Hell Is An Empty Body (Book Two of The Triple Moon's Chronicles)

|| The History Of Mortal's Descend ||

The world had been forever sundered in that way,
Between those who hunted and those who were eaten.
A pyramid of flesh with a bed of prey for their predator to lay on top.

In the Land:
It was one wolf for ten moose. One tiger for a dozen stags.

Under Water:
It was one shark for a thousand fish.
One Orca against them all, that none under the deep blue would dare to attack.

Even in the Sky:
Predators were there in the shape of eagles preying from above.
And in the dark night, they were called Owl.

This is how the Jungle of Mother Gaia was established.

Coming out of the oceans, they were the lowest lifeforms of all. No iris was granted for their blank eyes. No mind, either, to make them walk instead of crawling on their four paws. Only their bodies were in the spitting images of their gods. They were not meant to wander around the earth longer than a certain number of times, running after something and nothing at the same time. They were conceived to outnumber their divine predators, who would, in turn, outlive them. As she had created the Mortals to feed all the hungers of her saviour children, the Titans.

The Forethought and his brother the Foresight were assigned the task of bestowing qualities on the savage Earth Born. All of them had received their blessings, apart from one. Fearing the disappointment of Mother Gaia, the Forethought made the last one of them stand upright instead. Only for them to walk and stumble over each other in his incomprehension, with one of their insignificant light bodies accidentally falling into his arms. He captured her lifeless face into his hands, and she made him wonder if there was something greater in them. Thus he kissed her lips, sharing with her some of his knowledge and some dust from his heart.

This was how Pandora completed her metamorphosis. A being struck in great beauty in their eyes, the first of all her kind who would speak and understand the Forethought. That was his reason to crown her leader among them all. Then he fashioned for her a male companion in his own likeness by the name of Deukalion. After all, the gods were in pairs, so why not the so-called mortals too? One after another, they all came to him, and from his hands, he sculpted on each of their faces a unique reflection of their souls. Blue Iris for the infinite sky, green Iris for the skirt of Mother Gaia, dark Iris for their father Tartarus, and blazing coloured hair for Pandora. The Forethought was charmed and captivated by his own creations because they were nothing like his kin from the sky.

However, he couldn't stay with them, and as a leaving gesture, he rewarded them with a gift that would make them dominate their world: fire, and then a jar for Pandora to keep them safe from harm. Eventually, after his brother's departure, the Foresight was being overtaken by curiosity about the latter's first creation. A desire that kept on calling out for her name, begging him day and night to do the unforgiving. The voices were all in his head. Sounds in words as clear as the Forethought himself. As he acted upon his urges, she broke open the jar in her defence. She had freed all the knowledge from the earth, leaving only herself to remain inside the jar.

Hope

At her defilement, the Mortals were now all doomed with a deceptive heart and a lying tongue; they would soon all taste the bitterness of sorrow, steal from each other's possessions, and even commit murder. That was the tragic end awaiting Pandora, as she was the first of them to die by no other hands than those of her jealous companion, Deukalion. He bashed her head in cold blood to save the Foresight in exchange of favours, and over her dead body, they declared his new world order.

They were now just ugly like their own gods.

Upon learning of Pandora's fall and demise, a distraught Forethought was sent straight back to the Jungle of Mother Gaia. Shooting sharp arrows welcomed him back, as he wasn't one of their tribes, but as an immortal, he wasn't easy to take down, and they soon realised his divinity. They all bowed down and served him like he was their new king, while the Forethought only searched for the body of his beloved Pandora. He found her as a pale, decaying figure, empty of jewelled iris. Indeed, all the gifts he had once given her were now gone. Everything apart from the entrusted jar that she was still holding tight against her chest and between her lifeless arms.

In front of all the other mortals who looked at him clueless, he wrapped her in his arms and cried loudly over her corpse, blaming himself for casting upon her such sin. He took her body to a nearby river, followed by all his slaves, who watched him bathe her, anoint her, and then adorn her with a wreath of beautiful white roses on her head. From a solid Cypress tree that he broke into pieces, he built for her the most beautiful grave to live in with her jar of hope. Then he took out of his pocket a golden coin that was stared at enviously by all. He kissed the round object and sealed her lips with it.

To Charon, my friend,
Please take care of her soul and guide her way to Elysium.

They were all moved by his acts, and one by one, they all replicated his ritual. They started gathering all the lifeless bodies around them, carving them graves out of trees, then burying them like the Forethought did under all their belongings and a precious stone over their mouth, repeating his exact same words.

Then he taught them the fear of death,
And the greater fear from the Last Judgement,
Unbeknownst to himself, Prometheus had given them morals.