Flowergirl, Percy Jackson

009. Darkness of the Night

009───────ஐ〰ฺ･:*:･✿darkness of the night

One step. 

Two thrones of scratched, lacerated bone, side by side, marred with thousands of tiny scars. Scars of molten souls and spirits of hate, engraved with arcs of obsidian skulls and trapped souls. Symmetrical, equal in every way that matters, a king and queen side by side. Engraved in eternity, there lies the forever dance between life and death, reaching for each other's tails. Always escaping, always trapped, always moving. This is their prison, after all, and he is only escaping, taking with him the only life he has ever known, stealing away some breath of air that burns his lungs, but feels so good. 

                         Again. 

A stone wall, ornate diamonds and rubies and emeralds, jewels fit for a king. Slouched upon that chair is him, death incarnate, king personified, draped in robes that shimmer like a river of silver pearl. Shadows curl around him like his own personal shroud, for a god already dead. Beneath the ivory skin, there's a skeleton hidden, flesh and stone and bone. He frowns, and they scream. 

                                                 Another step. 

Beside him, seated on the throne beside, lies a woman more beautiful than Aphrodite herself. Golden blonde hair the colour of straw, robed in a cool black chiton, folded over her limbs with ethereal serenity. Tucked behind her ear is a bouquet of dark dahlias, on her finger a ring of brittle bone. Her clothes embroidered with the tears of a thousand souls, her skin engraved with the art of a thousand ages. She smiles, and his heart shatters into a thousand tiny glittering glass fragments. 

                                                                                       Again. 

Song caressing his throat, his chest, his ribcage. Tightening around his thorax, lungs caving in, blood rushing up his throat and out his mouth. Lyrics dragged from his soul, a ballad from his heart, his euphony ear-splitting, cutting through the cacophony of the Dead. His ears pounding, blood slipping out like water. The pressure is too much, too intense — like a thousand gushing waves falling on his head, crushing his skull and his brain and his mind, sending him spiraling into the claws of insanity. They said it was beautiful. It was pain. 

                                                                                                                       Again. 

He can feel her behind him, her slender fingers reaching for his shoulder, her soft footsteps behind him as he steps forward, further and further and further still from her new home. Her soft voice, singing along to his song, her dress spinning in the afternoon breeze as she danced to his music, as she laughed, as she loved. Her screams, worse than any torture Hades could conjure, the worst sound in the world but somehow melodious, as they always were. As the venom consumed her, the lifeless glint of her eyes, the cold feel of her fingers as he held her corpse. As she smiled, as she cried, as she died. 

So close. 

                                                                                                                                                       One more. 

One more step, he promises. Then they'll be free, they'll be alive, the world will roll back onto it's axis and everything that should be will be. For the forces of nature to right themselves, for the gods to go back to their business, for him to finally find his peace again. But behind him, it's too silent, it's all black blank breathless darkness, void of life and love. Stars hidden, light stolen. Shattered hands upon hands. He's alone once more.