Perseus Jackson: Champion of Thanatos

Out for a Drink

At first it seemed as if there was a limitless void lying just beyond my reach. I was a miniscule candle somehow passing a dim light on an incomprehensible space. I floated endlessly; I had no shape or form. Just imagine when you dive below a wave and for a brief, frightening, and exhilarating moment, you lose your sense of direction or self. That was what it was like dying. I continued to float like a specter searching for its corpse, and I suppose in a way I was. In the darkness that once seemed devoid of anything, I began to see flickers of images, faces in the inky blackness. They were like afterimages when one closes their eyes; faces bloodied and contorted, the faces of those that had passed. I considered what this place was, if these were other people floating in space, or if these images were windows into a deeper understanding.

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of my bloodied and visceral face. I ran towards it, or floated, however the fuck I was moving at the moment. The image seemed to grow closer and closer... And soon I was in brutal agony. My body was a thousand writhing serpents, constantly moving and enveloping. My body was in dozens of gory pieces, and was trying to reknit itself back together. I thrashed around in agony as pieces of myself began to be reattached; I was reforming piece by piece. After about fifteen grueling minutes my body was made whole, all my wounds reduced to milky white scars spider webbing across my body. The ones on my faces stretching across like a lightning strike on a dry grass plain. I felt my heart and was relieved and perturbed to find that it was beating again, if a bit erratically. I waited for the disembodied voices to explain, but there was only silence; absence.

I felt... different. I felt as if in my process of returning to life, I had left something behind. I could be unhinged, or in horrible sorrow; that is the frightening thing, I cannot feel much of anything.

I heard a clamor on the cliff above, and I had no guidance from the gods that bestow their power upon me, so I walked away. I walked through the scented pine, across the primeval forest floor, and then onto asphalt. I saw a bar.

"Ambrosia Bar" it read. "I swear it seems like I'm in a fucking mediocre book." I muttered. I walked across the street and almost knocked on the door before I realized that would be an odd thing to do. I thrust the door open to find a small-dispersed room of people. They were all old country folk, but seemed to be having a good time. I gave everyone a placid glance before taking a half step into the establishment. "Rand, get this boy a drink, he looks like a damn corpse!" I had to chuckle at the man in the back of the room who was hollering. I looked past him at all of the Nordic paraphernalia, horned helms, imitation axes, and laurels draping the walls. The majority of the room was filthier than the Augean Stables, but the bar was immaculate. It was an ivory smooth surface that did not necessarily fit in with the rest of the bar, and the man behind it was polishing it tediously. "Rand, I presume?" The man appeared about to ask me if I was old enough to be in here, but he then saw my damn screwed up apparel, and the solid gold drachma I threw on the table probably prevented any questions as well. "Got any mead?" I said half-jokingly.

"No, it's a damn shame, but I'm not willing to spend that much money on this Viking gimmick. We got Evan Williams and watered down beer." He said matter-of-factly, stroking his white moustache. "Guess I'll take about four fingers worth of the Williams." I said stoically. "Wow, guess you had a long day son." I looked up at him, "No, not a long one. Just one that was packed full of shit in a short period of time." He had a laugh at that. He poured me my drink and I sat there for a while taking some gulps and by the end of the glass it didn't burn all the way down to my stomach. "You believe in any of this stuff?" I gestured vaguely around the room, where the paintings of Valkyries and small figurines of gods were located. He gave me an odd look and seemed like he wasn't going to respond but then he took a breath. "Nah son not in any of this Norse stuff Valhalla and all that, not in any God really." I looked sidelong at him. "You mean you don't believe in anything, not enough proof around for you?" I said, my tongue already loosened. "No, it's not that. It's the fact that if I did believe in God or those big fuckers that sling lighting bolts around, I would have to believe that they controlled everything." I started to look him straight in the eye, getting real interested. "And if they controlled everything, I would have to believe that when I look out at the world and see all this suffering and chaos, that someone way up high was letting it happen when they had all the power to stop it." I stayed silent for quite a long time. He started to look embarrassed that he'd gone all philosophical bartender on me. "I know how you feel, I wish I had that option, to not believe, that is." I finally replied.

"We always got an option son. It just doesn't seem like it, cause not having an option is always easier than making a choice. In my humble old drunkard opinion." We both chuckled briefly after that. He leaned over the bar, "I apologize for getting so serious. Usually don't preach to my patrons, just looked like you needed some guidance." I nodded slowly and smiled genuinely for the first time in along time. "I suppose I could use some guidance, I am more lost than I've ever been right now." Rand shook his head like he knew what I was carrying, like he knew what was hounding me. Yet he couldn't know. No one could.

I tapped my glass to signify I was in need of some more bourbon. He grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the cap I watched him dip the nose towards the glass. It was near the bottom of the bottle, I watched him try to get the dregs out. Drip...drip...drip. Then nothing. The droplet was frozen midair. "Rand?" I looked up. The barkeep was frozen mid grin, the crowd behind me had stopped celebrating, stopped doing anything at all. I was the only thing moving. The shadows and me.

The shadows flickering around the room all began to move toward one another, coalescing until their tendrils reached one another. They formed a black mass that was writhing. It was rotund and then it stretched upwards towards the ceiling, the shadows becoming a distinct outline. Cloak, chains, and scythe. The tall cloaked figure seemed to glide across the floor. His presence here was surreal, the embodiment of death floating a few feet away from a poker table and a spilled bag of chips. He slid sinuously towards me until I could feel his cold essence filtering towards me. The glass I had imbibed from had a thick frost around it as if it had been laying in the yard over a winter night.

"Why have you come?" I managed to say. Thanatos simply flourished his hand in front of his face and he was uncloaked to reveal his hauntingly beautiful face and otherworldly blue veins. "Did you not seek me out Perseus? Did you not think my name when you were being pursued? Did you not use my power to yank yourself from the gaping jaws of death?" He said all of this without moving or showing any expression whatsoever. He was not angry or encouraging or didactic, he just was. Death does not need any reason for what it does, it is always necessary.

"I may have done all of these things, but that does not explain why you have come here, to this mortal place." I replied inquisitively. The death god slowly shook his head; his dark locks brushing across his brow like the flickering shadows in the room. "You were foolish to tarry here. You have lost much time. The huntress pursues you, and she is very close." I shuddered to think about the group of male haters that had now begun to hound him. I knew that Artemis would not have been severely wounded by my attack, but I had not anticipated she would be back to my trail so quickly. Thanatos snapped his fingers, drawing my attention. "You must go now before she arrives, you did not make it out so well in your last meeting. I will take care of the patrons, she will want to interrogate them."

I raised an eyebrow at this. "What do you me-" My question was cut off by a distant but clear and resounding horn; a hunters horn. Thanatos eyes widened considerably and he gripped his scythe. "Go now Perseus! Be gone from this place!" With this he collapsed in on himself, then burst outwards with a chaotic energy.

Then he was gone. And all the patrons' lay dead. Unseen wounds becoming fatal, collapsed with some turning stiff already, as if dead for days. I turned around slowly to what I knew would be there. The barkeep Rand, blood coming from the eyes and ears, filters onto the flawless ivory bar, no one to keep it spotless any longer.

I walked out the back door without saying a prayer. Hollow again.