The Cell

This is the 9th installment in a series that reimagines characters in Greeth mythology. This piece directly follows Above the Clouds.

The stench of decay flooded Persephone’s nostrils. She attempted to reach her hands up to cover her nose, but she found she could not. She had been bound with some sort of weed, one that she could not name. The strength of its resistance was like no other grass that had touched her skin on the surface world, and she could feel the knot cutting into her delicate flesh. Her powers held no sway over the bindings around her wrist.

She leaned back against the grimy wall behind her and felt around on the floor for something, anything, that she could recognize. All was darkness to her. Her eyes had been covered with cloth. Her fingers pawed at the ground and the rough bed of hornwort that had been heaped there by the minions, Pain and Panic. She could still smell their hot breath on her face and was astonished that they did nothing more than carry her to this place — wherever it was.

Her heart was racing. She could hear the breathing of two others in this room. Was it even a room she was in? The air was stifling. There was something about the heaviness that reminded her of the sulfur baths her father took her too as a child. She hadn’t wanted to go then, as she was forced to accompany her father during a rites of passage. She concentrated hard on the memory, trying to recall her father’s voice. Had she held his hand when she submerged herself in the baths? All she could remember at this point was that her father did not smile.

Why didn’t he smile? Was I such a wretched child?

“Are you uncomfortable?” a voice spoke out, jolting her back to her present predicament. It was a thick voice, one filled with power — elusive — and yet she could sense that the question held no malice.

“Why am I here? Why have you brought me here?” Persephone tried to keep her voice from shaking. She could see nothing, but she could hear the breathing of one of her captors quicken. It came not from the voice that had spoken to her, but from the other side of the cell…there was a slight whizzing in the voice, as if from an object lodged in the throat — or from sickness and accumulation of decay within the lungs.

“I….don’t know. I did not forsee it. My actions were beyond me at that moment. And yet, there was no way I could leave you after seeing you.” Hades detested himself in this moment for the hesitation in his voice. Not only had he broke his normally calm and confident meter, but he found he was revealing far too much to this girl. Was he mad? He could feel Charon’s gaze on him. Surely, he had never exposed his own feelings, his insecurities, in this way to the lowly transporter of souls.

Hades breathed. Charon whizzed and coughed. Persephone cleared her throat. Underneath the cloth, she closed her eyes tightly and dove deeper into the vision from the past, her father, Zeus, towering above her in the sulfur springs. She could see his face, his furrowed brow, he gazed solemnly out into the cavernous shadows.

Why didn’t you look at me father?

She calmed her breathing and broke the silence.

“Loosen the blindfold. Loosen it so I may gaze upon your visage.”

Charon untied the knot.

Persephone’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her hands were still bound by the hornwort, but she was focused on her vision. She wanted to see who had brought her here. She wanted to know what sort of fate awaited her. She looked up.

Hades stared directly into her eyes.