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

03 | Go Up In Smoke ***

Warning for mention of rape. Do not be concerned, it's just Zeus repeating his old trick on another woman 🙄.

    Hades arrived right in time at his throne amid his acolytes and within his judgement chamber as three brightened shapes approached him.

"Uncle Hades." Hermes grinned with waving hands and a flushed appearance. Hades groaned at his presence, rolling his annoyed eyes behind the thick cover of his helmet. "Allow me to introduce Alcaeus to you. He had a special request to make for you in order to accomplish his twelfth labour and exonerate himself from his crimes."

Sighing heavily, Hades said, "Speak, Alcaeus!"

Alcaeus stepped forward, thrusting out his chest to impose his presence, yet when he opened his mouth, his voice was unmatched by his strong stature. "One morning, I woke up, and I found out that I may have burned alive all my eight children and my wife." Indeed, the sound coming out of him resembled to that of the toddler Daeira than anybody else.

Hades widened his eyes and tilted his head to the side at the plea while trying hard to maintain a stern expression. He needed no further question from this man, as he would get all his answers by his own power.

By the dark, troubled water that Charon forever sailed on to the crimson mourning tears of Styx, Zeus emerged in front of him instead of Alcaeus.

Alcaeus was yet another son of Zeus—a hybrid among the gods, a rare offspring conceived by Zeus' wild machination in order to protect the mortals and the gods. Half divine by the blood from his father and half mortal by the ageing flesh from his mother, Alcmene, whose bloodline descended directly from the hero chosen by no other than Athena to behead Medusa—the now legendary Perseus.

When the day and her husband, Amphityron, were gone, Zeus appeared to her. He came to her in the guise of her spouse, then enjoyed shamelessly with her the pleasure of the flesh.

A trick close to the one he used on Demeter.

Their so-called one-night affair in Alcmene's mind lasted three days long, and this was how the twice bigger Alcaeus was born one day before his twin brother Iphicles—the son of Amphityron.

Unconsciously, Alcmene would always feed Alcaeus first, leaving Iphicles hungry, but the food from her breasts, although prioritised, never satisfied the appetite of her firstborn. She would mindlessly rock the strongest of her children first, then have no strength left to carry the younger one. Alcaeus didn't need to ask; he had all the favours from his mother and all the suspicions from his father.

Was he a blessing in disguise?
Or a curse from the divine?

The more Amphityron observed this first child, the more he grew anxious about him. Their differences didn't begin just here; the eyes, the nose, the lips, the hands, the feet—nothing was alike to Iphicles, Alcmene, or Amphityron.

Between the crying, the feedings, and the cleanings, the newly overtired parent argued. The now poor and banished Amphityron raised his voice for the first time at his wife, asking her if this child was truly his before storming out of their home in anger.

The following day, in the early hours, Alcmene took Alcaeus and left him by the river before eclipsing herself from his brief life. She walked back to her house as if nothing had happened, but her heart was breaking from within as her lips kept on mumbling to herself that Alcaeus would survive.

There, as per the instructions of Zeus, Hermes took Alcaeus back to Mount Olympus, where he left him next to a weakened Hera. She had just given birth to her last child, Hebe, the Goddess of Youth, whose labour lasted twelve mortal days without a single respite.