake, Rudolf was shaking in his boots and who could blame him? Here they were in the scariest part of the Nordic variation of the afterlife where any possible, potential danger could be lurking around them, waiting for their change.

"You guys afraid?" He asked them, whispering.

"No, of course not. What gave you that idea?" asked Roar, undeniably shaken.

"Me neither." You could probably tell that Rudolf was fibbing. "Of course, why would I be? After all, this is the land where people go after they die -!"

CLANG!

Rudolf didn't see where he was trudging through, winding up tripping over the dead body of a Viking warrior and he exclaimed with horror, crawling away from it out of fear that it'll come alive and try to grab at his feet until Stig grabbed him and covered his mouth.

"Rudolf." He hissed at him with a heated glare. "Unless you want the entire undead nibbling on you, keep your trap shut, got that? Now let's stay focused."

"Uh-huh…" The naive boy numbly agreed.

The compass kept taking the trio down a dark hallway where they passed more restless spirits and ghosts unable to find their peace before they happened upon another large room and the most curious thing about this room was that it looked to be a dining hall of sorts. There sitting in the center was a 40 ft. long banquet table with a large assemblage of plates, cups and a disgusting spread of rotten, aged foods covered in generations worth of dust and spiderwebs as if it had been left abandoned and unattended for thousands of years.

On the walls on both ends were curtains made out of more shriveled up cadavers of those that once lived and were now nothing more but decorations to be constructed out of a twisted and sick maniac's unnerving imagination.

"Well, she's…..really got taste." Rudolf whimpered.

Stig and Roar went over to the table and got a good gander at all the inedible comestibles just sitting there untouched and they wretched in were even floating around the spoiled nourishments. At this point, the compass was going crazy, pointing in all sorts of directions, leaving them nonplussed. What the hell was wrong with it?

"So….you're here."

Hairs stood on end.

Goosebumps formed on their arms.

Throats ran dry, eyeballs enlarged in sockets, lips parted.

There, right there in the darkness to their side beside a cracked pillar staring right back at them with a spine-chilling glower was an eye. And looming in from the shadows slowly, intimidatingly and grievously like the grim reaper here to claim their depraved souls and drag them down into the next life…there she was.

Her eye undressing them was her good eye.

Devilishly yellow and red.

The horrifying woman, if she was a woman at all, had alabaster, ghostly pale skin on the entire right half of her body while the left have was shriveled up, hairless and very so much like that of a corpse with her other eye on that side blank and milky as of part of her own soul was torn away, making her apparat half-dead and half-alive at the same time.

Though, her healthy side seemed incontrovertibly more undead as opposed to her fully dead side; kind of like a vampire.

On her right half, she had long, unkempt black hair with a dark periorbital shade circling her fresh eye and a pronounced cheekbone. She wore a slinky charcoal black and dark gray corset kirtle with skull designs on both sides of the plunging neckline, rags around her waistline and long, sagging sleeves.

Rested neatly above her brow was a minacious-looking crown looking like it was made of long thorns.

The boys mustered every inch of self control in their bodies not to piss on themselves for they were standing in the presumes of….

Hel (Old Norse: Hela, Nordic: ᚺᛖᛚ), the daughter of Loki and Angrboda; the Norse Jötunn Goddess of Death, Mortality, Pain, Loss, Grief, Funerary Rites and Processions, Suffering, Anguish, Runestones, Memorials, Necromancy, Witchcraft, Murder, Fear and Nightmares, the Queen of the Dead and the Ruler of Helheim as she unpropitiously raised a rotting hand up and aimed a slender, boney, claw-like finger at Stig.

"Here for your dear brother, aren't you?"

Her voice was disturbingly and unsettlingly chill and gossamer, though it sounded like it was alternating between a raspy and silky feminine tone to one that was deep, rough and baritone like she was possessed by a demonic entity.

Stig gulped down his terror to put on a brave face and answered, "Yeah, that's right. So you're her, right? The Goddess of Death?"

