Chapter 94

94

All was dark and there were no stars.

“Hello?” Persephone called into the darkness.

No one responded.

Persephone stretched her arms out and felt all around her. Nothing. There was nothing.

“Hades? Hades?” Her voice was high-pitched, nearing on frantic. Where was she? Why couldn’t she see anything? She spun around but there was only more nothingness, until, arms outstretched, her hand finally ran into a brick wall.

The air smelled sour and dank and that was when Persephone knew.

Mama had locked her in the cellar again.

It had all been a dream. Hades. New Olympus. None of it had ever been real.

Hades had never been real. He’d never loved her. He never would. Because he didn’t exist. None of it had. Athena. Aphrodite. Charon. Hermes. She’d made them all up in her head.

How many days had she been down here? How long since she’d had food or water? How long since she’d slept?

She’d experienced it before, the delirium that came with being confined in the solitary space for long stretches.

She sank to her knees.

She was alone.

Unloved.

Her mother had finally driven her mad.

“Noooooo!” she cried, banging her fists on the earthen ground. “Please!” She didn’t know what she was begging for. Maybe for the earth to open and swallow her up whole.

But then she froze. Because she heard something.

She sat up and craned her ears.

“Persephone. Persephone!”

The sound was coming from so far away, Persephone could barely hear it. But it was there. Either that, or it was an auditory hallucination.

But she was so desperate, she didn’t care.

“Hello?” She stumbled towards the sound. “Hello?”

“Persephone,” came the voice, louder this time. “Persephone, baby, come back to me.”

Hades. It was Hades’s voice.

Persephone started running towards it. She should have run into the back wall of the cellar but she didn’t. The darkness just went on and on and as she ran, it began to lighten. First to a dark gray and then…and then…

Persephone blinked her eyes open and winced at the painfully bright lights.

“Persephone!” Hades’s blurry face loomed over hers. He was smiling and crying at the same time. She’d never seen Hades cry in the entire time she’d known him.

Wait. Was this real? Or was it just another hallucination?

But when Hades dropped his lips to hers, she decided she didn’t give a damn. She was staying.