Torn Apart

In An Alarming State

"You wouldn't happen to know anything about what happened to me before I woke up in your home, would you?" he asked, keeping to Persephone's heels as before. It was dark now, and hard to see, though she seemed to know this path by heart.

"Less than what you yourself know," she answered.

"Well that's unhelpful." He sighed, scratching his head. "Is there anything you can tell me about myself at all? Your mother seems to know me."

She turned to glance at him for a moment, before responding, "She's spoken of her Pet before. The one she got to make everything right. I never met him, but somehow that is you. It doesn't seem likely, though. No mortal can do what she wants. But it's besides the point."

"What's besides the point?" He asked, aghast. "If the point is that I'm someone's Pet, that's very much on topic! How? Why? What exactly does she think I can do?"

"Fix things that don't need to be fixed, of course."

The brambles underfoot stabbed at his feet, and he shifted his course to follow from the left. Her moods seemed to influence which plants sprouted and Demeter had failed to provide him with shoes.

"So, you don't need to be saved. At least, not from him."

He watched her arms come up and wrap around herself. Sorrow flashed through his chest at the gesture, vanishing as quickly as it came.

"I thought so. So, who's going to save you from her?"

"Nobody." Her voice was lifeless and her footprints barren, now.

"Why can't you just leave?" He asked.

"Asks the mortal who feels naked under our eyes. Do not ask what you cannot hope to understand."

They walked for a time in silence. He turned the situation over in his mind, but could draw nothing new from it.

"I'm sorry." He rubbed his eye, tired. "Whatever's going on in this situation, it seems like you got the short end of the stick. I don't know what she expects me to do, but I've mounds more sympathy for you than her." He came even with her on the left.

She glanced at him off and on, her eyes darting to the side and back down to the ground. It didn't seem like she wanted to talk more about it, so he turned his thoughts inward, poking at the edge of the gaping holes in his mind. It would have to be some traumatic event, perhaps. Or a technology he didn't understand? Then again, given where he was, a curse was not out of the question.

"Better take care of your arm." She gestured at his arm. "It's the only one you have left."

"My...?" He lifted his arm to take a look. Dark marks smudged his arm all along the length. It looked like a dozen tiny bruises stretched out... along...

No, not bruises.

Something flickered in his mind. There was a pattern to the bruises. They were too faded to be under the skin. They were on top of the skin. Quite faded, but his vision flickered at the edges. Something about these marks was important.

"Orange?" Persephone had stopped. Had he stopped? When had he stopped moving? "Are you all right?"

He couldn't respond. What he saw wasn't a word anymore, but it had been a word once. How did he know it had been a word?

She wrote it.

"Who is she?" He asked, his breath whistling between clenched teeth. "What is 'it'?"

"Who are you speaking to?" Persephone asked.

She wrote it so you wouldn't lose your way. "That's what they do. They help you find your way when you're lost."