Hey folks
Sorry for the few days late. I was in the hospital for a bit with an ovarian cyst—told them they could just cut the damn things out at this point but it was a no-go.
Someone recced me on a site called A Different Forest? Holy crap. That's rad. Thanks, seriously. I'm humbled; I really sincerely appreciate the faith in me, especially since I don't feel the last chapter was as strong as it could have been.
People keep reviewing and following, that's great. One or two have mentioned beta-ing—I haven't sent any messages out about that (or about anything else, for that matter), but that'll be at the top of my list for the next few days.
Cool. Keep on keepin on.
-O.K.
p.s reread and noticed some issues with this chapter so rereleased after minor editing, don't publish new chapters at one am. Bad idea all around.
Three
"James."
"Mmph."
"James."
Alice reached over and shoved James's shoulder, fingers sticking to the cool sweat on his pale bluish skin.
He grunted and rolled away from her, arm staying strung out behind to lazily grab onto her breast. She rolled out of bed, shoving off his arm and hunching over on the edge. Her mouth was dry, her brain felt like concrete, she could feel the shakiness building in her hands. How long had they slept?
"Bella?" She grumbled, then louder; "Bella?!"
"Shutthefuckup," Came a low grumble from somewhere beneath the stained blankets.
"Lazy ass." She snapped back, where was Bella? She could see the coffee maker from her spot on the mattress on the floor—the clock installed on the front said it was nearly noon—usually she at least tried to get Alice up before ten. Then again, that had stopped happening much since they'd moved in with James.
She was probably fine. She hadn't been around much yesterday at all, anyway.
Alice heaved her small frame out of bed, stumbling a few steps from the mattress to the small kitchenette, flipping on the coffee maker as she stared at the blinking blue electronic numbers.
"Hey, James-"
"Jesus can a guy never get any fuckin' sleep around here?" a fist slammed onto the mattress as James sprang up, eyes sparking with residual high. Alice's nails dug into the plastic countertop.
"Relax, okay?"
"Hmph."
She hesitated, turning her back and keeping an eye on him. She didn't think he would still be high, what had he been using lately? She couldn't even remember the night before…
"It's fine," Suddenly a weight settled onto her back, heavy enough she had to steady herself against the counter with the palms of both hands. A voice hushed deeply in her ear, breath sour and sharp; "I'm up."
She felt a telltale pressure against her back, and hesitated.
"James?"
"Mmm…" He was kissing her neck, his dry lips like dead leaves against her skin.
"Did you reset the clock after that thing a couple weeks ago? The outage?"
He didn't answer, hands moving instead to her hips as he tried to turn her toward him.
"James—"
He backed up suddenly, slamming a fist on the wall—"Goddammit! What?!"
"The clock." She tapped it, hand moving quickly to grab the pitcher of hot coffee, "Did you reset it?"
"Fuck, what? No—What the hell, Alice?"
"James…" She said slowly, "What day is it today?"
But he'd already turned and stomped away. The front door slammed in his wake.
Alice released her grip on the coffee maker, taking a deep breath. Her head was pounding. She needed a hit. Anything. Right now, caffeine.
She ended up in front of the small TV, an Elmo mug full of black, gravely coffee in one hand as she flipped to the news.
A sharp pain stabbed her skull.
She chugged the coffee, feeling the fire scald her throat. Her thumb pressed on the volume button, drowning out what pain wasn't dulled by the mix of caffeine and burning pain.
It was gonna be another hot one, another melting one. Alice had a flashback to one summer night, a bad trip—she thought she was going to melt straight into the ground, drippy fingers drizzling between the cracks of pavement as she begged Bella to scoop her together, to sponge her up and drip her into a bucket.
Bella, where was Bella? Where was James?
"James? Bella?" Alice took another sip of her coffee and froze, forgetting she had already finished it.
The weatherman was still droning on. What day was it? Tuesday? Sometimes Alice turned on the weather, just to remind herself what day it was, what time, what concrete example of reality she could spoon-fed into her open brain. For the days she felt cracked open, an eye in an eggshell.
It was Tuesday. She had last seen Bella Saturday.
She stuck out her thumb, index, finger after finger as the coffee mug dropped to the floor and rolled loudly over the fake tile flooring.
Three fingers. Up down one-two-three fingers, three days. It had been three days since she had seen Bella. She'd never been out past morning.
The sharp pain throbbed, bright spots bursting in the corners of her vision. She screamed, fingers curling into her hairline as she covered her eyes.
She had to find Bella.
She had to find Bella.
Her baby, her little girl, little sister—she had to find her. She had to find her before anything found her, anyone else. Something had found her.
Shutup shutup shutup shutup. Her palms slapped hard against the clammy skin of her forehead.
The pain retreated into a dull thud.
Alice grabbed a coat, stepping out into the snow.
