Both of us were lying on the bed, just doing absolutely nothing but talking even more.

He was lying behind me, his arms wrapped comfortably around my frame, making me feel warm and safe as he always did. My back was pressed against his chest, and I could feel the soft thumping of his heart while his breath fanned the nape of my neck.

I sighed in content at the perfection of the quiet moment. No words could describe how great this felt. But in the first place, no words were needed. Just the two of us being this close was already enough. It fitted perfectly with our role as husband and wife.

Caressing the back of his hand that was placed on my stomach, I whispered, "This is great, isn't it?"

He made a sound, which was akin to a moan, deep from within his throat and nuzzled his face into my russet hair. His hand entwined with mine, and he whispered, "It is, and it's all thanks to you. You make everything great."

I felt a blush creeping up onto my cheeks once again, and I complained, "Do you ever run out of compliments about me? You never seem to stop making me blush."

He chuckled wholeheartedly and then pressed a kiss to my hair. "I love to make you blush, Persephone. Because I know that I'm the only one who could."

With a scrunched-up face, I snorted, "Don't flatter yourself, Hades."

"Oh, my dear Persephone. You have hurt my heart with the cruelty of your words. Surely you do not think that I would be so egoistic?"

I turned around in his arms to face him. Accompanying the dramatically sad voice he was speaking in, he had a cheeky smile plastered to his face. He chuckled as I looked at him with dangerously-narrowed eyes. I rolled my eyes and instead shifted my head closer to kiss the tip of his nose.

"Of course I don't think of you as that, you silly man. You're much better than egoistic," I said as I nuzzled my face into the curve of his neck. "Handsome, smart, funny, loving, caring…" I murmured.

His hand stroked my back slowly when he replied with a laugh, "See? I'm not the only one doing all the flattering here."

This time, it was me who giggled, but it was suddenly cut short by a yawn.

"You're tired. Sleep, love," he beckoned me, hand still rubbing slow circles onto my back.

I shook my head stubbornly. "No. I want to stay up with you. Talk to you a bit more…" Another yawn escaped me, this one even bigger than the last.

He tsked and said disapprovingly, "No. You should get your sleep. It's so obvious that it's taking over you now." And then, his tone became gentle. "Sleep, Persephone. We'll have another day together. I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

Instantly feeling the reassurance in his words, I finally decided to give in to sleep.

"Good night, Hades," I murmured into his neck.

He responded by placing a feather-light kiss to my forehead, and whispering, "Good night, my beautiful Persephone. I love you."

I smiled, and murmured sleepily back, "I love you."

And then, I finally drifted off.

"I feel saddened that they must forcibly part in a short while," Atropos whispered.

Lachesis pursed her lips into a thin line before saying, "I cannot believe it. Just when everything is going so fine, the trouble must return. Can they not spend time with each other a little while longer?"

Clotho sighed and looked down at the hem of her long white dress. "Unfortunately, they cannot, dear Lachesis. It has already been weaved, and it is happening as such."

"But still! Can Demeter not resort to such extreme measures?" Atropos questioned.

Without a word, Clotho shook her head in dismay.

I jolted awake and immediately sat up. The room was dark; the only form of light was the streaks of moonlight that were passing through the floor-to-ceiling window. My breathing was heavy, and beads of cold sweat started dotting my forehead, some beginning to stream down the sides of my face.

Beside me, I heard Hades say in a voice that was heavy with sleep and worry, "Persephone? What's wrong, love?"

There was something definitely very wrong right now. I was still in my sitting position, seemingly unable to move. But my eyes were frantically darting all around the room, trying to detect the new aura I was feeling.

This aura was definitely new, and very different. It was at the maximum height of its power, and, for some reason, it felt fresh, as though it had just been awaken from a long and deep sleep. And another conclusion as to why it was so powerful was that it seemed to have a strong connection with the Earth itself. In me, I could feel the trees and the flowers stirring from the energy of the new aura.

The source of the power was still quite far away, I could tell, but the aura washed over me as though beads of water were falling upon me drop by drop, instead of together so that I could feel each bead coming in contact with my skin.

"Persephone?" Hades said again, his voice full of concern. "What's wro-"

He couldn't finish his sentence, because he was then interrupted by the abrupt breaking of the glass window. I screamed in shock as the window panes shattered into a million shards of glass. As Hades held me protectively in his arms, I thought about how it was strange was that it had seemed to break on its own, and I instantly realize that it was the new aura that had done it.

"Hades!" I yelled out in panic.

He didn't answer my cries. Instead, once the crashing had died down, he quickly jumped off from the bed and ran out of the room. I followed suit, experiencing more things breaking apart on its own as I made my way down to the living room.

I saw him running out of the door the same minute I felt the source of the new aura approaching the house. With fear and anxiety brewing strong within me, I followed after him into the dark outside world.

Hades was standing in the driveway, poisonously glaring with all hatred at a shadowy figure that was approaching him.

A very familiar figure.

"Mother?" I gasped.

Demeter walked into a streak of orange light that was shone by one of the many lamp posts outside. Her walking figure was tense and stiff, her blonde hair was quite a mess while her face was pulled into a sneer, with green eyes that was full of anger and hatred.

"Hades," she said through gritted teeth. "Certainly, it has been a very long time."

I moved to stand behind Hades and nervously gripped his shoulders. He blocked me protectively, moving so that I couldn't see my angry mother approaching us dangerously, and which I assumed she didn't see me.

"What are you doing here, Demeter?" he asked in a hard voice, and I could just feel his fathomless black eyes glaring at her.

I pressed the side of my face against his back, trying hard to hear the muffled pounding of his heart. While I concentrated one ear on that, my other caught my mother snapping back, "I did tell you that I would take her back, did I not? And I did tell you that you shouldn't take me lightly."

