Schwarz has a minion!

Lilien the Hellhound

Chapter 1. The Omen
As long as life existed, Death was always there, so did his assistants: the angels of death. These angels are summoned to scenes of death, guiding the bodiless souls through the gate to the underworld. They are also known as reapers.

Schwarz was a high ranking angel, as well as one of the very first reapers Death created. However, he rarely acted as his rank. Others often criticized him for his growing compassion to the mortals and his fondness of observing the human world. Living in the shadow of darkness for countless years, Schwarz would still be startled when suddenly realizing that he never had more desires than having a simple and short life as a human. However, the wish was impossible to be fulfilled for a reaper.

Chapter 2. The Beginning
Although angels of death normally act alone, they sometimes are accompanied by a kind of loyal pets, the hellhounds. These immortal hounds, whose duty is to guard the gate to the underworld, are born in the inferno fire from souls that are filled with the rotten spirit of death.

Schwarz once owned a hellhound that he adored very much. In fact, the huge black hound named Lilien was all he ever had. The two enjoyed sitting by the edge of clouds after dark, appreciating the magnificent view of the night sky. With the usually vicious hound being quiet and tender, Schwarz would sing to her in a strange and divine language, feeling her soft fur and warm tongue with his cold hands.

As a rather “free-spirited” reaper, Schwarz would avoid his duty as much as possible, and it gave him the opportunity to discover this: by touching a human soul, he could experience the life of a human, feeling their complex and often puzzling emotions. That was why Schwarz started to collect souls secretly, keeping them in his treasure chest, and only releasing them when he was alone.

Unfortunately, the secret was eventually discovered by another reaper, who immediately reported it to Death. The mighty god was enraged, and decided to banish Schwarz into the ocean. In the nick of time, Lilien stood out, and claimed that she collected the souls by herself. Schwarz was forgiven, but his beloved hellhound was exiled into the world of mortals, reborn as a human girl, Lily.

Chapter 3. The Suffering
When baby Lily came to the world, she was welcomed by her loving family. Secretly watching over the girl, Schwarz actually envied his old companion, but hoped she would enjoy her life as a human nevertheless. However, Lily’s life was far from usual and joyful.

At a very young age, she started to have nightmares, which often involved hounds coming out of shadows, and staring at the innocent child with eyes that were unspeakably cruel and evil. It was rather an omen from Lily’s past, warning her about her painful future. However, Lily had no clue of what the nightmares meant. When the girl was 9 years old, she had the same nightmare again, but this time, it was far more disturbing. The hound jumped out, and bit the girl’s neck. She woke up, crying.

The next day, Lily’s 13-year-old brother, Brandon, was murdered while the two were playing hide-and-seek. Lily was hiding in her closet then. Before she was going to jump out and give away her hiding place, she saw a masked man, with cunning and cruel eyes, following Brandon into her bedroom. The man slashed the teen’s throat open, and quickly left. Before Lily blacked out, she saw a shadow coming out of nowhere. She smiled, as she believed it was an angel who was coming to save her, an angel in black cloak with dark wings.

The police obtained finger prints from the scene, but no matching result was found. Then, the case was closed after five months of inconclusive investigation. However, the killer did not leave the family alone. He struck again after 11 years, leaving the same finger prints behind. Lily’s parents were both killed, and she survived from 9 stabs in her chest and abdomen miraculously. While Lily was in a coma, she saw the angel again. His face was hidden in shadow, but Lily was sure that he was same angel from 11 years ago. And then she heard his voice which cannot be described in human words. He told her his name was Schwarz, and he would not take away her soul with him this time.

Chapter 4. The Conflict
Although without recollection of her past life, some special bonds never disappeared. The hellhound would often appear in Lily’s dreams to warn her about unfortunate future events, and Lily had the ability to see one particular angel of death, Schwarz. The deadly angel was not as terrifying or disturbing as the hounds. In fact, he made her not fear death anymore.

Right after recovering from her wounds, the young woman was constantly seeking Schwarz. By volunteering to take care of terminally ill people, she was able to stay close to death. Though Schwarz never appeared, because he didn’t want to disturb Lily. However, out of desperation, the woman deliberately shut off the oxygen pump for a very sick man one night. “Schwarz, where are you? Come and take me away!”

This action shocked the angel, as he would never expect her to take away a life, just like himself. Finally, the angel decided to answer Lily’s calling, and come to collect the old man’s soul. As the young woman looked at him with eyes full of hope, he spoke in a heavy and sorrowful tune, “You shall not kill!”

