It happened not to long ago, for immortals anyway. Ares, the great god of war, was locked away forever. Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, sent him to sleep for eternity. She never liked my master, Ares. He was more than my benefactor. He was my friend and fellow warrior. He was a brutal man, but he had to be. He was honorable.
War was a way of life, it was his kingdom and all those who entered its borders were obligated to follow its laws. An enemy was to be fought face to face, not in a wooden horse. Ares never liked Athena and she didn't like him. Heck, very few people liked Ares.
Zeus pushed him to the side as often as possible in favor of his other children bastard, legitimate, and adopted. Ares never held that against any of his siblings. He blamed his father for his mother's unhappiness. Ares tried everything to win his father's affection, but Zeus only had eyes for Athena and his other offspring.
I am one of Zeus' adopted sons; I am called Alexander the Great. I am now known as Alex, here on Olympus. When I became king of Egypt, Zeus was obligated to protect me. Right before I "died", Ares, whom had been my friend since before my military campaigns, talked Zeus into adopting me as an immortal child.
In the middle of the night Ares came to me with Hera and Artimus. While the women created a dead body that looked like me, Ares gave me the nectar of the gods and I became immortal. After that, Ares started to win some of Zeus' favor and that jealous witch, tricked him into drinking a sleeping draft, disguised as wine.
Athena calls herself a warrior, but she has no honor. She uses cowardly tactics. So, Ares is by all appearances "dead as a door nail", but he is just sleeping and if Athena has her way he will remain so for eternity.
I have already started to beg Zeus to order Athena to release Ares from her enchantment. But she has managed to convince Zeus that Ares was unnecessary and weary of his duties. She is the goddess of war and she thinks that she doesn't need Ares around, "plus he needs rest." I dread what the future holds for gods and mortals alike.
Alexander the Great walked through a corridor of black marble, Two-thousand years has passed since Ares was sent to sleep by Athena. The gods and goddesses that wished for Ares' return to the conscious world had cut a tomb for Ares in the bowels of Olympus.
Athena's favor with Zeus has been decreasing at a very rapid pace. She has let mankind commit the most atrocious crimes and all in the favor of war and knowledge. Athena failed to stop the Crusades, World War I and II; she allowed the development of the A-bomb, the H-bomb, Biological warfare, Chemical warfare, and genocide. Alexander was right to fear war without honor. It terrified him that a man could kill without looking into the eyes of the people he killed. It was to ancient warrior, a show of respect. This act said, "I fight you face to face and man to man." Athena has turned generals into murderers and cities into wastelands and all in the name of knowledge.
'Now more than ever we need Ares.', Alex thought. He walked through the massive black oak doors that opened to the room with Ares was sleeping on a black marble slab. Alex once again saw Ares lying there looking like nothing more than a corpse. "Hi Ares its Alex again I don't know if you can hear me, but anyway Zeus is fed up with Athena and he has ordered her to lift the spell. In his own way he misses you. Artimus and Apollo can't wait for you to come back. So a lot has happened while you have been asleep and I'll fill you in when you wake up."
While Alex talked to Ares, the god of war was deaf to his friend's message. This great god was trapped in a world of perpetual nightmares. He had seen all the atrocities that man had committed and he had endlessly relived his own battles. Choking on the stench of blood and sweat, seeing his friends and fellow warriors fall to the ground, each life he had taken, the ruins of all the lives that war had ripped apart, tormented Ares. He was not just trapped in a world of nightmares, he was living them and he couldn't wake up.
Alex watched with the other gods as Athena was brought into the chamber to undo her spell. None of the gods trusted her enough to let her be alone with Ares. She walked over to Ares, waved her hand over him and undid the enchantment. Ares shot up from the brier, as a man would from a bad dream.
Ares didn't know where he was. He looked around and saw the gods. Some were dressed in traditional Greek apparel and others in the strange clothes from his nightmares. Then he saw Alex who was walking over to him, Ares got up and hugged him. Alex was shocked that Ares would so openly show affection. "How long have I been gone?" Ares asked. "Almost two millennia." Alex replied. 'So I've been asleep. Well it was anything but restful.', Ares thought.
A few days later, Ares and Alex were alone. Alex just had to ask Ares what was wrong since he had been acting strangely. He had been much quieter than Alex remembered. "Ares what happened while you were asleep?" "Why are you asking "', Ares questioned. "You haven't been acting yourself"', Alex replied.
"Alex, when I was asleep was there some person named Hister or Hitler or some thing like, that walking around killing people?" "Yes and how did you know that? I haven't told you about that." "I saw it when I was asleep. I saw things called crusades and world wars. I've learned of things called bombs and mustard gas. I have seen genocide.", Ares started to get upset. "I can't believe anything that I witnessed. I saw Troy, my men that died there, the battles that I organized, everything. I have had the nightmares every night, since I woke up. I don't know what's wrong with me."