It brushed her face, whipping at it as it swirled in feathery tornados around her feet. Grey, sloppy wet snow sloshed against the tires of low-riding cars.
"Bella!" She screamed, "Bella?!"
She didn't know how long she ran, stumbling across the walkways and barreling past groups of strangers and she screamed, tripping and stumbling.
Bella!
"Whoah!"
She slammed into a wall of cotton, falling back into the snow. A distinct cracking sound came from the back of her skull. Her vision wavered.
"Holy shit! Oh, shit, are you okay?" Hands on her shoulders, her face, soft dove-grey eyes peering into her own and it pushed the greasy strands of overgrown black hair from her face.
"Here, slowly, come on," He wrapped an arm, "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there, you're just so damn tiny—kid? You okay? Can you talk? Oh my god, you're bleeding. Oh holy shit, please don't sue, I seriously didn't see you there, please let me help you,"
Alice slowly picked up one hand, pressing it gently to the back of her head. There was definitely a bump forming, but the pain was nothing compared to what she was used to. She needed to get back up, anyway.
"It's fine—" She pushed off of him, hands rubbing against the warm red thread of his heavy jacket.
"No, you really cracked your head on that pavement, you might have a concussion." His hand grabbed her wrist.
Alice flinched.
He dropped her wrist like it was on fire, brows knitting together as he frowned.
"I'm sorry, I have to go, I have to find Bella—"
"Whoah, calm down, come on you're going to pass out," He stood with her as she jumped up, wavering slightly.
"No, just get off of me, okay? I'm fine. I need to go, I need to find her,"
"Who's her?" He stepped in front of her. She growled, shoving against his shoulder.
"My fucking sister, okay?! She's missing, she's been missing and I need to find her and get the fuck out of my way!" She shoved once, twice, who the hell was this guy? A solid block of muscle? He didn't look like much, blonde shaggy hair and twiggy legs, why the hell couldn't she get him to move?
"Okay, calm down, did you report it? How long has she been missing?"
"What? Repor- uh, no. I can't really, you know, shit." She shook her head. It dropped, shaking back and forth lowly like a pendulum—too heavy, too thick, too much all at once…
"Hey, hey, calm down, its okay. You're freezing. We need to get you warm, going all hypothermic won't help anyone, okay? Come with me. My dad owns a corner store near here." He laid a hand gently, slowly on her shoulder, shaking it lightly as he tried to get her to look up from behind the thick veil of shiny black strands of hair; "I'm Jasper, okay? What's your name?"
But Alice had stopped listening. All she could hear was the dull thumping of the pain, sharp and ever present in the sides of her skull.
She's gone. Bella is gone.
Bella was still entirely convinced she was dreaming.
Or dead, but that was the less favorable theory that she ignored for the sake of sanity because, frankly, thinking of it make her face pale and hands shake.
Like they were now.
She swallowed the bile rising in her throat, clenching the silk fabric of her pajama pants in her hands as she stayed curled under the thick blankets.
She'd awoken in the middle of the night to an empty room, cast in low light by candles sitting in coves within the walls. She could see now the walls were indeed stone, glossy and flickering as the candles wavered under some otherwise undetectable breeze. Thick, old wooden furniture including a dresser and an old, carved chair curled along with the rounded walls. Each decorated with painted and carved flowers and vines, reaching and wrapping as though they held each piece together and weren't simply decoration.
A thick Ikea style reading chair sat in the corner, painfully out of place alongside the antique oak cabinets and cave walls.
There were no windows.
"Bella." Came a deep voice from beyond her blanket shell.
She hesitated, ruining her chance to feign sleep before she even had a chance to consider it. Reluctantly, she slowly peeled the blankets from her face, sliding up and back so her spine pressed against the stone headboard. She felt too vulnerable laying down, even under Fort Quilts.
"I thought… We could speak, should you be in agreement." His voice still shook her, sending shivers down her arms. Small shocks of fear and awe as milk gold eyes trained themselves carefully on her face.
"You should knock, please." She whispered.
He bowed his head slightly, "I apologize. I did not consider it."
"Yeah..."
"Do you wish to speak?" He repeated, eyes still firmly trained on her. She shifted uncomfortably.
"Um." A part of her didn't want to talk. What if, on the off chance, he made sense? Dreams always made sense, so if he did she could use that as confirmation—but that wasn't definite logic. She still had no clue whether or not this was real, but every minute she spent here felt realer than the last, as terrified as she was to admit it.
Listening to him outline the rules of this realm might feel like the final nail in the coffin that held her former life, and she wasn't sure she was ready for that. Ready to leave Alice.
Tears threatened the corners of her eyes and her nose immediately started filling.
"Um, yeah, just—basic stuff, okay? Basic things. Please."
He nodded deeply, stiffly, pulling the carved chair over to her bedside and elegantly lowering himself into it. Every movement, every gesture, they seemed to be done faster and softer than anything she had seen before. He sat in a chair like a hawk drifted into the wind.
