Your Lucky Day in Hell
Draft_2
Part_1
By: Chase L. Currie
“Years go by still I don't know
Who shall inherit this earth
And no one will know my name until it's on a stone
Who shall inherit this earth
And no one will know my name until it's on a stone
This could be your lucky day in hell.”
The Eels ‘Your Lucky Day in Hell’
Once upon time …
All the skulls of the dead animals watched in awe at the crying girl on the floor. The animals stuff from the hours of taxidermy long to sit beside her trying to break the tears, but they were frozen in place, watching in a heart-breaking way. All the tools of her craft lied on the tables, and the light above hung over her like a staring eye watching the tears pool in lap.
She cried to the bitter night of the unwelcoming winter how she wished life was different. She wanted everything to go back to the way it was before or, by all that is holy, things to change for the better. The red mark on her face wouldn’t be there anymore. The tears from the pain and shock would never have been cried and beating in her chest wouldn’t be sending pieces of her young heart to the floor. Everything would be good; there would be happiness in her life.
She didn’t care about happiness in the world. Fuck the world, she thought to herself, all it ever did was break her. The world beat and bruise the loving souls of the kind to the point where all they could do was hate, hate and hurt. She was tired of hurting already.
Life had already thrown stones at her like a bully from the across the street. The rock smacked against her skull shooting her to the floor, and the boy never stops throwing them. More of the stones hit her even as she lied crying on the ground. There was no end in sight, this was life, and she had to deal with the pain.
For a moment, a short moment in her life she thought she found a shield from the stones. A boy stepped into the stones from crashing against her. He reached down picking her up with a soft kiss and spoke the words her heart longed for; I love you. She didn’t even know she longed for the taste of the word. She didn’t before that moment, believe in love, but now she did.
They were happy.
They made love.
She was going to be with him forever.
The tear wrapped around her thin fingers telling her all she dreamt was a lie. He was a drunk like her father. He hit her like her father, but she wasn’t a child anymore. She planted her knee right between his legs to the place he loved most sending him out of her life forever. He was gone. Dead to her like the word love. Love was dead, and all she was left with was the tears.
“God,” she cried to the skulls, “I want all this to be over. I need it to change; this can’t be life.” She tossed her face into her hands wishing she was dead.
“Paige,” A warm man said to her. His voice floated to her like the heat from a lite fire. The word caught her by the chin making her lift to see who spoke her name so sweetly.
Standing in front of her was something be on her understanding at the time. She could see it; the thing was there. A long black hood cloaked man wearing the skull of a bear and towering over her like the shadow of death stood in front of the door. Under the cloaked something moves and breathed like ants pushing up from beneath the ground. She backed away at first sure whatever was beating under him was about to come pulling out and then the fact this was a man? Or something, standing in front of her. Something which knew her name.
The tears quickly turn from sorrow to terror. She looked into her throat for a scream, but there was nothing to be found.
“Ah,” the man said reaching out with an elongated hand to touch her red cheek. The burning mark sat so brightly against her pale skin putting pain into the skull’s eyes. “He will never hurt you again.” The man’s touch was warm and calming. It pushed the red away like water being tossed against a wall. The pain bleeds from her with a signal touch, and she felt to her bones this ‘thing’ was safe. He somehow, somewhere, loved her.
“Who are you?”
He pulled his hand back letting it fade back into his darkness. “I fear if I told you my name you would run from me,” he said keeping his distance from her.
“Tell me.”
He nodded and said, “I am Hades.”
“The god of the underworld?”
“The very one,” he said.
“Oh God,” she wept and then question. “Am I going to die?”
“I do not plan on it.”
“Then why are you here?” She asked pulling her knees closer to her small chest.
“I saw you,” he said. “I have been watching you on the wind and saw what has happened to you. You asked for a change, and I came to give you that change.”
“What?”
“I come to offer you a change,” he said. “I can and will give you all and changed your life forever. I shall show you things your mind has no name for yet. I will take all your pain away. I will show a world like no other.”
“And what do you want from me?” Paige asked.
“A simple request,” he told her. “A simple and yet, very hard request.”
“And that is?”
“I want you to be happy. I want your heart to overflow with joy and honey,” he explained. “Really, I want to see you smile.”
“That is all?”
“I have everything else in my kingdom,” Hades said. “I have all the wealth and knowledge of the ages. I have rooms of slivers and mountains of gold that would send a dragon to heaven. I have all the words ever written by all the poets and bards. I have everything. I have it all because all is paid to me in the end.” He led in a little. “I have all of this, but I do not have your smile.”
“This is a lot to handle right now,” Paige said. “Like I’m freaking the fuck out a little.”
“Rightful so,” he agrees. “Your world has been changed forever with me standing in front you, but there is so much more I can show you.”
“You are going to take me to the underworld?”
“Not the underworld,” he said with a grin, “the other side. The side where magic and heroes are real. A place where all the tales of myth and legends have a life.”
“I don’t know.”
“My love,” he said, “I have watched for a long time you in this world, and I can tell you now, this place holds nothing for you other than pain and death.” He pulled a bright red apple from somewhere and held it out to her. “Take it. Bite it and let me show you all.”
Paige stared long and hard at the red apple. It was a true red, a red she has never seen before in her life. It almost glowed in her eyes and begged for her to take a bite. She reached for it.
He moved back a little and said softly, “But I do warn you because I care deeply for you if you take a bite of the apple everything will change. Once the changes happen, it can never be undone again.”
“What kind of change?”
“The same one which casted Adam and Eve from the garden,” he said, “knowledge.”
Paige pressed her lips against the skin of the apple slowly pushing her teeth into it. The creaked sound of the apple filled her mouth and rung long in her ears. She swallowed opening her eyes to a different place than the one she was in before.
She stood before a larger black tree with what seems to have a castle or a mansion built into it. The tree reached far be on the limit of the clouds and grew a little more as she stared up. Be on the view of her eyes she knew the tree was still growing into the night sky. She followed the tree back down to the gothic house with statues of angels and devils all over it and was in awe of the works of art before her.
“Welcome,” Hades said standing beside her no longer cloaked. He wore a golden chest plate with a roaring lion at the center of it and a long white cape flowing behind him. She stared at his cool skin and snowy white eyes and was more impressed with his perfect features than the art of the house. He was be-on beautiful to place she didn’t have words for yet. “To my house, the house of Dis.”
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