Eurydice

12

Time didn't exist. I thought I could feel the hours as they passed, but the sky in the meadows never changed, always a thick roof of fog and gloom. Even with numb, silver flesh, I still got sparks of cold racing down my back whenever I passed a Shade.

They stared with empty, dazed eyes that seemed to be looking right through me. My ears rang with their babbling as they wandered by, seeming as if they were part of a dreary, cold nightmare. Their voices made me clamp my jaw involuntarily, and I soon tuned out the garbled words they whispered. The fear took hold of my heart again that I would soon become one of them, and my stomach twisted as I pushed through the Asphodel.

Anger sizzled in my chest, directed at my dead heart and frozen lungs. I ached for them to start moving again, for my skin to burst with color and my body to walk with weight. But as I wandered on, walking with no destination, the exact opposite happened to my form.

I pushed an Asphodel aside and watched as my hand passed through the flower like smoke, the petals embedded in my wrist. I stared at my arms, shaking as I looked through them and saw the dirt floor.

I lied; I did have a reason to keep wandering. I scanned the flowers as I took silent steps as light as air, waiting for a little boy to poke his head out of the field. I called for Ander many times before I accepted the fact that it was too late; if I was turning into a Shade at this rate, then Ander would have changed a while ago. I missed his sweet face and the feeling of him holding onto me, thinking I would protect him from anything.

But I didn't. Selfishly, I had left him with the Shades to follow Orpheus out. His scowl haunted my hazy mind as I began to walk through the Asphodel, no longer flinching when a blossom entered my body and then exited moments later, undisturbed.

"Made of air and soul,
I am," I mumbled, straining to make some kind of melody. My lips felt foreign to me, detached.
"A spirit and never whole,
I am.
Dead and cold
And never will grow old,
For in silver skin
Aging is but a sin
And how it tempts me so."

I stopped. The Shade walking right next to me, its beady eyes set ahead, started saying something recognizable.

"Pretty...Song..." it croaked. Its smoky form twisted and shifted, a dark wall that had once been a person who had travelled the field themselves. Were they afraid when their arms and legs slowly dissolved and darkened, becoming nothing more than a black blur?

"Thank you," I whispered, amazed at the spark of intelligence it showed.

"Pretty..Song..." Its voice lowered, and the Shade fell back into muttering a jumble of random  sounds. I watched it drift away, its dark body a somber cloud.

I looked at my hands, and I cried out.

The palms were completely transparent, and my fingers' hazy edges bled into one another. My feet shifted like mist, the worn sandals blending with my toes.

And what was worse was the  cloud descending on my mind. I couldn't remember my mother's face or the name of my father, and my past life was a series of shapes, colors and sounds that grew all the more pale and soft.

But a pair of brown eyes floated into my dissolving consciousness, staring at me intensely. He was so lovesick and gentle, but his face was gone from my memories. Maybe, I hoped, he would join me in the meadow after he passed away. We would eventually find each other and our Shade-forms would let us remember what we had, that we were in love.

My eyes ached to cry as I wandered, my legs losing form and melting into my gray chiton. Everything below my waist felt numb and foreign and my hands had officially become  swirling, dark spheres of smoke.

Should I watch as I dissolved into a Shade? Or was it better for whatever sanity I had left to just close my eyes and wait?

I stopped walking and stared straight ahead, torn on what to do. But then a ferocity  blazed in my chest, a fury at the unfairness that I had died and was separated from the man I loved. I was done with this place, and I decided I would not be a coward.

I looked down, and watched as my chiton and arms grew dark and foggy. It was terrifying to see my body lose solidity and twist and warp like storm clouds, but I steeled my jaw and kept staring, wanting to laugh at the face of Death.

"Eurydice?"

I froze, knowing that gentle, smooth voice. I turned and stared into a pair of dazzling blue eyes framed by waves of obsidian hair. I had met her before, I sensed, but I drew a blank on her name.

She smiled. "Remember me, Eurydice? I'm Persephone."

I looked at her tan, glowing face, and had the impression that she had been kind to me.

"Not really," I said, "but I know you're a great goddess." I tried to curtsy, but it was difficult with my chiton and legs melted together.

"I'm sorry that you're back here." Persephone told me, her eyes soft. "I didn't think Orpheus would look back. Even Hades believed you two would be back together on Earth."

I looked down. I could feel the chill of the cave as I followed a man, his figure too thin and wiry. I gazed at his dark mane as he trailed a hand against the slick wall. He had nimble fingers, perfect for a musician. Orpheus.

"I do, however, have good news," Persephone said, pulling me back to the present. She smiled sadly and lifted a hand to present a man behind her. His hair nearly blended in with the storm clouds overhead and I gazed at his sunken cheeks and eyes. The thought of him not eating crossed my mind, but it flew out as fast as it had come in.

We locked eyes, and the grin on his face was enough for my heart to give one last, labored beat, before falling asleep forever.