For who could ever learn to love The One who doesn't know love?
By Asso
Chapter Eight
The Destiny.
And the heart.
And its unconceivable drives.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Suddenly Persephone roused herself.
She realized where she was.
But how...
How was it possible?
How could she have done such a stupid thing? Such an insane thing!
She… she had gone in there! In that ... in that forest!
Where... where had her head been? She had drunk her brain!
That was the shadow of the Avernus that stretched out above, over the supernal world!
It was...
And as a mallet the thought all a sudden fell on her.
It was the evil shadow of his kingdom!
The shadow of him!
As a whirling carousel, memories - forbidden, frightening memories - began abruptly to swirl in her mind.
That throne!
That empty throne!
Of marble and stone!
Dark!
Tenebrous!
His throne!
The throne of the one... of the one... of the one towards whom always - ALWAYS! - her thoughts had gone! Notwithstanding everything! Notwithstanding whichever expressed or unexpressed fear!
Of the one who... who seemed to call her to him as if it were an inevitable will of fate!
No!
NO!
It was not possible!
IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE!
She did not... she did not...
Persephone turned.
Like a fury!
And she snapped.
Like a fury.
A mute cry exploded in her throat.
NO!
A desperate rejection.
Of her fate.
And of her secret, crazy, inconceivable drives.
Which found no room in her voice.
NO! No no no!
And Persephone ran.
Desperately.
Among the crooked and adunc branches of those withered trees that seemed to want to hold her, to stop her furious race.
She ran.
She ran like a gazelle that feels on her the burning breath of the lion.
There! There! The light beyond! Beyond the Forest! The vivid morning light on the soft lawn that separated the forest from her home, hers and of her mother!
There it was!
Here was the lawn!
Her bare feet in mad rush trampled its cool grass.
She was out.
She was out!
The forest was behind her!
SHE WAS OUT!
She was furiously running on the meadow!
Free!
FREE!
SAFE!
Her race stopped abruptly.
In the impenetrable darkness that suddenly darkened every light.
Persephone stood motionless.
Petrified.
Panicked.
A statue with the eyes wide open in the deepest terror.
She felt her hair rise.
They eddied.
Like her dress.
In the impetuous wind that suddenly rose.
That started to lash gelid her body.
To storm her and everything around her.
Her skin, her flesh, her whole body shuddered.
In the chill that suddenly had fallen around her and on her.
In the icy wind raging around her and on her.
Which threw her to the ground, pinning her on her knees.
And then...
Then she heard.
That sinister rumble that grew, more and more powerful, up to also overlie the wind roar.
That rumble behind her.
From... from the forest.
Slowly, scared to see, she turned her head.
She turned her face to the forest, looking sidelong at it from above her shoulder.
And her eyes saw.
Barely open and in tears in the effort to remain open under the lash of the wind, they saw.
As her ears, wound by the swirl of that infernal wind, heard.
The noise of the earth splitting behind her.
Which opened behind her.
Her eyes saw.
They saw the horrible wound that was defacing the earth behind her.
The furrow... which was opening up more and more.
The abyss... which was deepening more and more.
The chasm… which from the forest pushed out towards her, reaching out with clangour and with terrific and increasing rapidity towards her.
And the trees, which were sinking inside it, tens and tens of them.
Like the stones. And the clods of earth. And the shrubs, the flowers...
The light, even.
Everything.
Swallowed in nothingness.
And then...
Then him.
Yes!
Her eyes saw!
HIM!
It was him!
She was certain!
SHE KNEW THAT IT WAS HIM!
She did not know him. She had never seen him.
But she knew it was him!
Barely discernible. Like a shadow shrouded in shade. In a dark armour made of shade.
On the big black chariot made of shade.
Which was impetuously emerging from that dark shadow made of tenebrous shade.
Tugged by enormous black steeds, made of shade.
Persephone did not even move.
She could not.
She was not capable of it.
On the knees.
Crushed by the wind.
A thought...
A single, chilling, tremendous thought.
Which everything overpowered.
Her fate...
The fate she had always perceived Destiny had in store for her...
Her fate was coming true!
The fate that deep in her heart she had always known.
IT WAS COMING TRUE!
Nothing else, her mind was able to think.
Nothing else, her soul was able to scream.
Nothing else.
Nothing else, as those mighty hands covered with cold metal grabbed her.
Nothing else, as those mighty arms covered with cold metal pulled her up on the chariot.
Nothing else, as those dead eyes of cold darkness stared at her from behind the black helmet visor, piercing her from side to side.
Only at the end...
Only at the end...
As earth swung shut above her...
As darkness closed around her...
As frost coagulated around her...
As the impetuous wind of the chariot that raced downward... toward his kingdom... hit and shook her quivering body...
Only then...
Only then, weak words managed to came out of her trembling lips.
A whisper...
A murmur...
A faint invocation...
Desperate and needless.
And... imperceptibly...
Uncertain.
Uncertain.
Like her heart.
"Mother..."
End of Chapter Eight
TBC
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The Destiny.
And the heart.
And its unconceivable drives.