Chapter 6 - "What The Hell?"

                                    

                                          
   I'm surrounded by a dozen beings in Hissandra's library. I'm sitting in front of her desk, shrinking into my seat as their supernatural eyes watch me with motionless expressions. Hissandra is behind her desk, standing on her tail as she looks down at me with her own pair of threatening eyes.
   "You're firing me?" I whine, voice cracking as I attempt to hold back my emotions. "But I've only worked one day with you . . . and it was going great! My pole was the busiest of all the poles!"
   "We need your strength, Sinneas," Hissandra begs with a scary serious tone.
   I gulp loudly. "What's going on?"
   "Your talents are wasted on the poles," Krom says behind me as he squeezes my shoulders reassuringly. "We have decided to let you in. I know you've been wondering what's going on, but now that we know what your power is, we think you'll be useful."
   I shake my head at them. "I disagree. I don't think I'm useful at all. Look at what happened when I put my power to use. I died. I couldn't even save myself."
   "That is why you'll be learning with my two best followers—Hellios and Sephone." Hissandra waves her snaky hand and summons the two humans, which I now know are the most powerful of our fragile kind.
   "You're sending me away to train?" I wonder.
   "Training? No. We don't have that kind of time," she scoffs.
   "I'm sorry, but how are they going to help? Their strengths are no match for this fight," says the commander of the Cancel Culture Police Department, who is responsible for every police station in Hell. I met him just before I entered the library. He's a scary little sheep man, but he's Krom's boss, so I don't insult him with my smart mouth.
   "We don't have anyone like Sinneas," Hissandra tells him. "Our attacks have been mostly physical and we also know that psychics have no effect, but Sinneas possesses a different type of power, and a very dangerous one."
   "I didn't tell Sinneas everything when they first asked me what their power is," Sephone says as she steps out from the shadows and becomes the center of attention. "The truth is, their power is much greater than anything I've ever seen. It's my job to detect these humans before they can figure it out for themselves. Whenever I find someone who is worthy, I inform Madame Hissandra so that she may make her choice."
   "What the hell is going on?" I demand, eying everyone in the room. "I get that I'm new and I don't have a single ounce of experience like you all do, but would it kill you to stop treating me like a child and stop pretending like I'm not even in the room? Use your words! Don't give me your rhymes and puzzles, just tell me what is going on!"
   "A young woman has entered our world, a nun," Hissandra says, silencing the entire library with the truth. The energy suddenly changes, everyone is terrified.
   "A nun? Like a new soul?"
   "No, she isn't here because she died, she's alive."
   "This has never happened before," Krom tells me as he releases his grip on my shoulders. He walks around the room, scanning the thousands of books all around us. "A human has somehow managed to penetrate this dimension and we can't physically interact with her because she doesn't belong here."
   "We don't know how she did it," Hissandra continues. "It's certainly not her religion that brought her here, but I am betting that's what she believes. There must have been something left on earth by the ancients that let her come here. A spell, a relic, a door, something."
   "Why not her religion?" I ask.
   "The humans on earth are so consumed by their made-up religions that it has stopped them from truly evolving into something bigger. Tell me, Sinn, do you think I came from earth? Look at me and tell me."