To that, she let out a sinister giggle that echoed throughout the hall as her mouth unnaturally stretched into a painfully wide cartoon of a toothy grin from ear-to-ear, receiving a yelp from Rudolf as she disappeared into the shadows.

Flashing the Light of Alfheim forward, she wasn't there anymore.

They looked all around for her, following the sounds of her maniacal laughter before they heard her voice again.

"I've been called many things." Hel then reappeared at the top of a balcony at the far end of the room with twin flights of stairs leading down whilst she held a skull in her hand à la Shakespeare. "A goddess, a queen, a witch, an abomination, a freak, a demoness,…a monster."

She lazily lets the skull drop to the floor as she eyed them all, making them shrink under her haunting gaze.

"Three young boys making it past my guard dog just to come all this way in the darkest point of my realm just to save their lost friend. Fancy that." It sounded like she was mocking them. "And what brave boys you all are, coming all this way."

"Uh, we try?" Rudolf meekly stated, still shaking.

"If you don't mind, ma'am, we've really come a long way to bring our friend back." Roar started to get serious, really hoping to see Kris again. "So is it okay with you that you could possibly let him come back with us?"

Hel's face soured for a moment before her sinister, impish smile stretched onto her lips once more before she stood up onto the railing of the balcony, making her three human visitors look on with confusion and then fear - which she reveled in seeing - then they all screamed when she deliberately let herself fall about two stories face-first straight onto the ground below, the boys wincing from the sickening sound of bones crunching from the solid impact for she looked like she just committed suicide or even attempted to severely injury herself.

Though, the real horror is what comes after.

Accompanied by more bone-snapping sounds, the Goddess of Death's limbs sprang upward, lifting her body up in such a flimsy manner like she had just broken all her bones, which are repairing themselves.

But the way Hel swung back up to her feet disturbed the shit out of the three boys. She had her back turned and her head did a 360 degree turn to face them, that same smile still present on her face. Then she twisted her body back around the boys cringed and shuttered as she made her way over to them by gruesomely and cartwheeling herself over, twisting, bending, rearranging, rotating and contorting all of her limbs, appendages and entire slick body as a whole in unnatural ways they physically shouldn't like a demonically-possessed contortionist.

This woman was pure nightmare fuel personified.

While Roar and Rudolf heedfully backed away as the undead woman drew nearer, Stig bravely stood his ground once she zeroed in and stood right before the unyielding goth boy with her right eye rolled back into her head, which she fixed in a second while.

"And why would I want to do that?" She mockingly asked.

"He's my brother, lady." Stig insisted, not backing down and not letting her scare him. "We didn't come here for nothing. His family needs him and his friends need him."

"Is that so?" breathed Hel as she began to walk around him with a noticeable limp in her step from the dead side of her body. "And how well, dare I ask - dare I ask again - do they miss him? Hmm? How much so is poor young Kris Bengtsson missed by everyone that it has taken them this long to come all this way down into my private territory just to come and save him?"

"Is that a trick question?" He challenged her, unrelenting.

She snapped her head directly toward him, another cracking sound was heard.

"And if I let him go, would anyone want him back?" Hel challenged him back. "Would anyone even care enough to want him back? His mother? Those three halfwits at school? His cute and precious Mei or that uptight, snobbish, whiny, dogmatic mother of hers even after she's made it clear how much of a penniless, wanton loser she thinks he is?"

"She knows what she did was wrong." Stig denied, now actually defending her. "She wants to make things right. This is why she's come all this way with us."

"Hmm-hmm, right, right." Hel mumbled noncommittally and apathetically, examining her nails like she has no fucks to give. "The same woman who abused him, threatened him, called him names, used him as a punching bag and it's taken her attacking him and then him beating the near life out of her for the whore to actually give a shit about him? Don't make me laugh. 'Make things right', my ass."

Suddenly, the Light of Alfheim on the compass began to flicker, much to their worries.

