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

05 | The Snap Of A Neck

    Hell was proud of its Fields of Punishment, its bloodshot walls, the lava embracing it, and its gruesome prisoners locked and lost within its stomach. They were once glorious rulers, hubris ones, and they even had a special place for the Danaides in their hearts.

They carried jugs to fill a bottomless bath to atone for their sins, but the water leaked constantly. Their iniquity had set in motion the first ever clock in the ruthless arena, scattering their tears like poppy seeds to address the memory of men without distinction to the merit of eternity.

Minutes were sacred in the Fields of Punishment, the house of the doomed, the place where many had been punished for having dared the gods, and Athena knew it. Sat on the throne of Hades within the most opulent lounge of the venue, she held together a strong posture, yet there was an ache at the back of her throat.

Could Alcaeus really defeat Cerberus?

The two opponents circled each other in the arena.

At first glance, the duel was unfair; in one corner, there was a colossal Cerberus, measuring three times the height of his adversary. He was, after all, an unfathomable beast that could not be subdued.

On his opposite side was the weaponless Alcaeus, too tall to be a simple mortal and too obtuse to be a divine; he was just the first Semi-God. He couldn't care less about the challenge in front of him. His life depended too much on the capture of this dog.

When one of Cerberus muzzles lowered down, Alcaeus dashed into it like he would run up a staircase. Now standing on the back of his adversary, he was unreachable to the latter's claws nor to his lava-dribbling three jaws.

Flaring his nostrils, Cerberus couldn't stop hopping around and barking to shake this flea of a god off his skin.

Alcaeus only flashed a smile at the success of his cunning tactics while cracking his knuckles. All he had to do now was to wrestle Cerberus' serpent tail.

It didn't take long for Alcaeus to twirl the tail into a coiled lasso he cast around one of Cerberus many heads. A grunt escaped one of the latter maws, with the two others glaring at it powerlessly. With all his might, Alcaeus kept up the attack, digging his foot into the animal's neck and tightening the slippery noose around it.

After one of his heads fainted, the whole body of Cerberus followed, and he collapsed unconscious, with his three tongues sticking out.

Athena stood up from her seat, her mouth hanging open at the tragedy.

Cerberus shrank to his small size, to which Alcaeus finally chained him and put him over his shoulders. He carried it away like a trophy without even looking back at the goddess who had enabled him.

***

    Streaming the crimson river of Styx on its merciless soft flow, carrying with them the souls of those who didn't receive any funeral rites. They were all drifting into the unknown of the shore without no direction, as their loved ones had abandoned them.

Sisyphus' naked body was among those wretched ones, but unlike the others, he could control the path of his eternal wandering. His eyes were wide open when he glimpsed at a tall man. His right hand immediately rose from the ill-smelling water to grab the long black leather skirt of the god standing over him.

"Lord Hades, is that you?" With his hand still holding onto his saviour's clothes, he grinned as he hauled his hefty body out of the water to sit on the shore. "I'm King Sisyphus; please, my highness, have mercy for my soul. My beloved wife, my nymph Merope, didn't offer me any funeral rites at my death."