by VS Winters
He had started walking again and I shuffled my feet quickly to catch up with him. I waited for him to agree with me, to fight me on it, to tell me he knew the secret, anything. I just needed to hear his voice. But he was silent, and his silence was really starting to piss me off. I gritted my teeth and flexed my hands into fists and back again. Everything in me wanted to stop him and yell at him, beg him to open up to me. The bravery in me was at full speed.
I reached out to tap him hard on the shoulder but before I could, he stepped to the side letting me walk up next to him. "We've reached the entrance."
Relaxing my jaw and lowering my hand, I furrrowed my brow at him. "The entrance to what?"
He nodded his head forward toward a large set of black stone doors that seemed to sit all alone in the middle of the path. All along the front of the doors, scenery was etched, pictures I recognized bits and pieces of. It was the River Styx, or so the mortals called it. The truth was, something we learned very quickly during the war, hell was hell no matter what gods you professed. I swallowed hard, that familiar feeling still there, simmering in the back of my head.
I looked to Crius and his face was straight, serious. There was no fear in his eyes, which made me feel a bit better considering by that point there was a good chance I had pissed my armor and it would be all rusty by the time we got back to the real world. I waited for Crius to move and when he did, I walked along beside him. He reached over without looking at me. "Stay close. Only speak if I tell you to."
I gave him a nod, knowing his instructions were important and there was no way I was arguing that. As we approached the doors, they opened for us, still floating right there in the center of the soul surrounded path. As we walked through, I glanced up at the archway and felt the heat intensify. "Well, I have been told multiple times to take my happy ass to hell. There will be quite a few happy people if they ever find out I came here."
"Shhh," he whispered.
I looked around me as I walked, staring out at the red and black horizon. It wasn't like the horizon on Earth, a stopping point for your eyes. Hell seemed to stretch on forever. To my right there was a large river, the water slick and glassy just like the one I'd seen out of the moving car when Crius had taken me to the speakeasy. To my left I could see across the barren, stony land. There were not only several other small winding rivers across the expanse, but large jagged rocks with red bubbling lava tipping from the edges. The sky above us was a deep red and the smoke a charcoal black.
Crius tapped my hand, grabbing my attention. In front of us was a small pier-like structure with a ferryman standing draped in black cloaks, holding a torch in one hand and a ring of keys in the other. When he moved, the cloth around him floated as if it were part of his body. I leaned toward Crius. "Could he be corrupted?"
Crius shook his head. "I don't think that you can be corrupted if you aren't actually a being."
The thought struck a bit of fear in my heart, and I was afraid to ask, but my curiosity had gotten the best of me. After all, our little trip to hell was the first vacation I had had in ten years. I might as well get the tour. "What do you mean?"
We stopped in front of the ferryman and he nodded to Crius, moving toward the long slender canoe, black in color, sitting atop the still waters next to the pier. "The ferryman is less of a person and more a testament of time and existence. He chooses who comes and goes and he gives no explanation for his choices."
I looked from Crius over to the ferryman, whose face was shrouded in shadows and cloth. Crius was trying to tell me was that the ferryman was the one who decided who got in, and he could always decide not to let you back out.
Chapter Eighteen
Riding along in the boat, even with the very creepy ferryman steering us down the river, it was almost like floating through the air. There were no waves or ripples, and I had a hard time not staring down at my reflection in the glassy surface.
As soon as I got in the boat though, Crius had told me not to stare into the water and I had experienced enough creepiness that day to not ask why. Immediately, visions of bodies grabbing me from the boat and pulling me in floated through my mind. They weren't the cool type of visions either, they were the ones where my imagination had just gotten the best of me.
We curved down the river, and I only saw the ongoing expanse of hell, the jagged rocks, the lava in the distance, but nothing else. It was still but not really silent. I could hear voices like those on the path, but they were more muffled and farther away. At first, I thought they were in my mind, but then I realized as their tone rose and fell, they were somewhere out there beyond my ability to see them.
We turned with the flow of the river and pulled up to another dark pier just around the bend. I lifted my head and looked up, finding a stone path that led to the front of a large home sitting on the edge of the rocks. It looked to be built right into the stone and all the columns and stairwells were made of the same black onyx that surrounded it. There were only a couple of windows and the shutters and front door were black and large just like the gates to hell. I looked to Crius as he stood, reaching his hand down for mine. I tried to move as easily as possible since the clanging of my armor seemed to echo louder down in the bowels of hell than anywhere else.
I stood on the pier and watched as the ferryman paddled away. "I didn't expect this."
Crius nodded and walked forward. "Come on, let's get inside."
His voice was quieter now, calmer, and I thought for a moment I detected a bit of sadness beneath the tone. I hurried along behind him, making sure not to trip over the stones, and held tightly to the railing as we ascended the staircase to the front doors. I could feel the warmth of the stone beneath my gloved hand and I wondered if maybe, perhaps, that was why I was wearing the gloves in the first place. It definitely wasn't time for a science experiment though.