"Light does not exist in this part of my realm." Hel reminded them, then picked a disgusting piece of moldy sausage and took a bite out of it. Roar and Rudolf tried not to lose their lunch.

"Pretty soon, you'll see things the way I do."

"Like father, like daughter, I guess." Stig grumbled under his breath.

Hearing this made the Queen of the Deceased spit out her food at him in surprise by what he just said. His two friends felt their hearts stop when Hel suddenly became violently angry, transfixing a fiery glare upon the boy, who almost looked like he was regretting his words. Then she hopped off the table to stomp toward him.

"DON'T YOU DARE COME IN HERE AND TALK TO ME LIKE YOU KNOW ME! YOU DON'T FUCKING KNOW ME, YOU FLESHY LITTLE MAGGOT! I HAVE SPENT LIFETIMES IN THIS DISMAL-...!"

Hel cut herself off mid-rant and froze in her steps before she recollected herself and took a moment to calm herself down.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear those words." Her voice returned to its previous calm and reserved tone as if she wasn't about to go full beast mode on the goth teen, then started stroking his face like a mother would trying to calm her child. "Little boys like you should really learn some manners."

This prompted Stig to grab his longbow and aim a Bifröst arrow at her threateningly, but she just smiled and laughed uproariously.

"Willful creatures." Hel shook her head. "So defensive. So naïve. So stupid."

"Look, enough of these games, lady." Stig was growing impatient with her at this rate. "I wanna know where my brother is. Now please tell us where he is."

"I don't think so." The three jumped right around to see her now standing a foot behind them by one of the pillars and then amazed them when she started to defy gravity by walking up the wall on her two feet. "See, the boy has nothing now. No friends to turn to and help him in his times of need, no family to offer him comfort, nothing."

By now, Hel was standing on the ceiling and not even her hair was obeying laws of physics.

"Kris is officially a loner." She tsked with mock sympathy. "Little baby hurt too much and too long. Smacked around by the world like a ball, soul crushed and crumpled up like a sheet of paper, a heart broken and shattered into pieces with no love."

"That's bullshit!" Rudolf forced down his terror to step up to the Helheim queen. "He has plenty of love! He would never think we'd never want him!"

To their imminent shock and horror, the Light of Alfheim was now flickering dangerously leaving brief moments of darkness and light, allowing Hel the opportunity to slink around in the blackness unobserved, appearing from one section of the room to another.

"How come? After all, he'd do this world a huge favor if he just died!" Hel remarked, now using Ming's words back at the concert. "He's just as dead inside as I am. He has nobody. Not even the girl he has loved the most who'd rather cast him aside for her own family's sake than consider his feelings."

"That's not true!" Roar argued. "Mei cares a lot for him! She can't imagine a life without him!"

The light brightened for a moment, then went out…then came back on…..

….and Hel was now standing behind Rudolf before she jump-scared him by grabbing at his shoulders and he jumped back with a frightened yell.

"Oh, sorry, did I scare you?" She teased with a chuckle.

"Kris is not alone. And we'd really like to have him back if you just tell us where he is." Roar was begging her now, practically on his knees.

For a moment, Hel seemed to consider the idea and then smiled wryly before she pointed over to the other side of the banquet table and simultaneously, all three of her human visitors froze instantly and they stood awestruck when they all looked to see a figure step forth from the shadows.

A familiar shape that they knew all too well.

There stood at the other end of the spoiled spread was none other than the person they've been looking for.

The person they've fought and worked hard to try and rescue.

"KRIS!" They all screamed with delight and relief as they all full-on darted over to him and brought him into a tight embrace, really glad that they'd finally found him.

However, he didn't hug them back.

"Kris, thank god you're okay!" Roar almost wept as he had his protective arms around.

"We've been so damn worried about you!" Rudolf hugged him tightly.

