2 DECISIONS...
It's almost nightfall . As I decide that in spite of Hercule's insistent and overly tempting pleas I can't do it, that throwing myself head first in a relationship with a man I barely got to know just out of gratitude -even if our souls are joined through an undeniable connection now- given that he had purified my soul and showed me another path in life - we part saying our goodbyes, both aware that the time for anything more than what we've just shared couldn't be more wrong right about now.
I just have to make up for that pile of bodies that I've been dragging behind me for so long now without even realizing it...There were so many deaths, so many broken dreams, that I literally feel from all my heart that I'd have to live more then ten lives to clean up at least partially that horrible mess I've made, to wash away at least a part of the blood from my hands, to make some of the stains disappear...
Finding a way to pay for all those salty rivers of tears that I have been causing for so long now would make a good goal in life ...Finding my peace-an alluring mirage that could help me wake up in the morning...Hercules said that redemption could offer me that, and that assuming the responsibility for my choices, learning to live with the consequences of my past actions, might just help...I don't believe it, but it's worth a try...
One thing I know for sure though: there is no real forgiveness for people like me...no second chances...I personally see what's left of my existence as a short span of time, generously offered to me in the sole purpose to undo the wrong I've caused to so many people that my mind refuses to count...It's their souls that will receive comfort not mine...It's all about them...my victims...the shadows...
...As for Hercules, he himself is in desperate search for some peace of mind, trying to find some decent way to erase those painful, repulsive scars of his own agonizing soul...
No...it is definitely not the right moment for us...
...My lips pressed tightly now, I cast another glance around me, the heaviest weight hanging from my heart like a milestone...Deep inside, at some well buried level of consciousness I'm well aware that all these senseless thoughts are in fact nothing but worthless justifications that my brain is feverishly looking for in order to avoid admitting that the main reason for which I adamantly refuse to let things go any further with the kind and gentle demi-god, is Ares...I could never do that to him...Plus, the pain I felt earlier is still so vivid and sharp inside each and every fiber of my being that it scares me to death...I have to see him, I have to explain everything to him...He should know why I did it...He deserves that much...
XXX
After a two hours ride that actually seams like having taken rather a burdensome forever, I finally arrive back at Ares' temple, where, just hours ago, we had such awful fight that I genuinely thought he was going to blast me on spot, despite the bottomless patience he had always showed when it came to me.
I don't even know why I decided to come here in the first place, it's not like he's still lurking around this damned place...Knowing him as I do, he's most likely on some boiling with action battlefield somewhere, drawing as much blood as he can out of the exhausted bodies of some miserable, starving to death soldiers that barely have the strength to still hold the sword in their hands, trying to blow off some steam, doing his best to bridle the urge to just find me and slice my mortal carcass into little pieces...burying the unnatural pain he hadn't have the chance to come across during the countless eons of his eternal life till today...
For some awkward reason that I'm still unable to disseminate, my brain still has trouble believing that he actually saw the whole Hercules scene, and left doing nothing at all ... By all Gods and Goddesses...
When I reach the top of the stairs, as if beyond my control, my feet refuse to take another step forward, my suddenly tired eyes fixing absently the huge bronze doors of the main entrance...I've never been afraid of him...never... As he himself said it more than once, I've been the first mortal in the history of mankind who has dared making a sport out cockily defying him, testing his limits without the slightest shade of wonder or fear in my eyes , but somehow, I can't stop thinking that what I 'm doing right now it's pure suicide...If the shock of telling him that I was adamant about leaving behind me everything he stands for, everything that we've built together somehow prevented him to a certain extent from sending me on the other side of the Styx faster than I was able to blink, the actual image of me betraying him with the one person he hated till the pits of Tartarus and back with every cell of his immortal body, that was unforgivable.
In a way, maybe that's what I'm looking for after all: Death- a final liberation, the shortest and definitely the most effective way out of a life in which I don't really find myself any more...Some sort of irremediable ending, a closure, under the blade of the only one that I've ever loved with all my heart...
As the realization of what I actually did finally strikes me, washing over me like an ice cold shower, my cheeks suddenly turn crimson...I always had the habit of throwing in his face the fact that he was nothing but a worthless egocentric Bastard that couldn't care less about anyone else but himself, even when I knew how untrue that statement was ...And just look at me now... Selfish, ungrateful, soulless...you name it...I'm so ashamed...Maybe I don't even deserve to die, after all...maybe I deserve to suffer, to live torturing myself with the awareness of how much I've hurt him...
With a quick turn, I'm on the verge of dropping it all and head it down the stairs, leaving the premises faster than I came back, aware that facing him now would be useless anyway ...In the cold light of dawn, he'd be way too mad to even kill me...Plus, dead I couldn't tell him all the things I still desperately need him to know.
Almost in slow motion, I start descending the first three steps, as if fearing that at the most insignificant noise he could detect my presence, pressuring me to face him, when, right out of nowhere, I'm nearly deafened by the fulminating sound of a devastating explosion, followed by the ever so familiar one of tones of stone crumbling to the ground...A pillar probably...
Then, there's a heartbreaking growl that, instantly, without the faintest warning, forces two bitter tears to fall down my cheeks, dropping on the dirty stairs beneath my feet, tearing my soul apart...he's in there...hurting like Tartarus, his heart crushed in pain...
I couldn't leave now, not even if I wanted to...
