For The Greater Good

Dionysus:4

He felt himself fall to the cool steel floor, as he in haled sharply. The open closet sat before him, empty as it always was, but it wasn’t the empty closet that had caused him to fall, it was the epiphany that came with it.

It had become obvious to him that his attacker had left, and that meant the attacker had a key card, but how? He had asked himself, and the answer to the question had pulled him downward with such force, for a second he had felt like Atlas, the titan burdened with the weight of the world, but his burden was much more. He wished he had been burdened with the weight of the planet, he called home, but instead he was burdened with it being torn up in front of him.

He knew that there were only two key cards for the building, one he owned, and the other he kept with his brother, Aries. When he slipped his hand into his pocket he felt the hard plastic of the card, he knew what had happened: either His brother had been attacked too, or his brother was the attacker.

Aries he mouthed, but the words did not escape his mouth, what happened? At that moment, nothing could have ever stopped him, as he made his way to the steel door, and after several attempts, he unlocked the door and wearily opened it.

He stared blankly at the room that stood before him. The room was coated in a thin film of dust. Tall silvery pillars held up the high ceiling, they stood in front of the dusty windows that stood from floor to ceiling. He stepped further from the doorway and deeper into the room. Now he realised that he was standing behind what would have been the receptionist counter. The room wasn’t as plain as it had seemed. What he once thought was black carpet had turned out to be ebony granite, inlaid with brass patterns. Behind him, emblazoned on the wall and ceiling, was a magnificent mural of the Olympian gods, one showed justice carrying her scales, another showed Pegasus whinnying, her gracious wings spread out behind her. But there was no sign of his brother, nor was there any sign of life. He stood swaying, his eyes fixed on the dusty floor. He scanned across the once filthy floors, unsure what he was searching for. Finally he felt a mental click and he realised, the floors were untouched, not a single foot print, not a single change in the dust doused granite.

His deep thoughts were interrupted, and the eerie silence was broken. A crescendo of footsteps echoed in his ears, as his prior horror was outweighed by the shock that overflowed from his gaping mouth. He stared at the door he had emerged from, waiting for his brother to appear, but it was not his brother who appeared, it was his dog.

Before he could even move, the small corgi had already run between his legs and through the shattered windows of the lobby, entering the streets of New York, and leaving Dionysus to, once more, and run after.