Chapter 1 - Afterlife
It was a terrible tragedy six months ago, at the annual Winter Carnival held by Saint Madeleine's Sisters of the Heavenly Father All-Girl Prep-School. Safety regulations in Arkham weren't strongly enforced by the previous District Attorney. The small school's senior year class of girls were setting up the soundstage and audio equipment when the ice collapsed. The icey death trap swallowed all of the wealthy school's twelfth graders. Nobody had thought to tell the faculty that they couldn't set up the fête on the frozen Miskatonic River. Only a month shy of graduation.
Twenty five bodies were fished out of the river by police divers;
Twenty four students and their teacher. The girls were all aged between eighteen & nineteen and the teacher herself was only twenty seven. All of them died within seconds of touching the freezing water. It was a national tragedy. Vigils were held in major cities across the state.
But what the survivors and mourners of these apparently good young Catholic women didn't know, was that these hapless girls now faced the cruel judgment of the afterlife.
The girls didn't remember their deaths, only the ice breaking underneath them and then giving way. They recalled falling through a void, before being embraced by an aged yet beautiful asian woman, garbed all in white. Her touch was cold, but also strangely comforting. Maternal almost - Matron Death did not ever judge her children. She left that job to others. Death released them from her embrace, and they found themselves in a very strange place.
A hot place. One that smelled of sulfur. And brimstone.
It didn't take them long to fill in the gaps and realize where they were.
It didn't make sense. They were all god fearing Catholics from wealthy Arkham families.
Why had they been sent to Hell? Could God have gotten it wrong? Surely, even he must from time to time. They were afraid and uncertain of what the future had in store for their souls.
But the girls had faith that their god would correct his mistake.
They sat distraught on the rocky banks of The Styx illuminated by the fiery river's warm glow. The class's teacher, Mrs Warner tried to comfort the frightened girls as best she could.
She assured them that this was surely some kind of unfortunate clerical error.
They were all good Catholics and surely didn't belong here in Hell.
The woman promised to sort out the mix up so they could go on up to Heaven - As soon as they were able to see someone in charge.
In her experience, there was nothing that couldn't be solved by speaking to the manager.
But the terrible truth was that some of these girls were not as innocent as they claimed.
Their rich families bred into them twisted and affluent morality. Modernization had taught them a rather liberal interpretation of their religions' holy texts.
That is, liberal by biblical standards. Even for a Catholic sect, Saint Madeline's Cathedral was especially strict. Though apparently not strict enough.
The Catholic Church might leave room for flexibility in the scriptures but Yahweh most certainly did not.
However, this ambivalence manifested itself in a somewhat more malevolent way in seven of these girls. They were raised to become wicked sinners. They weren't damned for breaking an irrelevant, obsolete passage of the tome like the majority of the condemned were. No.
These girls were truly evil and heinous. They would be coming here to burn. The crimes they committed were in the forefront of their brains, and the fear they felt for the wrath they knew they would now face was indescribable - Even if they would never admit either to their classmates or their teacher.
The Catholic school class consisted mostly of privileged and rich white girls. The daughters of Arkham's Catholic elite. Ironically, they weren't too much different from the demonic heiress who was currently the Regent of the unholy place the class found themselves in.
There were three token minorities in the group among the small sea of white flight spawn. Though these girls were just as spoiled and privileged as their anglo contemporaries - despite the colour of their skin. True privilege was colour blind. After all, green is the only colour that really mattered when you got down to it.
While the underworld filled with more and more souls damned by Yahweh in these less traditionalist times, the method of transportation by way of Charon's ferry remained the same. While it was hardly efficient, it never affected the operations of Hell enough for anyone to modernize. After all, demons could wait an eternity.
Charon's ferry could hold no more than thirty passengers at any given time, including himself. Charon would make ten or fifteen trips a day. He would only work between the hours of 6am and 6pm, except on Sundays - Which he had free to himself. This was the only day that the ferry didn't make the trip. On Monday morning, Charon was always there, ceaselessly and without fail, to take mortals to their final destination.
Over the course of the month, the girls would watch Charon arrive and take a group onto his ferry. Each time he would ask for a toll from his passengers. And each time they couldn't pay, he took the clothes off their backs before allowing them to board. Men, women. He didn't discriminate.
