Helena Diederich

Helena Diederich is, at the start of Purgatory, an eighteen-year-old freshman attending Centrest College.  She is of Hispanic descent on her mother's side, and her grandmother was second generation American.  Spanish was never enforced when she was growing up despite her mother's infatuation with their heritage, but she knows enough of the language to communicate effectively.

She typically preferred her hair past her shoulders and kept herself well groomed.  Makeup was never an interest of hers, and neither was fashion.  She kept things very simple which allowed her to meld into the crowd.  She is an introvert by nature, preferring closed gatherings with only her friends.

Her childhood best friend was Naddia Holiday.  Up until her death they were inseparable and would investigate the paranormal in secret.  Their first encounter with a ghost took place in the town hall of an old country town, which was also their first encounter with each other.  Their last encounter together was in an abandoned home they came across in the woods where things got particularly violent.  The house was littered with photographs, all with one person's head cut out or stabbed through.  There was graffiti on the walls and broken glass strewn about.  Helena picked up one of the photographs to take a better look and immediately a shrill cry echoed through the old home.  When they tried to run, they found that the windows and the doors were locked, and at one point Naddia was knocked down.  They finally found a broken window to escape from.  The only injury sustained was a bruise around Naddia's arm that appeared in the shape of a hand that held her at a tight grip.

Purgatory did not take a real interest in Helena until after Naddia's death.  The two girls were constantly together, so Naddia's presiding Observer or Guardian would, at times, include Helena in their reports.  Purgatory wanted to see if Helena would continue to see the paranormal without Naddia's presence.  It wasn't long until Helena began to notice the black silhouettes in her peripheral.  It was always ethereal, like a fuzzy black spot in her eye, to which she complained about constantly until she noticed how it moved.  Optometrists would never find anything wrong with her eyes or her vision, so her mother wondered if it was something psychological due to the trauma of her best friend's death.  Nothing could explain the figure, however, and eventually she began to notice it less and less.  Purgatory had never stopped observing her, and it wasn't until her senior year in high school that she was assigned a Guardian.