The veil of death

The call to doom

I always knew that the gods and goddesses would be beautiful, too perfect to be considered human, but the god standing in front of me was beyond anything I had imagined.

He had dark curls that exuded a timeless elegance, pale skin like the moon, and hazel eyes that glimmered in the moonlight, pulling me deeper into his manipulative clutches.

From the darkness that surrounded him, it was clear he was the god of everything evil—death, sadness, war, illness.

I despised his wicked ways.

Yet there I was, analyzing his every feature, unable to move. Helplessly kneeling before a god I had vowed to hate.

"Cat got your tongue?" he scoffed, letting go of my chin and stepping back.

His hazel eyes turned a sinister yellow as he glared down at me, as if I were the source of all his problems. As if I had forced him to marry me, and not the other way around.

He grabbed my arm aggressively, and I let out a small grunt at the pain of his fingernails digging further and further into my flesh as time passed.

When his footsteps slowly stopped, I found myself standing in front of a bleeding tree. The blood oozing from the tree stunk of iron, its scent so thick it almost choked the air around us.

I took a step closer, drawn to the crimson fluid despite the dread curling in my stomach. Gently, I placed the tip of my finger onto the drizzling blood, and as soon as I touched it, a sharp burn seared through my skin. I gasped and jerked back, stumbling until I bumped into something solid—the God's chest.

He shoved me off, his movement dismissive, but I was too astonished by the bleeding tree to even care. My eyes stayed fixed on the tree as I held my hand, the burn still tingling on my finger.

"This isn't real blood, is it?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper as I looked over my shoulder at the towering figure behind me.