Entering into the home, which was actually more like a palace, my eyes went wide staring up at the tall ceilings and down at the smooth and slick dark floors. Crius moved quicker, walking through the foyer and to the right down the long corridor. Passing one of the paintings I paused, feeling as if I had seen it before, and much more recently than whatever déjà vu memories I had on the path.
"Come on, I want to get in and out of here," he said pulling me toward the first room on the right.
As soon as I entered it, I knew exactly where I had seen it. It was the room that Crius and I had gone into during the vision that we had shared. The home was real, and I knew right then and there that he and I had lived in that palace together. That place was our home. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I put my hand against the golden armor over my stomach.
As I lifted my head to tell Crius what I had realized, he stepped forward very close to me and put his fingers to his lips. Nerves ran through my chest. "Something doesn't feel right. It's far too quiet here. Stay close to me."
He was acting strange, pulling me along through each room, looking at every single thing on the shelves, flipping through papers on the desk. I wanted to look myself, to have some sort of proof that I was right that we had lived there together, but he moved so fast. I kept looking over my shoulder, thinking at any moment we would be ambushed by corrupted creatures, but nothing ever came. Crius moved us deeper and deeper into the house, searching every room. When he moved us to the next one, I finally pulled my arm away.
"Stop," I said with a pleading voice. "What are you doing? You're searching, but what are you searching for?"
Crius let out a deep sigh and leaned forward on the table in the center of the room, putting his fist down and lowering his head. "I feel driven to find something, but I have no idea what it is. It pulls at me from every direction, from whoever I was before I lost my memory. I know that sounds crazy, but I just know that when I find whatever it is, I'll know."
I wanted to stop him, but I could fully understand what he was saying. There was a pull inside of me as well and not just toward him, but toward the house, toward our visio
ns, and toward the light. I didn't understand any of it, but I knew that one day I would. That at some point it would all make sense. But watching Crius was like watching a man who had gone mad. There was something wrong inside of him, something that I couldn't do anything about. It wasn't the corruption that was slowly trying to take him over, it was emotion. Whatever it was that was speaking to him, it was pushing out the depths of his anguish. Everything in me wanted to help him, but I didn't know how.
Crius finished up in that room and we moved to the next, hurrying across the hallway and into a dimly lit room. As we entered, he put his arm out and stopped me in my tracks. In front of us was a high-backed rolling chair like something you would see in a fancy office. The light tingled inside of me, and I narrowed my eyes, watching as the chair spun around revealing Lilith, looking a little bit worse for the wear. Obviously, her fall from the speakeasy window wasn't so kind to her body, but whatever corruption was inside of her was keeping her pinned together.
I cringed at her scraped knees, the way that the scales from her legs had covered all of her flesh, and scratches up and down her arms as if she had fought the three-headed dog down below. She tilted her head to the side almost mechanically and grinned wide. She began to speak, and though her voice belonged to the nymph, both Crius and I could tell it was not her speaking. Whoever was behind the corruption had finally come to talk to us.
"I knew it was only a matter of time before you came here," the voice said. "Crius, you were always so ignorant to the truth."
Crius clenched his fists. "What truth is that?"
Lilith laughed, but the laugh was deep and contorted. "You were never in control of this world. You may have thought you were, but hell was never yours. Hell belongs to the whole, and the whole is fracturing. Humanity is breaking it, and you and I both know for that, humanity must pay."
I was just really freaking tired of hearing Lilith talk, even if it wasn't really Lilith. Whoever was in there, they were the reason that everything was happening and now they were threatening humanity. I was starting to take things personally. Before Crius could move for me, knowing full well I wasn't going to take that lying down, I lunged forward, pulling my arm back and slapping Lilith hard across the face. For a minuscule fragment of a second, it felt really good to slap that bitch, but as soon as my light came surging out it slammed hard into the corruption, starting a battle between light and dark, and for once I had some sort of control over the light.
The brightness radiated through the room, contrasting with the corruption dark and deep, a black mist that was only a void. I groaned as I thrust my arms outward, pushing the light as hard as I could from my chest slamming into the corruption, backing it toward the nymph who groaned and screeched as she sat in the chair, beat to hell…literally. There was a power to the light, a power that surged through me, a feeling that I could sense deep down in my chest. It was familiar, not just to the side of me that was Persephone, but to my human side as well. It was hope, and I felt as if everything within the light depended on that hope.
I pushed harder and harder, the light completely surrounding me. Whoever was behind the corruption was strong, possibly even stronger than I was in that moment, at least until I heard the sound. It was a sound that struck me to my core. It was a sound that I felt I had heard before. It radiated through me, attacking my heart, breaking it. The sound that I heard was almost human, but the anguish behind it was on a level that I had never experienced before.
Within the rays of light and the sharp, jagged push of corruption, I realized that whatever was on the other side was killing Crius.
Chapter Nineteen
It was as if everything slowed down, the sounds, the heat, the raging force between light and dark, it all moved in slow motion around me.
