I wake to the sound of surgical lights humming overhead. There's wires in my arms, tubes with bright liquids dripping into my veins. A heart monitor stutters in the background, and my body hurts.
Where am I? I have the chance to wonder, before it all comes rushing back.
Alter Day, my name being chosen, the Games, dying, waking up here.
I'm sorry Plutus, I can't go with you, not yet.
I pull the IV from my arm, blood trickling out of the small wound. My skin looks sallow, its natural darkness gone ashy without even a holographic sun to sustain it. How long have I been asleep; how long have I been alive? I shake my head, move to the edge of the cot I'm strapped to after shaking loose of my bonds- that part hurts, my left wrist still broken beneath its splint; the stab wound in my chest is stinging.
The floor is cold against my bare feet; I stumble and the heart monitor starts screeching. I rip its ties off my chest so that it goes silent, the entire room dead the way I should be.
There's a door no more than a few steps away; I twist the knob and it isn't locked, opens to a hallway, pristine and white and blinding. I stumble down it like I am in a labyrinth, irrationally afraid for a moment that I'm in the Capital, that they've brought me back to torture all of the secrets out of me. But then I remember Prometheus being there when life had been breathed back into my lungs, and I know I have to find him and figure out what happened.
Hades, are you really dead? Am I really alive?
Eventually the hall branches off and I follow its maze-ways into what looks like a cafeteria. There are people here, jumpsuit clad and hair cropped short. They're all carrying trays of food, more in line having their arms scanned by a big machine, like lambs in a slaughterhouse.
I don't understand it, haven't imagined anything like this in my wildest dreams. Maybe I really am dead, maybe this is Heaven. What if everything the books have said are an illusion: what if the peace of death is one big lie and we're destined to be lined up and torn apart for the rest of eternity?
Everything's fuzzy all of a sudden and I blink in confusion while standing there in a thin hospital gown, looking bruised and broken and unlike the rest. They all turn as if knowing that I'm watching, the entire room gone silent.
Murmurs erupt after that, pointing and staring before suddenly someone's at my side, a familiar hand and green eyes. "Come on, Kore," Atlas says, leading me from the cafeteria and back into the hall.
"Are you dead, too?" I ask him.
He shakes his head. "We aren't dead, Kore. Not yet."
Eventually we end up back in the room I woke up in, and I ask him, "What's going on?" once he has me settled in bed, heart-monitor strapped into place once more and beeping nervously.
He doesn't answer me, simply switches on the television in the corner of the room to the Capital News. "I'll get Prometheus for you," Atlas says eventually. "He'll explain."
The God with the weight of the world upon his shoulders leaves then, and the only thing I'm left with is the static of the television, Hermes Caduceus' bluish face as he raves of the newest winner of the Divinity Games.
Little Hestia flashes on screen, decked in gold and flames. The Goddess of Fire, they've titled her, the Little Maiden of the Hearth.
I know they've adapted the Maiden title after me- I took that away from the Capital long ago when I started acting like Persephone. Now they've given it to Hestia as a mockery, as a warning sign because they must know I'm not dead, that that fox was never supposed to be there, that little Hestia wasn't supposed to win.
And I can tell her smile is fake; I can tell the way she is trembling while the rest of the Capital can't. They're all cheering her name and there are tears in her eyes, and I realize it's because she thinks I'm dead. Because she thinks Hades…
All the breath escapes me, and I can't bring myself to even think his name, let alone speak it.
President Kronos takes the screen then, and when he congratulates Hestia on her winnings, his handshake is too tight, breaking her tiny fingers. "The Fates were in your favor, little firestarter," he says to her, using the nickname I had given her before I died. And I know, in that moment, that she will never be safe.
"The Capital loves her; she's a gem to them despite her discretions of winning."
I look up to find Prometheus in the doorway, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His eyes are red, dark circles beneath. He looks thinner than I remember, tired and old. He turns the television off before he comes to sit on the edge of the bed, set his hand on my knee.
I recoil.
Sighing, Prometheus says, "I'm sure you're very confused about all of this."
"Where are we?" I ask, hands trembling.
"We're in Dodekateria," he says, and I'm so startled I can't even think straight.
"How?" I ask.
Prometheus shrugs. "It was never destroyed, not really. This place used to make nuclear weapons for the Capital- all of the factories were underground. Those who survived stayed down here, kept themselves secret from the Capital and waited until they could fight back."
Fight back? I think, because how is that even possible? The Capital controls everything. Everything except death, a voice in the back of my head says. They wanted you dead yet here you are, alive, breathing.
And that's when I ask, "How am I still here?"
The look in Prometehus' eyes then startles me- there's so much life to him all of a sudden, so much desperation like when he kissed me right before I went into the Games. "We've been planning this since the start, Kore," he says by way of explanation.
