Your Lucky Day in Hell
Draft_2
Part 8
By: Chase L. Currie
The gods are cruel, the old Greeks would say sometimes, but what those foolish people did not know was how cruel the gods were to each other. The games they played on mankind was nothing to what they did to one another, but then again, family always knows the best way to hurt each other than anyone else.
Yes, the gods are cruel.
And before man learn how to forget about the gods or the son of the One Ture God came to the world there was a time Persephone was happy with Hades. Out of all the gods they loved each other like soulmates. The other gods grew envy of their true love, but the god who hated their love more than any of was the god of sleep, Hypnosis. He loved Persephone long before she came the wife of Hades. He worships the ground she walked on, but she never gives him the time of day. She always turns her back on him and then went off to marry Hades.
A god he hated for having more than him and now, he had the heart of his love.
The gods might be cruel, but their cruelly fall short compared to love.
Out of love, even the cruel kind, Nyx gave to Paige the all her memories back, not just her but the memories only the goddess of the Night would know, memories which explained everything.
Paige recalled the night she walked into the throne room to find her brother dead and Hades standing over him, his hands dipping in red. She cried, “What have you done?”
Hades turn to her standing right up and said, “No man, even your family, will not touch you in malice.”
Tears ran down her face as she ran into the dark heading for the World of Man. She knew something Hades did not, her brother might have beaten her in a fit of rage, but it was only because his mind was lost due to Hypnosis. The god of sleep poisoned his soul causing him to hurt her, she knew it, but Hades ignorant of the event.
She wasn’t going to tell her lover out of fear for her brother. She had saved her brother from the poison or, so she hoped, but either way, she was safe now.
Hypnosis told her brother to go to Hades and begged forgiveness. A cruel joke to be playing on the hearts of all. He listens to the god only to find Hades could not reserve his anger. He killed him with his bare hands. Was he wrong to do so?
Paige ran with the debate over blood and loved whirling within her soul. There was no answer, no peace to be found until Hypnosis came to her. Then she didn’t know all this pain was caused by the brother of death and he told he could take all of it away.
Was it desperation? Was it depression? Whatever it was she agreed, and he removes her memories, in the foolish hope he could win her heart, but the Night is compassionate. She came to her son not allowing him any power over Paige, but out of shock, Paige ran to the World of Men to get away from the dark.
There she lived over the ages. There Hades came to her more than once, but she would never return with him. In his castle, he sat alone punishing himself for his action. He allowed his regret to eat away his body and soul. He became lost within the walls of his home. He watched his wife move on with her lives while he did everything in his power to hurt himself.
But out of that pain, one good deed was committed, he sent her brother to the fields of Elysium where he sits to this day. No pain or sickness touches anyone with the fields, and her brother found love there where he could not in the World of the Living. He was happy, and the Night watched all.
Then out of some caring moment, Nyx went Hades begging him to find Persephone. It was time for him to heal his wounds, for him to love again. But Hades knew better and argued there was no way for his wife to forgive him. The sin was too high, too great of act to be easily written away. He lost her, and it was Hell for doing so.
Nyx saw the brokenness of Hades’s soul and wept.
She also saw the broken heart of Persephone, no matter what love she found the World of Men it always fell short. It was never right. She had doomed herself to a different kind of Hell.
Nyx went back to Hades and said, “You may be right, Persephone may not forgive you, but you can save her from her pain. A pain she is living now.”
It was never the plans of Hades to tell Paige the truth. He was going to allow her to walk among the Other Side to find a happiness she could not before. He didn’t believe it was with him, but the words fell from his mouth the moment she asked for the truth. A hope lingers his heart like a dying flame on winters Night not ready to kiss the world goodbye yet, that she made love him again. She asked, and the hope jump at the request and he told her the truth, a mistake it seems now.
Nyx pulled away from Paige as she glanced at the Night.
“I don’t know if I can forgive him,” Paige said rising to her feet.
“The question is not if you can but are you willing to try?”
“I think I am,” Paige said.
Nyx smiled and whispered something into her ear. Words which cannot be put to the page now for it did it would diminish them to do so, but she turned to see mansion of the dead and ran into it. She ran to her room where she found Hades sitting on her bed waiting. The door flew open, and Hades jump to his feet in time to catch her in his arms.
“My dear love,” he said, “you are back. It is so good to see, Paige.”
“It’s Persephone,” she told him.
(Writer’s Notes: The end? Ah, I guess so. The question should be, is it a good ending? That I do not know, but I did enjoy it. So maybe it is the right ending rather if it is good or bad one. Either way, it is over, and I am done with this story. I can stop beating my head against the wall trying to make it all work.
No longer, do I have Hades looming over me to write more now. He walked behind me locked with my shadow begging me to see what would happen next. He wanted to know if Persephone would come back to him. I guess I can’t blame for that. Either way, he is gone now, replaced by another, I’m sure, and I have type my last word for this story, time for me to move on. Time for you to move on.
I only add a few notes here to explain somethings. One is the narrative choice I made in the last part of the story. I was planning to switch to first-person narration, but it became a little blend from the first person to the third person. I wanted Nyx to be the mean narrator in this part because she knew all the secrets and could tie everything together, but at least, it was not the case. You can see her trying to peek through the text but not fully coming out to tell her side of things. I think this is the case because it felt wrong to do so and I spent so much time with Persephone/Paige that I needed to stay on her. I’m not sure it works, but I like that it feels different.
The last note is the fact didn’t write what Nyx said Persephone/Paige, and this is because I can’t make what I was planning on her saying work. I wrote over the weekend what Nyx was going to say to Persephone/Paige to have her go back to Hades, but every time I read it failed. I did what every writer does, and I re-wrote and re-wrote and re-wrote …
Nothing was working, and then I remember the last scene of Lost in Translation when Bill Murray whispered something into Scarlett Johansson ear. The movie ends with you never knowing what he said, and it worked so well. I always felt like if you knew what he said it wouldn’t be as powerful at that moment. After all, Scarlett Johansson reaction sells the movie. In fact, it was the only reason I watched because a friend told me about her acting in that scene. I was trying to do the same, but I know, it didn’t work as well … and yet, I try it.
Well, I hope you enjoyed reading my story and see you next time?)
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