Hope for the Underworld

3

After his departure, she absentmindedly nibbled on some food, but couldn't force herself to eat. She didn't really feel hunger; further proof it wasn't real. So, just to do anything and fill the empty hours, she decided to explore.

The palace was vast, filled with seemingly endless corridors, leading off to many empty chambers, just like the one she had been locked in the previous night... But was it night? Without any way of measuring the passage of time she couldn't tell if it was a night or day, the same day, or weeks later. It was so disconcerting.

She soon tired of looking at empty chambers, but then she stumbled upon some signs of habitation. The room was as bare as the others, except for a big desk standing in the middle of the floor. She approached it cautiously, unable to curb her curiosity.

'Hello,' she spoke loudly, in case someone was around, but there was no reply. So, she stepped closer.

The desk was fashioned from some kind of dark wood, with a highly polished top. There were a few pens, neatly arranged on one side, and a pile of documents on the other. She smiled, highly amused by the need for pens and paper in the Underworld. She ran a finger along the surface of the desk and found it spotless. She was briefly tempted to look at the papers, but it felt wrong to pry, so she turned away... freezing on the spot, when she noticed someone in the doorway.

Hades stood there, motionless, watching her in silence.

'I didn't...' she stammered, stepping away from the desk, suddenly ashamed of her curiosity.

'I know,' he answered calmly, and a flicker of a smile briefly appeared on his face, bringing it to life again.

'I'm sorry.'

'Whatever for?' His pale grey eyes unnerved her. 'I told you that you may look around. If my study was off limits, you wouldn't have gained entrance.'

She just nodded and fell silent again.

'Your desk is... very neat,' she offered eventually, struggling to find something to say.

'I like order.' He shrugged. Clearly, he also struggled for appropriate topics of conversation. Then, he spoke again. 'If you allow, I will escort you back. I fear you may get lost and be forced to sleep on the floor again.'

Was that an attempt at humour?

She was quite unsettled by these sudden changes in his demeanour. Yesterday... or weeks ago he had threatened her and now...

'I did not threaten you,' he spoke out of the blue, with some unease.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. 'You can read my mind?' She was indignant.

'Only, when you are thinking so very loudly.' He grinned all of a sudden and his face lit up. 'It appears, there are a great many thoughts swirling in that mind of yours', he continued with a hint of admiration; until now he had been firmly under the impression that humans weren't that complicated. 'How can you concentrate with all of them constantly clamouring for attention?'

She considered it for a moment. 'Thinking fast is not a problem. The anxiety of the unknown is,' she explained. 'Only when I try to decide if I'm dead or in a coma, after banging my head, I'm struggling with accepting my situation.'

'I assure you that you are not dead,' he spoke seriously. 'Otherwise, you would have been brought before me for judgement. And this is no hallucination either.'

'But a hallucination would have said just that!' she insisted. 'Maybe I am in the Matrix?' A new thought occurred to her; her brain once again supplying a pop culture reference.