"Who's we?" I nearly hiss, angry that he isn't being straight-forwards; my head hurts and I'm still holding to the fragile hope that Hestia and I are not the only ones who made it out of the Games alive. It doesn't sound so crazy, now that I know a republic thought to be dead has just been a disguise for a lost civilization all this time.
"The Antístasi," Prometheus answers me. "Those who oppose Capital Rule. We've been waiting for so long to have a symbol of a rebellion, Kore. And we found it. In you."
"I don't understand what you mean," I say, throat closing up. I don't like the way he looks at me- I don't like the way I know exactly what he's talking about but am not ready to admit it to myself.
Prometheus smiles again, only this time it's more like a leer, more like a threat of a promise. "I knew you wouldn't back down to them," he says. "I knew you'd fight back. You're just like your brother, Kore. Like me. I told Atlas you would fight, and then, at the end, you did. Riots happened everywhere, Kore. Thanks to you. The Capital won't post it in the media for fear of it making the inner republics fight back too, but it's happening."
"But...but why?" I ask, so very confused and adrenaline spiked because how could this happen in such a short time? How could someone like me start this? "Why?"
"Because Persephone inspired change," Prometheus laughs; he sounds a little crazy when he does that. "You gave them hope, Kore. You gave them a reason to fight. Everyone is tired of the Games, of innocent blood being spilt. They're tired of being starved and worked to death. And you rebelled in a place made for sacrifice; you didn't back down."
"But how am I still alive?" I ask then, the key to all of this.
"We turned off your tracker before you really died," Prometheus says. "We came in with a hovercraft of our own and got you."
"What about Hades?" I dare him to answer then, the name like poison on my tongue. "What about Artemis? Why didn't you save Hestia?"
"The Capital came for Hestia first," Prometheus says. "We had to make sure it was safe before we grabbed you…and the others."
The heart-monitor turns to chaos as I ask, "So Hades is alive?!"
Prometheus doesn't speak, puffs on his cigarette and looks away until I scream at him to tell me. "I'm so sorry Kore," he says eventually, and the heart-monitor skips a beat. "He was too far gone."
"And Artemis?" I breathe, can't focus on Hades unless I want to die all over again.
"She's alive," Prometheus says, and I'm instantly both sad and relieved. Relieved for the selfish reason that I'll have a friend here, someone who I'm sure hasn't lied to me like Prometheus has, like everyone else in this once-destroyed place. Sad because I know Artemis wanted to be with Apollo, that she doesn't want to live without him. "She's struggling, but she's still alive."
"And my mother?" I ask. "The rest of my family?"
Prometheus' expression turns grim. "Alive," he says. "But Demeter…"
"What about her?" I ask, voice deadly.
"They took her, Kore," he says, voice so scratched it could have started the fires of his Games for him. "After they'd thought that you'd died, everyone in Enteka rioted. The Capital went in to shut it down, and when they realized that your body was missing, that some of the mentors had run, they got to your mother before we could."
Fresh tears are in my eyes now, too much sorrow, too much anger, too much hurt. "What about Despoina, Arion?!"
"They're safe," Prometheus says, the only solace he can offer. "They're here, waiting for you to wake-up. They were in the fields when it happened- your friend, Charon, had offered to watch them for the day because he knew you weren't going to make it, and didn't want them to see. They hid out when the Guards came, and we found them."
"But the Capital has my mother?" I ask. "And Hades is dead?"
"I'm so sorry, Kore," Prometheus says again, and he looks it. "We'll get her back."
"But you can't get Hades back no matter what," I say, my voice cracking. "And the rest of Enteka...what happened to it?"
For a while Prometheus is silent, leaves me to my tears and blinding regret. "It's gone, Kore," he says eventually. "So are Dodeka, and Okto. The Capital burned them to the ground."
"So they took everything," I finally say. "They destroyed everything."
"I'm sorry, Kore," Prometheus says and I can't stand it, can't stand any more apologizing because it's all he has and it makes nothing better. I sob despite the comforting hand he puts on my shoulder. "But we can avenge them; we can make the Capital pay. You just say the word, and we'll make it happen. Just say you'll help."
I look at him, at his tired golden eyes and I see the flame there, that same resistance that won him his Games so long ago. And I know to agree to this would mean setting myself up for Altar all over again, a new chaos to go against. But I can't say no- the Capital has taken everything from me. They've taken my father, my brother, my lover, my mother, my home. They've taken my free-will and my innocence and I can never get any of that back.
But I won't let them get away with it for nothing; they may have taken everything away from me first, but now I'm going to take everything away from them. I can be Persephone the way they never wanted me to be, if I try. I can make change, and I can draw blood- better than anyone, the Capital has shown me that.
My hands no longer shake as I hold Prometheus' gaze and say, "Yes."
End Part One.