I look to my mates with my mouth probably hanging on the floor.


    “So…we’re hellhounds now.” Haiden smirks.


    “And rulers of the underworld,” Xavier adds in.


    “What the fuck is even happening?” Levi asks no one in particr.


    “Luna, are you okay? A first shift for anyone is usually a pretty intense thing…” Noahes to my side, asking softly.


    Before I can answer, the double doors behind us are opened, stealing our attention as we turn around to look down at…what is that? It’s a small creature in tattered rags, with green skin with long pointed ears sitting near the top of its head. It steps inside the hall, the doors closing behind him as he kneels before us, head hung low, not daring to look at us.


    “My lords anddy.”


    “Uh…hello?” I half question. “Are you Ss?”


    “Indeed, my Queen. I am here to serve you.”


    “Okay…well that’s great. Would you mind standing up so we can have a proper conversation?”


    Slowly, his head rises, as does the rest of his little body, and he tilts his head to the side to look at us properly, but not once in the eyes.


    “I understand you must have questions that ourte King and Queen might not have answered.”


    “Yeah, they didn’t really say much on the whole, ruling the underworld thing,” Haiden says lightly.


    “What would you like to know, my lord?”


    At that, Haiden puffs his chest out and grins over to the rest of us, and I roll my eyes. Walking closer to Ss, I kneel now in front of him. His eyes widen in surprise.


    “Mydy, you must not kneel to me!”


    “Well, that magical chair thing Hades made disappeared.” I wave my hand behind me, and smoke trails out of my fingertips, creating another chair. “Okay, that was wild,” I mutter, doing it again and again until I have six chairs in a circle, and I motion for Ss to sit with us, ignoring the fact that I just magically created shit out of my fingers. “Okay, tell us. What are we supposed to be doing here?”


    “And how do we get home when we want to? Mum’s totally freaking out by now.” Haiden scratches the


    back of his head.


    “You are to rule the underworld. We reap the souls of the dead from the mortal realm, they’re sent here through portals into waiting rooms in a state of limbo, where we assess their souls and determine if they are to be ced here, or if they’re to be sent above to the Moon Goddess. You will be able to move through the different nes with these portals, travelling as you wish.”


    “That…is…a lot.” I manage to get out.


    Ss shrugs.


    “You have many creatures here who are condemned to work for you, taking some of the workload, but you are to oversee all processes and the reaping and assessing falls only on the Kings and Queen.”


    “Are you able to show us all of this?” Xavier questions.


    “Of course, my Lord.” Ss stands and motions for us to do the same as we follow him out of the double doors, into arge hallway. The flooring is the same as in the hall, and the same windows show light with nothing beyond them. We walk down to another door, and the inside is an utter chaos of paperwork stacked well above our heads around therge room. There’s a desk in the centre covered in paperwork, and filing cabs line the walls, bursting at the seams.


    “This is the filing room.”


    “I can kind of see that. What is all of it?”


    “Recent deaths. Souls to be reaped. There’s been a backlog since you were born. The previous Lord and Lady grew weaker every day and were not able to keep up with the workload.”


    “Oh, great,” I say sarcastically as I pick up the first piece of paper. It’s a list of names, ce of death, manner of death, age of death and physical descriptions. “So what do we do with all of this?”


    “You reap them, of course.”


    I roll my eyes, but Ss doesn’t pay that any bother.


    “Look at one of the names and the location. Think about that with intention and will there to be a portal, just like you did when you created the chairs.”


    I pick the first one on the list, Lauren Summers, 54, New Jersey. I picture a portal as I raise my arm and repeat the name in my head. Lauren Summers. A ck mist forms out of my fingers, and it swirls in the air in front of me until it bes one big ck hole. Ss raises his arms towards it.


    “In you go.”


    I hesitate, and he sighs, walking forward and through it, vanishing,


    2:54 pm


    I look to my mates, equally in awe and bewilderment.


    Levi catches my hand. “Together.” He nods.


    “Together,” I repeat as we step forward, and that stupid, fucked up falling feeling hits me again until my feetnd on solid ground. I look backwards with Levi to the portal where the rest of my matese stumbling out of. Haiden practically ran through and barrels into Noah’s back as the two fall to the ground. Ss stands with his arms crossed, waiting for us. I take in our surroundings, still holding the piece of paper in my free hand. We’re in some sort of office building, and people are bustling around us, but no one seems to take notice of us; they just walk around us casually like we’re not in their path. Haiden waves at a few of their faces, but they don’t react, just carrying on about their day. I take notice of the fact that we’re most likely around humans, not shifters or other magical beings.


    “When you are here to reap souls, only the dead will see you,” Ss answers my unspoken question.


    “And how will we see the dead?” I ask, just as I spot a slightly colourless figure in the distance.


    This work, Goddess of the Underworld by Sheridan Hartin, is an exclusive intellectual property legally contracted with NovelSnack. Any reproduction, distribution, or upload outside NovelFlow, AnyStories, NovGo, and Readink is unauthorised and constitutes copyright infringement.


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