Chapter 4

The Rumination

I feel fantastic!

Or, at least I did at the time, when I was left standing in the great hall with the success of my bargain still brewing up fresh excitement in my overactive mind.

I couldn't believe I had done it. And now I was in the favour of the one person I had jumped worlds to see. Judging by the way he behaved towards me, I felt rather certain that I was more than just in his favour.

He liked me. Straight away he liked me. He smirked at me, he flirted with me, and even though he ended our introduction with what sounded like an insult, I still felt confident I was on his good side.

I can't believe how tall he is in real life. He's at least a good foot and a half taller than me, (and I'm only five foot). And he's so warm! Seriously! You wouldn't believe how cold the Underworld is despite it being closer to the earth's core than the surface. But the moment he walked into the room, the moment he was free, the room got very warm very quickly. And when he got close to me I could feel his heat radiating from his body. It wasn't just his flame hair, it was obvious the heat was coming from all over him. The warmth made my shoulders tingle and relaxed most of the muscles in my body. I really missed that warmth when he was gone.

Maybe not so much his scent, not that it was bad or anything. It's just, he smelt like…burning. Really. He really did smell like smoke. I wasn't sure if I found it unpleasant or not, it's just that my mind associates bad things with burning smells, as you can probably imagine. It wasn't physical, it was psychological. It wasn't that I didn't like the smell, it just set off a little alarm in my head. Although it wasn't the only alarm in me that he'd set off.

Oh yes, he has a very seductive demeanour. I do wonder what would have happened between us if Hades didn't have to drag himself away when he did. I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

Mezame. Get a hold of yourself. You're getting way too serious way too soon. You have to take a deep breath and take a step back. I know you acted on impulse when you made the decision to come here, but time wasn't on your side and you were pressure to make a choice quickly. But this is different and you can't let your excitement control you this time. Or else you might end up doing something you regret. Right now, he's gone. He's gone to work so make the most of this opportunity to reflect on the situation.

I did just that as I collected my rucksack and wandered out of the hall. I decided to give myself a tour of the new world I had just arrived in, seeing as how I was going to be calling it 'home' for as long as I wanted to remain here.

It almost felt like I was in Minecraft, just without all the squares. This whole place was like one massive network of caves, only these caves had faces of creepy things chiseled into the walls. I like creepy stuff. Like skeletons and spiders, that sort of thing. So I actually enjoyed the darkness of it all.

Speaking of darkness, it was rather dark down here. And cold. Like I mentioned earlier, when Hades was in the room the room was warm. But the moment he left he took the heat with him (in more ways than one). I usually prefer the cold to the heat, at least when it comes to the weather. I come from a cold country and I'm used to the cold, unlike most people who live in England, they relish the summer. But even I have my limits and needed to calm the goosebumps on my arms. My skin was like a freshly plucked chicken.

I slipped of a strap and lowered my bag to the ground. I had a jacket in here, among other things I threw in at short notice. Including a change of clothes, some tissues, both my iPods and headphones (I NEED my headphones, trust me), a solar-powered charger, my toothbrush and such, my epipens along with plenty other first aid stuff that I carry around in here anyway, and my notebook and clicky pencil. I am a very avid writer. And if I can't take my iMac with me, (for obvious reasons), I'll just have to do things the old fashioned way. (Did you really think I'd remember all this off the top of my head? Of course not, I wrote everything down day by day as it happened).

I slipped on my small, black leather jacket over my arms. It's a tight fit, but it suits me. Not many things do, I don't have the figure for nice clothes. It wasn't that thick, but it would be enough to take the chill off for now. I'm sure I'd soon warm up again once Hades was back.

Hmm. Wait a moment. When was he going to be back? Didn't he say he'd been trapped in that river for five weeks? How much work had accumulated in all that time? 'A few hundred-thousand Grecians' he said. How long was that going to take? Hours? Days?

I wouldn't be able to wait that long. What happens when I got tired? Where was I going to sleep? And of all the things I rushedly packed, I hadn't packed any food.

I started slowly spinning on the spot, twisting and turning around as I looked at my surroundings. I hadn't seen anything in the way of sleeping quarters or anything else that might accommodate my needs. All I'd seen were creepy things that seemed to symbolise the Underworlds main purpose, to house the dead. Hold on, if this place was only meant for dead people, a powerful god and his minions, then maybe it wasn't fit for mortal habitation.

I wasn't dead, I wasn't a god and I wasn't one of Hades' pawns. I was a mortal human female, and I was starting to become concerned that this new world I had leaped into on an excitable whim wasn't designed with mortals in mind. What would happen when I got tired? What would happen when I got hungry? And what about when I felt like I needed to…? Uh-oh.