An impossibility. Half The BrokenWhat remains of the Saqalu. They still wield the awesome power they always did, but they are no longer… stable., half Ever-Dying, he was conceived in a dream. His story will be told in A NECESSARY END. However he was created, Alex’s soul – to those who can see it – seems like an unbelievable twisting mass of instability. It looks like it exploded, and was caught in a freeze-frame. He really shouldn’t be alive, whole, and walking around, at least according to anyone who is able to see that deeply. Fortunately, he stopped worrying about his “instability” a long time ago, as it doesn’t seem to have an effect on anything he does.
Snarky and clever, Alex had a rough start. An incredibly sickly child, he was traded by his father Jacob EngelIn a fight with cancer, Jacob traded his four-year-old son to Death for extra years. to HadesHis father, Cronus ate him, for reasons unknown; his sister Dis defeated Cronus and freed him, but he wasn’t right when he... in exchange for seven years added to his father’s life. Hades, always drawn to aid souls in bad shape, was more than happy to take Alex in to his strange family. As a result, Alex grew up in the land of the dead – though I should say that doesn’t mean the next life. Whatever comes next, he hasn’t seen it yet; instead, he grew up in Home, the village Hades built to house the ruined souls he did his best to heal, but who weren’t willing or able to move on.
Until the day comes when he’s allowed to leave and head to a populated, living world, this mishmash of broken souls is all Alex knows – and apart from Hades, DisDeath’s little sister, she is one of the ancient race of beings known as gods., and the various PsychopompThey've had many titles and roles through all of history, in every culture and time: those who are there when... employees, no one else knows much about him beyond the fact that he is Death’s adopted son. Shame the beings who successfully planned his existence have no intention of leaving him alone.
(As an author-aside, Alex was my first fully developed original character. I’ve had him in my head for 30 years, and it’s a delight to finally be able to reveal him to the world.)