Realizing how wrong and scared she was, Lily left the city, and decided to start a new life. However, the haunting past of the psychopathic killer would not fade, and that was why she made finding the killer her mission of life. With such determination and persistence, Lily eventually identified the killer after 5 years of tireless investigation. As more truth being uncovered, the murderer had at least killed 17 other people in the past 20 years.

Attempting to collect more evidences, Lily sneaked into the killer’s house one night, but failed to get out before the man came back. Hiding in the closet, she felt that she was the 9 years old girl again, watching her brother being murdered. Rage elevated in her heart. Instead of leaving after the man fell asleep, she grabbed a kitchen knife and slit the man’s throat open just as what he did to Brandon. The time, Schwarz appeared again to collect the man’s soul, but most importantly, he wanted to see Lily, face to face. She was covered with blood, shaking and smiling. The madness in Lily’s eyes made the angel shook his head slowly. If a reaper could cry, Schwarz would shed tears for her.

After the taste of revenge, Lily was helplessly addicted to killing, as if it was the only meaning of her life. She was responsible for 12 bodies found all over the country in the course of 13 months, most victims had a history of violent crimes.

Schwarz felt conflicted and guilty for leading Lily to a path of destruction, which also caused him to question his fondness of human life. These imperfect, emotional, and mortal creatures were capable of achieving many great things. But at the same time, they could also destroy what they had accomplished in an instant. Death once told Schwarz that the mortal life could never be joyful for an immortal soul. That was why Lily was so lifeless as a human, yet so lively when she was with Schwarz.

In the last attempt to convince her to give up killing, Schwarz decided to be there when Lily took the life of her 13th victim. Being much better at killing now, Lily still enjoyed covering herself with blood. As she was kneeling on the ground, breathing in the raw smell of death, a dark shadow appeared. Knowing it must be Schwarz, Lily looked up with the same hopeful eyes, smiling. Schwarz said nothing, but started to sing a song in an obscure language. The angel’s voice was as deep as the darkest night, and as pure as the whitest cloud. The forlorn song broke Lily’s heart, and she knew she should stop living her life in pain and hatred. But besides killing, life had no more meanings to her.

When the singing ended, Lily’s eyes were filled with tears. Still kneeling, she looked up again, but without the hopefulness or madness in her eyes, instead, it was peace. Neither of them made a sound, but Schwarz could hear Lily’s begging. She asked the angel to take her with him, because she could not simply stopped the killing by herself. The two stayed like this for hours as if they were two statues. Not until the darkness of the night started to fade, Schwarz walked towards the young woman. As Lily stood up with a contend smile on her face, she slowly closed her eyes, and opened her arms to fully embrace death.

Chapter 5. The Dead End
Lily’s soul was full of the rotten spirit of death, and she was reborn again in the inferno fire as the hellhound, Lilien. Schwarz was there when she came out of the flames. It was fate that kept them together, as masters and servants, saviors and refugees. Watching the hound sleeping soundly in his arms, deep inside Schwarz’s unbeating heart, he knew that his beloved companion would be forever haunted by what she had been through. However, Lilien’s ordeal had not changed Schwarz’s dream of being a human. In fact, it made him hated his own identity even more, as he deemed that he destroyed her human life himself.

That was when Schwarz started to collect human souls again. One day, while enjoying the beautiful hallucination of the human world, he failed to notice a group of approaching fiends. As a result, all souls were plundered, and Schwarz was badly wounded in the attack. Death blamed his angel for collecting, and then losing those souls. This time, no one was able to take the blame for Schwarz. What awaited him was the exile into the deep and cold ocean.

Eternally trapped in the bottom of the ocean all alone, Schwarz was powerless and hopeless. He knew that it was the dead end he had foreseen. It was the ultimate punishment for him, a life with unbearable and endless silence and loneliness.

Schwarz had been bringing death to the world for thousands of years. Ironically his immortality did not allow him to take his own life. Death was so close to him when he despised it, and it was so distant when he desired it.

After her master was exiled, Lilien never saw Schwarz again. She begged Death to banish her with Schwarz, but was summoned back to guard the gate to the underworld. It was also an eternal solitary life she lived. Never did she wanted to be reborn again, she was just waiting for Schwarz in the underworld, till the end of everything. (The End)

Story, & profile layout by me.
Photo featuring Christopher Schmid, a former Doom metal lyricist and vocalist.