"Ares calm down. You are war. Death and war go hand in hand. That's just the way it is you know that and you have respected it." , Alex started. "Athena has no regard for life. She sees mortals as lab rats that she can test her new weapons on. She never liked watching a man die, to watch their eyes go dead and now she doesn't have to. Athena has turned war into push a button, count down from ten, and incinerate hundreds of people instantly. She has become a monster. She can't handle all the aspects of war. Even Zeus is sickened by her actions." Alex ranted.
"Amazing I get put in a coma and Athena goes mental. So if Athena is no longer daddy's little girl, who's Zeus's favored child now?", asked Ares. "Well none of us are really sure he treats us like he always has. The only thing that has changed is his attitude to Athena. Ares, from what Hera says Zeus has wanted to see you, but no one will let him get near you since you woke up."
Ares doesn't believe that his father would care to see him. He knows that right now, he could not deal with Zeus' insults. Ares thinks that Zeus would blame everything on him since that's what his father has always done. Ares has always been the family scapegoat.
A few days later Zeus had had enough of being cuddled into trying to keep him away from Ares. He loved his son, even though he never showed it. Since Athena had placed that spell on Ares he had begun to see her as she was and not as she acted in his presence.
Zeus was disgusted with her cowardly methods and now he had a new respect for Ares. He had never known that his son was such a strong man. He had always seen Ares as the older child that picked on his younger sister. This was the reason that Zeus had always sheltered Athena the way he did. Since Zeus had seen what life on Olympus and among mortals was like without the god of war, he never respected or loved his son more.
"You wanted to see me, father?" Ares asked as he entered Zeus' throne room. He looked up to see his father walking towards him. "So, Ares are you well rested after two thousand years?" "Not quite I actually feel more tired than ever." Ares knew better than to try and lie to his father. The old god was like a blood hound; he could smell dishonesty.
"Ares, my son, if I had known all the details of Athena's spell I would have ordered her to free you centuries ago. I have started to see her as she truly is, Ares. Athena told me everything she did to you throughout your lives. I think she was trying to return to my favor.", Zeus said thinking out loud.
"Ares, I want to ask why you never told me how she treated you, but I also respect you for not telling me. Even though it would have made my life a lot easier." "If I did tell you, would you have believed me? You always brushed off my opinions as if they were seed for fodder."
Ares is confused and angry. At the same time, he doesn't know what he should be feeling right now. Zeus can tell what Ares is thinking at the moment. "You are right to be angry at me, Ares. I have brushed you off many times. When Athena told me the tiny detail of her spell I immediately ordered her to lift her little enchantment. I have not told anyone about your nightmares. That is your choice to make, not mine. I have also sworn Athena to silence or else she will fall under the same spell she put on you, but only for a night."
"What Athena did to you I would not wish upon my worst enemy much less..." Ares expected his father to finish his sentence with "daughter." Ares never expected anything from his father. What he had said already had been more than he would have ever thought his father would say to him. Ares' head snapped up to look his father in the eye when he heard the word "son." A knowing smile formed on Zeus' face and stayed there. "So Ares, now you know what it is like to be having a nightmare and not being able to wake up."
"Do you know who created that spell? Chronis your grandfather. One of his minions put it on me when I was younger than you were. My caretakers killed him and therefore set me free from the spell." Ares is shocked. He had no idea. "No one knows about it, not even your mother, no one, but you."
Ares feels as if the world has come together at last. He knows his father as no one in existence knows him. He feels like a son that is loved, respected, and treasured. Ares does not understand how to deal with all the information or anything else that has happened. "Father?" "Yes, Ares." "What do we do now?" "We take our relationship a day at a time." "How do I make sense of everything I saw?"
Now that was a tough question, even for Zeus. "You never forget what you have seen or what you felt. You face the truth. It is not always the most beautiful thing, but it is the only thing that will outlast Mother Earth herself." Ares stopped to digest what his father has just told him. He knew what he had to do.
Ares looked out at the Mediterranean from the west coast of Turkey. He sighed and laid a rose at the base of the ancient wall of Troy. "Rest in the peace that warriors never have in life, my friends.", Ares said he looked at the site of the graves where the Trojans buried their heroes. Ares willed himself to another place that he had to visit. He gazed at the walls where silhouettes were still visible. The only testament to the owners that were vaporized the instant the bomb detonated in the quiet village of Hiroshima, Japan.
Ares remembered the vivid pictures from his dreams. School children bleeding, the lives of thousands torn asunder. "I swear as the keeper of the rage of war such a thing as this will never happen again. I swear this on the Snyxes.", Ares vowed as he knelt at the precise spot where the bomb hit and changed the world forever. And now we know it will never happen again.
