Welcome to Gaia! ::

'The pain wasn't so terribly horrible' Death thought to herself and the fires of hell engulfed her. The process of transference from plane to plane was a difficult process when manifesting from one to another. That is why in her original job description she would charter souls manually by the river styx. Water was a much more pleasant medium of travel than fire. But she was on a special mission. One of great importance in which time was key. Fire is the fastest way to travel in the underworld.

Being sent to Terra with orders from the Prince of Darkness to do research of what exactly has been going on in this plane of existence for the past three months wasn't such a horrible task. The numbers of souls entering hell has been slowing exponentially. There were now less and less souls to collect, most already having died. Satan had placed someone else temporarily in her position of Grim Reaper while she was away doing the task he had trusted her to do. She was reluctant from the very beginning.

She had never seen nor heard of any kind of epidemic like this. Hell was now overflowing with lost souls and the crowds would give her head aches. She was ill prepared for such a task, but his Lowness's lips had promised her simplicity. 'Simplicity my a**,' She thought as she stood, dusting off the dirt from her human clothes. She now appeared to be completely human. Only a being with a rank of Satan or God could see through her disguise.

Glancing around she took in the Bright orange expanse of sky that held a tint of red. Breath taking in it's own right. Along the horizon was an expanse of a city with plumes of smoke rising high smattered through the valley. She breathed in the smoke filled air. Breathing would be a task she would have to become familiar with again while on this plane of existence as one of them. As a Harbinger of Death Breathing was hardly necessary, but she is familiar with the movements, having been human once many many years ago.

On the air the scent of rotting corpses was thick. A sickly sweet smell that once partaken of could never be forgotten. A scent she was quite familiar with. She was in a park in front of a deserted shopping mall. The foliage and flowers having died away, from either the whether or the extra carbon monoxide in the air she could not tell. It was probably around Autumn here. A time of death...

In that instant of a thought a bullet echoed loudly from the building in front of her. A cafeteria it seemed, once having been a gathering place of mortals of all types. Soon after, a low murmur of something otherworldly could be heard coming from within, and then a string of more shots.

'Well, here goes nothing.' She thought determinedly as she started a full on sprint across the street into the parking lot towards the shots.

Crossing the parking lot didn't take very long and she was just about to pass through the doors, which at one point were powered but now just stood open to the world, all of it's electricity gone, when a form crashed into her running the opposite way. The opposing force was much heavier than she would ever be and he flew backwards with the form following in momentum. Her head, elbows, and rump managed to scrape against the concrete at the same time and pain, a feeling she did not often feel, rippled through her.

"HOLY HELL!" She cried out, the weight of whoever it was on top of her feeling like a ton. "Who the heck are you?" She asked letting certain things register, like the smell of gunpowder, the cold pressure of bullet casings in a row between her hip and the man, and how fast he had been running out. Running away... 'from what?' She then thought, letting it all sink in. 'Oh.'

"The only injuries I have are the ones you've inflicted by colliding into me. Now get off of me so we can hurry, you great lug!" She said, anger staining her features. The threat of a gun pointed at her would make her laugh if she were still the Grim Reaper, but when posing as a human in a world torn apart by something unknown and deadly, and to top it off being tackled by someone who then would have the audacity to threaten her with death, would make a girl angry... right? Silly Humans and their emotions.

The sound of the approaching wave of creatures, the same moaning she heard echoing earlier, was now only a hand full of seconds behind. 'Think human' she told herself and she let the emotion of fear overwhelm her.

"Oh Dear God," she said, terror written across her face. On the inside she giggled a bit, being able to say God and pretending to like the guy was just too funny for her. But she was pretty good at hiding things that weren't serious. They had to leave. NOW!

Her arm stung where he grabbed her, his grip creating tension on her newly received scratch right above her elbow. She had a matching gash on her other arm as well, and both began to burn in a pulsing rythm to her fake heart beat. He shoved a pistol into her hands. It was cold, hard, and yet to be fired. She grasped it awkwardly, never having needed one in the past. She'd watch plenty of people die and the end of a gun, whether by someone else pulling the trigger or by their own hands, but never had she the need to use one of these metallic contraptions before. She thought very little of them.

(will continue upon return)