Hel’s diary
1. Prologue
Death is not what everybody thinks it is.
It may be painful, yes. It could be forever, perhaps. It’s mysterious, in any case. Well, for you human beings at least. But I don’t understand why everyone fears the unknown instead of being curious about it.
I’m the goddess of death, my name is Hel. Yes, Hel, not Hell. »Hell« is a horrible place that some religious people invented to intimidate other people, and if you take a closer look at the etymology of the word, you’ll notice that it actually derives from my name.
This has led people – at least those who wrote the latest editions of Norse mythology – to depict me as an ugly, mad, sadistic dominatrix, and describe my realm as a boring place where nothing ever happens.
Well, whether or not I’m ugly depends on what you define as »ugly«. If you fancy middle-aged women and have a thing for necrophilia, I’m the girl of your dreams.
However, I’m not mad. Only if you make me mad. And I’m certainly not sadistic, nor is my realm. It’s called Helheim, and it is – as you can probably imagine by now – the place where your soul goes when you’re dead. But it’s nothing to be afraid of. Although there are some shady corners, Helheim is generally a beautiful and peaceful place, so you shouldn’t be afraid of death. Of permanent death, that is. There’s something else you should be afraid of, though.
I’ve been watching the realm of the living for thousands of years by now, simply because human beings amuse me. There’s nothing I haven’t seen in all that time – believe me, watching everything in the world at the same time is much more interesting than »The Simpsons«, »Sex and the city« or anything else you might enjoy watching on TV – and I have encountered the phenomenon of »non-permanent death« before. But not like this. Not with so many victims.
I knew I should have been keeping a closer eye on Capcom. Capcom is yet another god, you know, not nearly as powerful as I am, but still strong enough to ruin people’s lives, either by magically creating great videogames that only run on one specific too expensive console that no one likes, or by giving the human beings under his control too much power.
A little while ago, some North American researchers prayed to Capcom, asking him to give them the power to rule the world. What they forgot to mention was which world they wanted to rule.
If they had asked to rule that of the living, Capcom would have told them no, because he’s too fond of it himself. If they had asked to rule that of the dead, Capcom would have told them no, because I already rule that world and no one can overthrow me.
But they didn’t specify what they wanted, and so they got to rule the world of the half-living. Literally.
Using the contemporary calendar of the Christians (you know, those who misused my name to invent their concept of Hell), it all began in the year 1998. Capcom gave the researchers of some mad company called Umbrella the T-virus, which destroys a woman’s brain and a man’s genitals and thus turns them into mindless zombies with a thing for fresh human flesh.
Once infected, either through direct contact with the virus or by being bitten by a carrier of it, there’s no cure for the victims. Their hearts stop beating, their bodies start falling apart, they’re technically dead – but they keep moving. A part of a zombie’s soul remains in their body while the rest of it journeys to Helheim. This causes the person to appear as a translucent ghost with a semi-solid body in my realm. They can’t be whole again until their half-alive self is destroyed in a way that makes the remaining part of their soul leave the rotting body.
Let’s go back to that time – I can do that, you know. I’m the goddess of death, I can do everything. And for now, I’ll introduce the protagonists of this first episode that happened in July 1998. The most important ones, that is. They all work for the police department of Raccoon City and are part of the elite S.T.A.R.S. unit which will soon be ordered to investigate a recent series of murders in the Arklay Forest surrounding the town.
25-year-old Alpha Team marksman and former Air Force member Chris Redfield will be the last one to figure out that those murders are being committed by zombies. He’s the captain’s favourite, tall, muscular, and handsome from head to toe, but unfortunately the former is empty like the space outside the universe. In other words, for those who share Mister Redfield’s most unfortunate trait: He’s dumb as f*ck. What else can be said about him? He has dark reddish-brown hair, blue eyes, a little sister with a big brother complex, and a 20-inch-long tube… on his sniper rifle.
The brunette Jill Valentine is two years younger than Chris and her intelligence quotient is about two numbers higher than his. She has a knack for technology – her abilities range from picking locks with a set of needles to preparing and disarming time bombs, but she can’t handle stupidly closed boxes. She used to serve in Delta Force – in whatever alternative universe Capcom has made up –, but always forgets her professional training whenever she faces a zombie. The only woman in Alpha Team, she has to endure lots of sexist jokes and occasionally dodge stray fingers.
Barry Burton is a trusted and respected member of Alpha Team with a dirty secret no one knows of. Well, that’s only natural, because if they knew, they wouldn’t trust him anymore. He is 38 and has a family that consists of a wife (Kathy), two daughters whose names he tends to get mixed up, a dog that thinks it’s a cat, and his Colt Python. The Python is his favourite, but no, it’s not a snake. Barry is tall and muscular like Chris, even more so, but he has a feminine side as well. For example, he’s never seen without his magic little handbag that is always filled with everything the situation requires.
Rebecca Chambers is the only member of Bravo Team among our main cast, and the only Bravo who will survive her first mission. According to her file, she’s a highly intelligent prodigy that graduated from university at the age of 18 to become the medic and field scientist of Bravo Team. She doesn’t have any combat skills whatsoever, but for some reason S.T.A.R.S. considered it more important to hire a young recruit who knows everything about viruses that can save or destroy humanity, but nothing about humans themselves, than a decent fighter. And if you think the last sentence was too long, you know exactly what you’re going to put up with if you ever befriend Rebecca.
Then there’s Albert Wesker, the captain of Alpha Team. He always wears the same shades because he thinks it’s cool; rumour has it he never took them off during the last two decades. (As your omniscient narrator, I know the rumour is true.) He washes his blond hair every day just to make it fatty again with tons of styling gel – his spiky haircut is yet another one of his »cool« features. A rather uncool fact about him is that he’s a traitor (there, I spoiled you) and will soon cause the deaths of many of his subordinates. This will eventually bring about a feud between him and Chris for years – although he would rather kiss Chris than kill him.
Yes, you got that right. Thanks to my ability to read minds, I know that whenever Wesker gives Chris another sermon about how much he hates him (and you will encounter a lot of those), it’s actually a love confession in disguise. No matter how asexual Wesker seems, he’s in fact gay for Chris, straight for Rebecca (see below), and he used to be a lesbian for a few years, but those were rather dark times in his life he doesn’t want to talk about. (Which doesn’t mean I won’t bring it up now and then, though.)
I can read Jill’s mind as well. Do you know why she never boasts about her unlocking skills in front of anyone but Chris? Because when she does that, she actually asks him to unlock her with his very own lockpick. He’s just too dumb to take the hint.
Rebecca’s autistic behaviour among human beings is just a façade to hide the fact that she slept with every authority figure (including Wesker) on her way to get where she is today. This explains her track record despite her young age. Don’t be fooled by those innocent green eyes – she’s a kinky bitch and she loves pain. You’ll see what I mean.
We talked about Barry’s feminine side before: It’s not only the handbag. Every night, after putting the children to bed, he puts on his wife’s underwear and takes the dog out in nothing but that, or engages in hot role-plays with Kathy. And that’s not even the »dirty secret« I mentioned earlier.
So, now that you know our main characters and what this is all about, it’s time to get started.