"You have no idea the trouble we went through just to come and get you!" Stig resounded who was the most glad at seeing his brother again as he looked him in the eye. "We were attacked and almost eaten by these monsters, there was so much stuff going on and-and-and, uh….Kris?"

Stig finally took note of his brother's demeanor.

Kris still wasn't talking or acknowledging any of them. In fact, he looked almost like he was sleep-walking in a sense, tired and drooping eyes, mouth sagging open as he lethargically let out a moaning and croaking death rattle. All of his natural colors from his skin to his hair had been desaturated to a sickly pale pigmentation and he was looking pretty worse for wear.

Like he's been stuck in these realms for years rather than months.

By most accounts, Kris looked like he was a zombie and he barely looked even aware of his surroundings.

Or even the general presence of his brother and friends.

"Kris?" Roar started to gently shake him to get his attention, wondering if it was still the silent treatment.

"Kris, it's us!" said Stig, desperately.

"Hello, Kris? Wake up! Wake up! Come on!" Rudolf's solution was slapping him across the face a few times, but still no reaction.

Something wasn't right here.

And their fears were realized when Hel started to wickedly cackle at them before suddenly reappearing from behind Kris, putting her hands on his shoulders. Stig and the two backed up in sudden recognition.

It wasn't Kris's soul, but rather his body, which had originally been inactive.

"What the fuck did you do to him!?" Stig roared in anger.

"Oh, me?" She chirped with a faux innocent voice. "I merely made him realize who unneeded and unwanted he truly is, an empty husk without love and he was ready to accept it."

Horror struck their faces when they began to see that Hel has been manipulating their friend and make him not want to leave under the presence that he deserves nothing but death and loneliness.

"It hurts to get good companionship around here in the afterlife. And if I'm not mistaking, Kris here makes excellent company." Hel pinched the mind-numbed boy's cheek and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"GIVE HIM BACK RIGHT NOW, YOU FUCKING SICKO!" By now, Stig was furious. This maniacal witch was keeping his poor brother as a trophy and a lapdog for all eternity and there's no way he's going to allow it, aiming another arrow at her.

"Yeah, that's OUR friend, not yours!" bellowed Rudolf.

"No, I don't think I will." Hel rebutted. "I'm the only friend he has right now. And after his body dies, he'll be stuck down here with me…..forever."

That last word echoed everywhere mockingly as their hearts dropped into their stomachs. Unbeknownst to them, a plethora of three roots began to slowly creep towards them from behind.

"As for you three…."

They had little time to react for the vine-like roots ensnared them like tentacles and they futilely tried to wrestle themselves free as they then dragged all three boys across the ground and down separate hallways, splitting them up as they helplessly tried to call out for Kris, who still didn't respond.

"….I'll make sure you never see the dawn again." Hel's deriding smile lowered into a grimace.


Oh, shit. The dastardly Hel has possession of Kris's comatose body put into a mindless state and doesn't seem like she's going to give him up any time soon.

After everything, they finally found Helheim and made it past Garm, the guard dog and when they finally find Kris, things don't go as planned. As for Hel, well, she believes her and Kris to be one and the same. Just two desolate, unwanted souls with no friends, no life and no love from anyone who have been rejected by everyone and tossed aside by society because the world just hates them and she finds his troubled self far too enticing. And with this troubled mind, Kris was far too easy for her to manipulate into come meandering into her realm and into her deathly grasp like a lost puppy.

And it won't be long before the boys themselves start coming face-to-face with their own inner demons. And before anyone says so, I'm well aware that Hel herself isn't technically a goddess, I just chose to make her own for this canon.

Meanwhile, the Lees are offered a chance to be able to transform back and forth at will by the He-Witch. How it will turn out is to be revealed soon and as for how things will turn out for the boys, that's yet to be determined.

Stay tuned.

Next Chapter: When word gets out about what happened to Kris's body, Mei, Elsa and Ming haphazardly head into Helheim themselves, only to be ambused by the mares, forcing them to confront manifestations of their insecurities.

Next Update: May 30, 2023