Occasionally, one of the lost souls would give the hooded skeletal figure a valuable coin or a trinket and they would be allowed to board wearing their garments.
Hardly anyone was buried with their fare anymore and Charon had to make a living somehow. He missed the days of Rome and Greece when people knew what he was about.
It was for this reason that the ferryman now took the clothes of his passengers in lieu of payment. He wasn't a pervert. As a wraith, he was beyond such things. But clothes were something tangible that he could trade, and most souls wouldn't be needing them in Gehenna or Babel anyway.
Charon was a short tempered being who apparently lived in a perpetual state of frustration towards the souls of the living. A skeletal figure with fiery red eyes always adorned in a black robe; He is often mistaken for the Grim Reaper and doesn't care much for this.
He was far from ignorant of his terrible form and sullen demeanor - But Charon knew Matron Death quite well and he always thought she was a very kind and beautiful woman.
He considers this misconception to be a grievous insult to his good friend, and any souls foolish enough to share this ignorance with him receive a sharp, but hard wallop from his paddle - The oar Charon used to row the liquid fires of the Styx was the only thing that distinguished him from pop-culture incarnations of the Reaper.
As the forlorn girls watched him over the months, they learned that he was far from shy to use it against the backsides of souls who became unruly, or delayed his very strict schedule. Those that suffered his wrath usually had to stand up for the journey. If an entire group was unruly, he'd usually only have to paddle one or two before the rest fell in line.
Charon was not a pleasant man but he also wasn't overly wicked either. It was not his job to judge the damned, only to transport them across the River Styx.
But he was never fond of those who made his occupation more difficult for him. And they never escaped his fury if they brought it upon themselves.
One morning Mrs Warner woke up on the fiery shore to find that they were now first in-line at the ferry station. The teacher woke her students hastily, reminding them all not to delay the infernal ferryman's strict schedule.
"Wake up girls, best not to keep Mr. Charon waiting." She said in her sweetly tone. "That paddle of his looks quite unpleasant."
Today was the day. That after what seemed like endless waiting - Their time had finally come. As the girls groggily got up on their feet, they wandered to the ferry wharf filled with mixed emotions.There was relief, certainly, that they did not have to wait on the rocky banks of a fiery river. But there was also dread at the uncertainty of what followed.
The seven sinners amongst them had a pretty good idea of what might await them. Somehow, knowing made it worse.
Mrs Warner sensed the group's falling spirits. The truth was, she was terrified, but hid it behind a confident smile.
"Don't worry girls, when we get... Wherever we're going, I'll speak to whoever's in charge and we'll sort everything out."
She heard a voice call out a query from the line of students.
"Will we have to... Take off our clothes like the others did?"
Who it was, she couldn't quite tell, not that it was particularly important. Mrs Warner would have to encourage all her students - Even though she knew she was no longer in control of the situation.
"I'm sure we can work something else out." Assured the mild mannered woman through a convincing enough smile. "Mr Charon seems like a reasonable man."
Her simple words seemed to lull her students, at least momentarily. The colour came back into their faces. Mrs Warner straightened her spectacles and peered down the magma stream. She could see Charon in the distance, and despite being accustomed to his appearance now - The foreboding sight made her gasp nonetheless.
The woman clapped her hands together loudly, conducting the girls as if they were on a field trip.
"Form an orderly line, ladies." Instructed Mrs Warner in an admirably professional manner.
"Please stand in two rows so we don't inconvenience everyone else." She said, pointing to the endless line of damned souls behind them.
The current taxied Charon's ferry to shore. He only had to direct it. It was a good start to what he knew would be a bad morning. Today was the Catholic group. High School Seniors and College Students were always bad enough but Catholic ones were always the worst.
He wasn't looking forward to this trip.
Charon took his time mooring his ferry to the dock. He thought about how he'd have to waste another Sunday in Pandaemonium selling clothes to make his rent. He cursed Lucifer under his breath for not paying him a salary, then he cursed God, because he figured he was equal in blame.
The ferryman sighed heavily as he finished the knot - Despite his lack of lungs. He tossed the hessian sack over his shoulder and stepped onto the pier. There wasn't a day in the past 200 years that he hadn't needed it.