And so very suddenly, I could feel the power of the Earth building up inside her, before it was released solely and immediately at Hades.

In a flash, Hades turned to grab me and pulled me away, just in time to get out of the way of the wave of power she had shot at us. We both fell to the ground, and I saw the lamp posts that were in that direction suddenly exploding as though there was a mini bomb implanted inside it.

Hades retaliated quickly and summoned his own power. I could feel the dark aura suddenly appear from within his chest and he suddenly released it through the palm of his hand. My mother wasn't quick enough to step out of the way, and she was knocked down immediately, giving a grunt of pain as she did.

Hades got onto his feet, pulling me to mine as well. He pulled me to run back into the house, but we made the mistake of turning our backs, because she shot another wave of repulse at us, this one stronger than the last. The face of Hades' modern house began to feel the effects of it. The painting of the walls began to crack and chip, the windows were breaking and the door broke apart. Hades and I were thrown through the now-opened entryway.

I landed on the floor, feeling pain shooting instantly in my right shin. Looking down at it, I saw in horror that a large shard of glass had pierced through my skin. In the dim light, I could see my shiny ichor seeping slowly from it.

Suddenly, I was pulled into Hades' arms once again. I looked at him fearfully, and saw the genuine worry written on his face.

But he was suddenly thrown away from me by my mother, who had walked into the house.

"HADES!" I screamed in fear and panic. Quickly, I pulled out the glass shard out of me, ignoring the searing pain I felt, and then tried to crawl towards where he was; on the wall ahead of me, lying among the remnants of a broken painting.

But just as I crawled about a few feet already, my whole body suddenly went slack. I began to lose control of my functions and could not move my body at all. I stayed limp on the ground, trying hard to at least move my limbs even an inch. But I couldn't. I was completely paralyzed.

"I'm so sorry, my Kore," I heard my mother say 'soothingly'. "I cannot let him steal you from me anymore. This would be the last time."

I wanted to scream then. I just wanted to scream and yell and curse at her. But I couldn't, because, like my body, my tongue too was slack.

But if I could, I wanted to question her about why she was being like this. Why she was being so evil. To be honest, it really did frighten me. It frightened me so badly. On the other hand, I also began to feel as though I missed my mother. I didn't want to see her so hateful and so vengeful. I wanted to see her go back to being the mother who had taken care of me throughout all those years.

Her voice was then directed from me to Hades. I watched pathetically as he got up and stood in a defense stance.

"You want to know how I became so powerful, my brother?" Demeter suddenly asked him. Without waiting for a reply, she answered, "It's because my powers piled together after being locked up for so long. They piled up so much that within a second, I could easily destroy one whole building. And also, you do know that my powers were always based on my emotions. Thanks to my anger towards you, it helped to fuel it."

Hades made no move to attack her. Instead, he said, "Why, Demeter? Why is it that throughout all those years, your anger for me has never died? Is it truly too difficult for you to just forget about the past and move on? I have, but why can't you?"

That made her totally pissed off.

"YOU KNOW BLOODY DAMN WELL WHY!" she shouted at him menacingly. "YOU STOLE MY DAUGHTER FROM ME! YOU STOLE AWAY HER MAIDENHOOD! AND YET YOU STILL DO NOT WANT TO CONFESS TO YOUR MISTAKE!"

Anger flashed across Hades' face and he suddenly sent a wave of power to strike her. I couldn't turn my head to see what happened, but I could hear her yell out in pain as she crashed into something.

Hades appeared by my side in an instant. Quickly, he picked me up gently in his arms. I could only look up at him weakly, my whole body still lifeless while my mind was not. But if I could show the emotions I felt right now, I would be shock by the sadness I saw in his eyes.

But I didn't get to see it for long, because he was suddenly struck by something from behind him, and he was knocked out immediately. He fell to the floor, dropping me, and he lay face down, completely motionless.

NO! I screamed inside my head. I so desperately wanted to reach out for him, to try and revive him with my own powers. I knew I could, I just needed to get to him.

But I was extremely frustrated and pained that I still couldn't.

A figure loomed over his unconscious body, and my eyes trailed up to look at Demeter, who looked down at him grimly. In her hand was a huge chunk of broken wood that used to be part of the door. She let go of it instantly, letting it fall to the floor with a loud thud.

"He was a fool to have let his guard down, even for a few seconds," she muttered. "It only gave me the chance to easily knock him out." Then, she waved a hand above him, and I knew that she was casting some sort of magic on him.

Before my eyes, I saw huge stalks of sharp thorns appear out of thin air, ensnaring his entire body. It looked so sharp that I could almost feel the prick of the thorns on my limp body. Tears flowed out of my eyes as I watched his face being covered by the thorns, though I was glad that none seem to be pricking him. It occurred to me that it was supposed to act as some sort of small prison, to try and prevent him from getting out.

When it was finally done, she walked towards me, and crouched down beside me. I looked up at her through my tears. I was completely taken aback then, because I could see just the tiniest hint of pity and sadness in her olive green eyes.

With a strained voice, she whispered, "I'm so sorry, Persephone."

Then she placed the tip of her index finger on my forehead, and the next thing I knew, all I could see was blackness.

Author's Note:

I know this chapter may seem to be not so good, but I was having a really bad day at school. I tried to audition for a talent competition, but I totally messed up big time. What's worse was that it was an open audition, meaning there were people who were watching me, and nearly everyone saw how badly I messed up. I feel totally embarrassed, and completely down.

So I apologize if the chapter was not so good. I'll try my best to make the next one better.

Muse of Fanfiction