There was a silence, before she realized he was waiting for her to speak.
"So… You're Hades."
"Yes."
"You think I'm Per… You're missing wife."
"Not missing," he reached forward and grasped her hand gently, lightly; "Found. But yes, because you are."
"Right…" She slowly drew back her hand, "And this is…"
"The Underworld." He agreed.
"So gods are real."
"In a sense."
"What?" She looked up, slightly surprised by his nonchalant phrasing.
"We are not… Gods, in the sense of the almighty." He said slowly, retracting his hand that had been sitting abandoned on the rumpled sheets as he bound his fingers together to rest in his lap; "We originate from this Earth. We came long before you, long before the Earth as you know it formed. Long before the realms in which we dwell were paired with your own."
"Oh, right, weren't there like, giants?" She remembered something about this dimly from that Disney movie a while back. It had been playing in the hospital waiting room once while Bella had waited for Alice after she had nearly ODed again.
"Titans." He corrected. His hair flickered along with the candle light, glossy—seemingly emitting a light of its own.
"They were Titans, massive, terrible creatures," He hesitated, looking at her face before slowly reaching forward.
The tips of his cool, smooth fingers brushed her cheek, his eyes suddenly deeply intense.
"They were, are, the definition of terror," He swallowed. For the first time he almost looked… Nervous. Determined. The depth of emotion in his eyes making Bella's stomach drop.
"I pray," he continued deeply, leaning closer as his fingers traced the tips of her ear down to her jaw gently, "You will never face that horror."
"Um," She swallowed. She could feel the heat of his fingers through her throat, and it was shocking straight down her chest. Her face blossomed with a bright red blush.
His face remained deadly serious as he drew away, returning again to his formal position.
Bella took a minute to breathe.
"Um," she cleared her throat, "So, different realms?"
She was going to go insane here. Okay. That was quickly becoming an accepted fact.
Ah-Some.
"Yes, ah, not quite dimensions, but..." He paused for a moment, considering, "Imagine the world were flat."
Not hard after what she had been through; "Okay."
"A human could see outlines, correct?"
"Hadn't there been a book or something about this?"
"It is possible." He agreed, "Imagine movement was only northward and southward. Those along the sides of your being can be perceived, however planes on the opposing axis are too thin to be seen. As such, they are unperceived by those who move along a singular axis."
"Yeah I never went to high school so…"
He frowned, "Should I try to explain another way?"
"No," Bella shook her head, "I think I'm getting it. Just, gimmie a minute to think about it, okay?" Talking about this sort of… theoretical stuff was actually comforting. Even if she wasn't sure about the legitimacy of the theory, she could still appreciate the theory itself. It reminded her of the things she read back home, about that show her foster family had filmed—what was it called? Stars? Cosmics? Cosmos, that's right.
Science was concrete. Though, as she scanned his tall, glowing, ethereal figure it struck her thinking of him as a scientific "species" was no more comforting than considering him a god.
Well, maybe a little. But it was definitely weirder on at least some levels.
"So, basically different… Dimensions?" Made sense, she guessed, since oil wells had never dug down too deep and literally struck hell—at least to her knowledge.
"We, gods, as you call us, can travel in all four directions." He continued firmly. He would make a cold professor, she thought wildly.
"So we're stuck two-ways, but you have four wheel drive, so to speak. You can go everywhere." She murmured.
"Not "we,"" He said firmly, "They. You are like me. You are of my own kind. But yes, we can go all places through use of the Aether."
She didn't say anything. She tried to let it slide, but he could see the evidence of disbelief on her face.
"Come. I will prove it to you." He said firmly, grabbing her wrist. She yelled as he dragged her from the bed, protesting loudly as he pulled her to the dresser. One hand firmly gripping her wrist, he ran the fingers of his other one along the cool surface of the cave wall behind the wooden furniture.
Bella watched, amazed, as stone turned to glass under the gentle convincing of his fingers. It reflected like still water, her gaze immediately drawn to the tall man beside her wrapped in dark cloth, hair pulled back at the base of his neck.
"Look upon yourself and see the changes you already face. You are returning to your true self."
She slowly tore her gaze away, switching it to herself.
The first thing she noticed was her hair, which stuck out in every direction. So much for just forwards and backwards, huh?
Then she noticed the slight reddening of her lips, which she thought were simply swollen at first, but upon closer inspection seemed to have plumped naturally—her cupids bow just slightly more defined.
Even her cheeks were a bit pinker, her eyes just a bit more tilted—like a cross between Snow White and a wood elf.
"It's… It's just my period." She assured herself quietly. Hades let one hand go as she unconsciously raised it, the dresser cutting into her abdomen as she leaned over it to get closer to the wall, tracing strands of dark auburn hair.
