The journey had taken them to a place darker than anything they had encountered so far—an expanse of broken black stones, jagged and sharp, stretching endlessly into a sky where the sun never rose. The air was thick with the scent of decay, and the shadows felt alive, whispering in strange languages. The group walked in silence, each person lost in their thoughts after the haunting encounter with the Warden and the lost souls.

As they moved, the silence felt oppressive, broken only by the occasional gust of wind. Jack could sense that something was weighing on Selene. She had been quiet for the last stretch of their journey, her face unreadable, her usual confident stride slightly more cautious.

Finally, Emma spoke up, breaking the quiet tension. “Selene… I’ve been meaning to ask. What exactly are you?”

The question hung in the air, and Selene stopped in her tracks. The group, caught off guard by the sudden question, stopped too, watching her carefully. Selene turned to face them, her dark cloak swaying gently in the wind. Her eyes—those strange, unreadable eyes—seemed to flicker for a moment as if they were seeing something far beyond them.

“What am I?” she repeated softly, almost as if to herself. “It’s a question I’ve asked many times, even to myself.”

Jack felt an unsettling sense of curiosity, as though he were on the verge of understanding something crucial, something hidden in the shadows of Selene’s existence. There had always been an air of mystery around her. Despite the knowledge she had shared with them, despite her guiding them through the horrors of Hell, she had remained distant. She was powerful, yes, but also enigmatic. And now, with that one simple question, it seemed the veil was about to lift.

“I suppose you could say I am a ghost of sorts,” Selene began, her voice low and steady. “But not in the way that you think. I am neither fully dead nor fully alive. I am something… in between.”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “A ghost? But you’re standing right here.”

Selene nodded. “Yes, I stand in front of you, but that doesn’t make me truly alive. I was once human, a long time ago—many centuries ago. I lived and I died, just like any mortal. But my death didn’t come in the usual way.”

The group listened intently, stepping closer.

“I died in an era far removed from your time. I was a young woman, a witch—though not of the kind you have heard of. I wasn’t a warlock or a spellcaster driven by power, nor was I a healer. I was an investigator, someone who sought out the mysteries of the supernatural. My obsession with uncovering the truths of life and death led me to make one fatal mistake.”

Jack could sense the sadness in her voice, the hidden pain that she had never allowed them to see before.

“I made a pact,” she continued, “a pact with one of the oldest demons in Hell, a being who promised me knowledge—knowledge of the afterlife, the secrets of Hell itself. In exchange, I agreed to offer my soul. But I didn’t understand what I was truly bargaining for. I thought I could walk away from it, that I could outsmart the demon. I was wrong.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “You sold your soul?”

Selene’s gaze darkened. “Not just my soul, Claire. I sold my very essence—the core of who I was. The demon took it, and I was cast into Hell, bound to this place forever, neither fully dead nor alive. A soul, trapped between realms.”

Jack’s heart clenched as he realized the depth of Selene’s torment. She wasn’t some unfeeling, distant entity guiding them through Hell. She had been a person, once, and she had made a sacrifice that had bound her to this terrible place for eternity.

“After my death,” Selene said softly, “I wandered the abyss of Hell, lost, for centuries. I watched the suffering of others and became one with the shadows. I was neither an angel nor a demon—no longer mortal, but not a true demon either. I was… a lost soul.”

Emma, always compassionate, spoke with a soft voice. “So you’re not a witch? Or a ghost? You’re something else entirely.”

Selene nodded. “Yes. I’m a lost soul, yes, but not like the others. My essence is still intact, though twisted by the pact I made. And I have become a guide, of sorts. The demon who took me—he saw potential in me, and over time, I was allowed to become a being with a purpose. I became the one who leads others, the one who knows the pathways through Hell, the one who sees both the damned and the lost. But I do not belong to either world. Not fully.”

Jack felt a deep sense of empathy for her, and he understood, perhaps for the first time, why she had always seemed so distant. Selene wasn’t just guiding them through Hell because she was some kind of mystical expert—she was leading them because she, too, had been lost. Her journey had intertwined with theirs in a way none of them could have imagined.

“But why help us?” Tom asked. “Why guide us through this place? You don’t owe us anything.”

Selene’s eyes met his, and for the first time, Jack saw something like vulnerability in her gaze. “I help you because I seek redemption—something that will never come. I help you because I am bound here, but I have a small part of me that still believes in the possibility of escape. Not for myself, but for others. Maybe, if I can help you understand Hell—understand the forces that govern it—then I will have done something worthwhile. Maybe, in some twisted way, that will grant me some peace.”

There was a long silence as her words sank in. The weight of what she had shared hung in the air, thick with the gravity of her past. The group stood motionless, unsure of how to respond.

Finally, Jack spoke, his voice quiet but firm. “You’re not just a guide, Selene. You’re a part of this journey. And maybe, in the end, you’ll find what you’re looking for. You deserve that much.”

Selene’s lips curled into a faint smile, though it was tinged with sadness. “Perhaps. But for now, all I can do is keep guiding you. There are more things to see, more truths to uncover. The deeper we go into Hell, the closer we get to understanding not just this place, but ourselves.”

As they continued on their journey, Jack couldn’t help but feel that, in some way, they were all searching for something. He, his friends, and even Selene—each of them was on a path, a journey through the unknown, looking for answers, for redemption, or perhaps just for a way to make sense of the chaos around them.

But in the end, he realized, the journey itself might be more important than the destination. And for Selene, that journey was one she had walked alone for far too long.