The only thing I could feel was the pain ripping through my soul as I listened to roar of Crius fighting off whatever it was that was attacking everything and everyone. I could feel the breath leaving from my lips and the heat filling my lungs. A tear ran down my cheek, but I wasn't sad. The rage that filled me was beyond all comprehension. It blinded me, and when the noises and the sound returned, I screamed out, pulling all of the energy back through my hands into my chest before sending it spiraling, exploding from me straight at the corruption.
My body flew back and I hit the wall, the light so bright I couldn't see anything. As I slid down, hitting the floors beneath me, I whispered Crius's name and then everything went dark.
Before consciousness even fully found me, I could feel the aching in my bones. It radiated down to my muscles twisting through my body as if I had been hit by a truck. My palms were sore, and my head pulsed with the rhythm of my heart. The connection between my dreams and reality snapped free and my eyes shot open, my body going stiff as I turned my head right and left, unsure of where I was or who was around me. I breathed deeply, panicking as my eyes cleared. I put my hands down and pushed myself upward, looking down at the thick blanket that covered me.
I was in one of the rooms of the house, covered in bed, everything still foreign, yet familiar at the same time. I reached up and wiped the trickled sweat from my forehead, stopping as I felt cool metal brush across my skin. Bringing my hand in front of my face, I stared at a ring perfectly fit to my finger. It was black like the stone leading up to the house and twisted like a vine. I lifted up my other hand, finding that I was grasping a small piece of paper tightly as if my life depended on it.
I swallowed hard and carefully opened up the note. The handwriting was familiar, and almost instantly I knew it was Crius. It was hastily written, but I could make out the words. "I found it."
I read it again, just trying to make sense of it, but I had no idea what he meant. I did know that I was all alone, deep in the bowels of hell, sitting in a palace that was once mine, wearing a ring that was once mine, but having no idea where my Titan had gone. The last thing I remembered was the burst of light from my chest, but after that, I had no memory. I didn't even know what time of day it was. Outside the small window of the bedroom, the sky was just as it was when we arrived, deep, red, and ominous. I had a feeling hell didn't really have beautiful sunrises or sunsets.
Whatever Crius had found, he had gone after it and left me there. Whatever he had found, I feared that it had taken him from me forever. But he couldn't be gone forever. He wouldn't have left me there, not when the danger was constantly coming for me. None of it made sense, and I could feel the sadness within me still lurking, just as it had right before the explosion of light from my chest.
I dropped the piece of paper onto the bed, feeling a lump in my throat. My emotions were so out of control. It was as if I was feeling the emotional capacity of three different people. I couldn't figure out what was what anymore. Not knowing what to do at that point, I turned to lie back down in the bed, figuring what else was I to do stuck in hell? But as I began to turn, I heard a loud thumping and a crash coming from upstairs.
Instantly, I flung myself from the bed, my bare feet hitting the ground. The only thing I could think of was Crius. I sprinted to the door and threw it open, running out into the hallway. I looked right and left, finally finding the staircase at the end of the hall leading up from the center of the foyer. I took off at top speed, moving as fast as my little legs could carry me. I grabbed on to the banister, ignoring the heat that radiated through my hand as I touched it, and whirled myself around onto the stairs. I took the steps two or three at a time, reaching the top and listening for the sounds to navigate me to wherever Crius was.
The house shook with the next boom and I narrowed my eyes, turning right and heading straight down the hallway. At the end to the left was a large room covered in bookshelves. In the center of the room, blood streaked down the side of his arm, was Crius, battling another form of the corruption that had been taking over the house. I quickly realized that we hadn't come to the house to find a piece of paper or photo. We had come there because it was the battleground, ground zero for whoever was b
ehind the corruption.
I covered my mouth and stumbled back as a large bookcase tumbled down, crashing to the floor. Crius's hand shot up to block the blow of the beast attacking him. As he did, I noticed there was a ring on his hand as well. It was black like mine, twisted around his finger like vines. I gripped the ring, turning it around my skin, my mind going hazy for a moment as a vision took over.
There I was, myself but not myself. I stood at an altar of flames and flowers wearing a flowing dress of silver, sparkles of what looked like stars in my hair. Standing in front of me was Crius, actually wearing something other than leather pants, though not really formal considering he was still not wearing a shirt. I still didn't mind. I could feel love in my heart and I stared at him with awe. It was just the two of us, and he reached forward, sliding a ring, my ring, onto my finger. I opened my other hand, revealing his ring, and I grinned at him with love as I slid it down his finger as well.
As suddenly as the vision had taken over, it shot me back to the present. Whoever I was, I was that person with Crius. And whoever he was, he was that person with me. Everything started to fall in line, and I realized why I cared so much for him. Why I wanted him so badly. I didn't know the history, I didn't feel palpitating love for him, but the pull between us was unlike anything that I could've imagined.
I watched as Crius stomped forward in the rubble, roaring with anger, his muscles tense, his hands slammed into fists. I followed his eyes to the top of the wall where the creature sat, looking down. It hissed loudly as the light flickered across its face and I immediately recognized it. It was the third Fury, the one that had initially touched me, the one that had brought the light to the surface. I could see her hand, and even darker than the corruption had turned her skin, was a singed mark from her fingers up to her wrist.