"It's just that hormonal shit that happens when you're menstruating or whatever, nothing special." She whispered.
"You lie to yourself." He said flatly.
"No, shutup, it's normal." She insisted, "It can't be real."
"It is." He insisted. Though he was nearly unreadable, Bella could tell he was getting frustrated.
"Perhaps let me try." Came a soft voice from the hall. Both Hades and Bella looked up suddenly at the doorway as a small woman slipped in, draped in glowing white silk.
If Hades was immortal, this woman looked eternal.
She glided across the floor, bare feet casting a white glow beneath her. Her shadow seemed chopped in half, the other half washed in her light.
"Child," She smiled, bright blue eyes framed in white lashes as thin as spider webbings, "You may not remember me, but I remember you very well."
"I've been hearing that a lot." Bella whispered. Everything in her wanted to take a step away, but she was drawn to the figure, almost gravitationally so.
"Hades has informed you of your true identity?" She asked, stopping in front of Hades and Bella. For the last few hours, Bella had never imagined anything that could possibly make Hades look anything but royally elegant, but next to this woman he seemed like an awkward teenager.
"Um," Bella tried, but she found her speech stunted.
"Of course." She placed a white-pale hand on her chest, eyes turning in smile; "I am Hecate. We were good comrades here, daresay friends even."
"Comrades?.." Bella asked, that sounded a little… Russian for the Greek Underworld.
"Perhaps I should demonstrate." Hecate smiled.
Hades suddenly stepped forward, gripping the top of Bella's arm and pulling her back; "Hecate, I don't believe,"
He suddenly stopped short as Hecate turned her gaze to him, still soft but now stern. Hades frowned deeply, seemingly conflicted.
"Remember of what I spoke before." Hecate said softly.
Slowly, Hades backed away, hand easing off of Bella's shoulder, which was suddenly shaking.
But then Hecate turned her gaze back upon her and she suddenly calmed.
It would all be okay. All fine.
Hecate would never hurt her.
Suddenly, the lights fluttered out.
Bella froze, the cold immediately settling into the room.
She opened her mouth, reaching forward with her arms—It hadn't even been this dark before, when she had first woken up here, where the hell was the human torch that had been right in front a couple second ago? Where was Hades?
She went to yell out their names, but found her voice stunted. Blocked by some force in the back of her throat. She coughed forcefully, but nothing came out.
Okay. She was going to be okay. If she found the bed, maybe she could just go back to get some damn sleep.
She took two steps forward in what she thought might be bed-direction, but then a small shuffling sound caused her to stop.
Hades?
She took a half step in the direction, feeling that same pull as she felt when Hecate arrived, wandering forward a bit, arms stretched out to avoid running into any walls.
Suddenly a voice in the distance struck her to the core.
"Bella?!"
Her knees locked.
"Oh my god, Bella?! I swear to fuck if this is a joke I'm going to kill you!"
'Alice,' Bella tried to speak, but it just came out as a dry choke.
"Bella?!"
Alice was leaving, Bella wanted to scream this way! Wrong freaking way! Come here! But her tongue felt swollen and immobile in her dry mouth.
She started to run, forgetting about maneuvering about walls as she put all her force into a forward momentum.
Bella...
Where are you…
Bella let out a soundless scream. They kept traveling farther away no matter how fast she ran to catch up, no matter what direction she tried, they just slipped farther and farther away.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was aware she should have ran into a wall a long time ago, but the thought was drowned in frantic desperation.
She could feel the anger and anxiety building in her stomach, sending shots through her muscles and she tried to scream over and over, hands clawing in the darkness.
She was losing Alice.
Again. Always, always losing Alice. Always on the cusp of gone forever, and she was about to fall off.
Men, always pushing. Waiting for the right moment. The drugs. Syringes. Alice's screams, her headaches, the pains—the voices. The murmuring. The stares.
The isolation.
Bella…
Bella screamed.
The room erupted with sudden light, bursting so painfully fast Bella had to shut her shocked eyes. The tension wrapped in her gut had released all at once, tumbling outward in a darkly familiar feeling.
It had happened again.
She slowly peeked her eyes open, finding herself not one inch away from where she had been when the lights were put out.
Hecate stared down at her, eyes alit as the candle behind her blazed.
Hades slumped to the floor, yelling something at Hecate, something angry enough to make her back away as he slid and arm around Bella's shoulders and pressed her face to his chest, whispering in her ear.
But she was too distracted by the candle in the alcove above them, the wax bubbling with life as it blazed.
Slowly, something forced its way through the waxy film—a bee, buzzing in haphazard patterns around the room as it slowly tumbled to the floor behind Hades, where Bella had a clear view of its deformed legs and burnt wings.
Hecate's voice invaded her head then, whispering softly;
Well done, Persephone.
Bella vomited, covering the back of Hade's silk attire.