Shoot the Messenger

Chapter 3: Mother Night & Her Offspring

There are no buildings except the stone palace of Hades and the Temple of Nyx. We had to travel alongside the blue river of hatred named after the Goddess Styx. Coming out of the center of the palace of Hades, we found the dim light of an enormous yew tree. The tree extends its huge branches throughout the entire palace from where Persephone's servants tend to her garden with glee.

Kharon accompanied us through the eerie corridors of the royal court of Erebus. Every soul there gets thrown into the Temple of Nyx, Elysian Fields, Asphodel Meadows, or Tartarus. It is a group of courtrooms decorated with bouquets of black roses that span to the end of the palace. From the ground to the ceiling, Greek symbols and letters etched onto tall pillars warn souls of possible judgments they are receiving.

Hades only rewards mortals who make his life so much simpler. The souls he chooses are rare and particular. They were people who lived honest or heroic lives. Thus, he cultivated a remote island for them in the middle of the underworld known as the Elysian Fields for when they die. The five major rivers of the underworld surround the beautiful island filled with yew trees and poppies. The island was where Hades held his wedding ceremony.

Hades ignores ordinary souls and souls of the damned. He makes Ceuthonymus observe the soul's activities throughout the land. Ordinary souls live like shadows in the Asphodel Meadows. Souls of the damned burn forever in Tartarus, a fiery pit that lies at the end of the underworld and leads to the underworld's deepest darkest depths. Hemlocks grow close to the pit where Baby Tartarus connects.

For most of the journey, the souls I traveled with mourned their death in silence. However, they could not remain quiet when Kharon sent them to wait in a long line at the royal court of Erebus. The Harpies prevented them from trying to escape. For whatever reason, many souls appeared anamorphic. Souls can take any form or shape.

Those who work for the royal court do clerical work: record keeping, data collection, and data entry. Hades is a ruthless boss who will work you to death. All the Harpies I saw were out of breath. Most of them are ugly-looking half-human and half-bird creatures. The higher-ranking ones are prettier and have more human features. Also, some of them don't wash their arse. I immediately missed my home and its smell of fresh green grass.

I didn't have time to formally meet the Harpies since Kharon kept pushing his pale, thin body against me. I gave him a good slap on his elderly face ever so gently. We stopped next to a row of counters where the Harpies, with their long tongues, wrote and recorded the name, place, time of death, and birth of every soul on Earth. I don't condone disrespecting your supervisor. He should have stopped rushing and trained me like a new hire.

Kharon put a hand to his cheek, startled by Hermes' slap. A minor expression of happiness appeared briefly on his face. "You will be their soul guide. Your job is to encourage mortals to leave the world of the living. They have to be willing."

"Otherwise, they'll become a vengeful spirit?"

"That is correct! Wow, you are a fast learner." Kharon nodded and smiled at Hermes.

Hermes crossed his arms. "I am a God, after all. Not a guard dog."

"Okay, okay, okay. Just try to prevent mortals from becoming vengeful souls. The number has increased. Scare them if you have to. As you can see, the underworld is very busy."

"What is going on with vengeful souls lately?"

"We had no choice but to coerce Eris to help transport all vengeful souls to Baby Tartarus. We punish them with a few decades of endless torture. We teach those morons not to mess with us!"

"-There's a Baby Tartarus?"

"Yes! It's a smaller version of the real Tartarus reserved for vengeful souls. Since vengeful souls are not wicked by nature, we eventually release them. After the trial period, we put them back into the system and prepare them for their next life."

"Is that everything I need to know about the afterlife?"

"I forgot. When a soul's reincarnation cycle ends, you will instruct the souls of the dead to the lines that await them in the royal court of Erebus. Souls still in their reincarnation cycle wait in different lines. The Temple of Nyx deals with them. Do you have any other questions?"

Hermes could not answer because he saw a towering, pitch-black figure in his peripheral. He turned around and jumped at the sight of a draconic humanoid man.

The draconic man spread his tattered bat-like wings and pressed his chiseled pecs on Hermes forehead. His yellow horizontal slit pupils glared at Hermes intently.

"Hello, and you are?" Hermes said warily to the draconic man.

A petite male Harpy looked at them with concern from behind a counter while writing on a stone tablet.

"Thanatos! I didn't expect to see you here." Kharon beamed with excitement.

When Thanatos appeared out of nowhere while Kharon spoke to me about the details of my job, I understood Hades' desperation. I sympathized with his situation. Why would any sane mortal not harbor any fear? Who would follow Thanatos anywhere? Tall, muscular all over, just all over, two rows of sharp teeth ready to bite, pointy fingers, no lips or a nose, and thin nostrils that cover a third of his face. Not speaking is his only saving grace.

The appearance of death will fool you. Thanatos can be nice when he wants to. He had pointed towards the direction of the Temple of Nyx. I, of course, had no idea what he was doing, and it took a second for Kharon to get it. Kharon had forgotten that place was the most important. A crucial part of my job is knowing when mortals are about to die, and I can only get that information from the Morai. We left for the Temple of Nyx and told Thanatos goodbye.

The Temple of Nyx wasn't far from the palace. It dwells in the cracks of the underworld and is the Harpy's place of worship, where Mother Night and her children live. Fragrant Belladonas blossomed everywhere when we arrived at the Temple of Nyx. Four female Harpies guarding the temple were hostile but eventually let us in. They bared their teeth and hissed. Kharon had requested them to lead us to where the Morai were. The guards escorted us to the Morai, Mother Night, and a few others seated around an altar.

The altar was in front of a stone engraved mural of the Goddess Nyx, covered in ivy vines. The vines on the mural shine shinier than when the sun shines. It looked as if Nyx plucked from the night sky every bright star. We could hear Mother Night and the others discuss the fates of the mortals while we patiently waited with the guards from afar. Mother Night led the discussion because she was the only one with powers that could communicate with the Olympian Gods and Goddesses who expressed their concerns using the stars.

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