Death and All His Friends

The Beginning

"The sacrifice of hiding in a lie

The sacrifice is never knowing why…"

--Pushing Me Away by Linkin Park

Her lips were pale, gold-flecked brown eyes lifeless, body limp. Her simple white gown was draped across the manifestation of her soul, the dead body in front of me. It awaited judgment, and who better for the task than me? After all, that is the job description of the God of the Underworld, of the Dead. Though my thoughts resisted, I unwillingly brushed my forefinger over the ground beside her porcelain face and hair that shone red in the dim green glow from overhead. A gash opened in the floor beneath her where my fingertips had been, and she fell into the deepening gray abyss. Suddenly, the walls gave way to cracks that at first trickled, then openly flooded, crimson blood. I watched myself look back, a coy smile on my mouth. My arms spread, and I tilted forward, letting myself fall into hell after her.

"Hades!" Thanatos hissed, waking me from my nightmares. He had never been the pleasant type. There I was, back in my unyielding ebony throne. A great room of granite dimly lit by glowing green crystal overhead extended before me. Behind me, further up on the dreary wall, was a sort of dome jutting outward; it put out light that mimicked the primordial ceiling, restless souls in purgatory pressing their bony fingers and eyeless faces against the inside of it in attempts to break free. At the opposite end stood my old armor, black and fearsome, a perfect match to everything else in the Underworld.

"Get your hand off me," I hissed back. Thanatos lacked courtesy. I had seen him talking behind my back before, claiming he was Lord of the Dead. I don't know what "dead" he was referring to, but this was my domain. Calm down, I was tempted to tell him rather than limiting my response to what I had already said. Don't get your crazy black robes in a knot. Thanatos had always been that opposing force, that false friend. He and I looked enough like brothers (despite our lack of actual relation without tracing back to the Titans). We both impersonated death with unchanging appearances, dark hair that fell into our eyes, and chalk white skin. He was closer to demonic than anything, however. His eyes, a bloody red color, contrasted with mine that shone a sickly sweet green hue not too far from that which radiated from the dome and the crystals. Not only that; whenever he entered a room, a faint sulfur smell pierced the air and the light fell dimmer. He was a curse with deeply sunken cheeks and a corrupt sense of things.

"But, Hades," Thanatos continued, "Zeus replied. He sent the Messenger to tell you he'll turn his head for three days. You get her down here in three days, and she stays. You don't, she won't." A sickening grin was laced over his lips when he finished speaking.

I stood, unstable at first but quickly able to gain some balance, and strode past the gargantuan pillars with Thanatos at my heels. "I can do it in five minutes," I retorted as I approached the armor and took the door that flanked it to the right. It led us into a narrower hallway that gave way to a few tributary hallways and a dead end. We took the third hall on the left. "The problem is keeping her here. If you were really the Lord of the Dead, you'd know that, kid." The sulfuric air became sharper for an instant. I almost laughed at this reaction.

The "her" we were discussing was none other than Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. I had first spotted her at a meeting at Mount Olympus. It was not a place I usually bothered to go to, mainly because of my siblings. My two brothers, Poseidon and Zeus, never failed to annoy me. Poseidon was full of himself and showy, and Zeus was an aging pervert. Both of them found the fact that I lived alone (aside from the shades and dead souls) extremely funny, but I knew I needed no one. I was independent, strong, and the final justice. This view of myself lasted until I felt a shoulder bump into my arm. I had looked down, borderline bewildered, to see who had run into me.

"Sorry," she mumbled with downcast eyes, and then she scurried away before I could even think "no problem, and you should tell me your name while you're at it!"

I had followed her outside, just to see where she was going. Apparently, neither of us really cared for the squabble over a marriage taking place at the meeting. She had taken a moment to look around, perhaps suspecting that she was being watched. Quite perceptive, I had noted. Finally letting her guard down, she stood with a contented smile on her full lips and breathed in solemnly as if listening for something. Suddenly, she began to dance. Persephone had twirled and turned, slowly at first, then progressed to a rapid constant spinning motion. Her hair, copper where the remaining rays of sun caressed it, was a blur around her bright angel's face. Her white gown, pinned at the shoulders, revealed her capable arms and clung to her slim waist. I left promptly because I wanted no more of her.

Of course, fate had its fun. That night, I had dreamt of Persephone. In my dreams she was always cold and dead, much like a flower picked from the ground and left to die. It had occurred to me just a few weeks after I had seen her that this was what she would be if left on Earth. She was a goddess, so dying would never be an issue, but her soul's death could come quickly. With her mother and the countless Olympian suitors, hers was a lose-lose situation. She could be swept away from her mother and made a wife, as any other goddess, or she could be kept under her mother's watchful and overbearing eyes where she would be forced to act naïve for all of eternity. Neither could be best. At least, that is what I convinced myself. After careful planning, I had decided to ask my brother, Zeus, for her hand. If he needed a good excuse, I could always tell him that the Underworld needed a Queen to match the Upperworld. Surely this would sway him; he laughed in my face, but as Thanatos informed me, he approved.

Once I managed to free myself of Thanatos's company, I navigated through my labyrinth of a world to find my study. The study was a quiet room cramped with bookcases and scrolls and mindfully placed candlesticks that burned soft vermillion continuously. Persephone would like this room because of its warmth. I reached behind a scroll on the second shelf to my right, and my hand latched onto a smooth box. I pulled out the beautiful box, black and glassy in the candlelight, and I gingerly pulled off the lid. Inside was a single blossom, beautiful and pure white like light from Helios. I lifted it as tenderly as I could and wrapped it in my hands, concealing it beneath my palm. "Don't fail me now," I whispered hopefully. When I opened my hands, the fragile flower was gone.