(Mis)-Adventures ✔️

10

"Wakey wakey lowly mortal!" I heard a cheerful voice high above me and what felt like the sharp toe of a boot digging into my ribs.

"What freaking god wears boots?" I grumbled, turning over and covering my face with an arm. "I thought you guys wore gilded sandals or went barefoot or something, can't gods fly?"

"Oh, Zeus was right! I'm going to have lots of fun with you!"

I started, sitting up. The person looming above me bore a striking resemblance to Zeus, but he had pitch black hair and more sculpted features. Not to mention his entire outfit seemed to be made out of leather.

"Jesus! How many cows did you have to murder to make your outfit?!" I said, standing up.

"What?" the man asked, looking at me weirdly. I was used to it.

"And who are you, anyway?" I shot at him.

"Your worst nightmare!" he boomed, rubbing his hands together menacingly and then letting out a howling cackle. The dark walls around us flashed with light as a crack of thunder echoed through the room and a gust of wind blew my hair back.

I crossed my arms, unamused. "Seriously, who are you?"

The man stuck his bottom lip out and mimicked me, crossing his arms. "How did that not work?" he mumbled to himself. "It always works, man, I'm losing my charm!"

I kept staring.

The man stared right back.

After a minute or two, he finally gave in. "Hello, nice to meet you," he stuck out his hand. "I'm Hades, and your new employer."
I stepped forward and shook the offered hand, which was even bigger than Xavier's.

"Wait a second, new employer?" I asked skeptically.

"Yep!" He said cheerfully.

"WAIT A SECOND! HADES?!"

"Yep!" he said again, shooting me a sugary sweet smile.

"Zeus pays me to take in all of Astrea's rogue lovers."

"You thought! Let me go you cow killing freaking uglybutt!" I yelled, stomping my foot.

Hades scratched at his chin, peering thoughtfully into the far wall, cloaked in darkness. "Man, you'd never think you were 18 years old. Or a guy. You're acting like a PMS-ing pubescent girl who just got her phone taken away."

"Well, that's kind of true," I said, "Minus the pubescent girl part and the PMS-ing part. I did get my phone taken away."

Hades just shook his head and started walking towards a looming doorway that I hadn't noticed before. When I didn't follow him, he whipped around and whistled at me like I was a dog.

"I'm not a freaking dog!" I yelled at the god standing across the room from me.

He snapped his fingers, and in an instant, my viewpoint was lower and when I looked down, I saw a set of furry brown paws.

"You are what I say you are!" Hades yelled back. "I'm Hades, bit-" I howled mournfully, cutting off whatever he was going to say.

"Okay, that's annoying," Hades said, and snapped his fingers again. I was human once again.

This time, I sulked over to where he was standing without any argument. He led me down twisting dark halls without any windows, him ignoring my snarky interior design comments, until we reached a door. It was made out of dark wood, and there was a medieval knocker on it, made out of rusted iron and shaped like a lion.

We just stood there for a minute, and then Hades jumped forward, slammed the door open, and pushed me inside, yelling "have fun getting acquainted!"

I stared at the door after it was slammed in my face, then slowly turned around. It was a fairly large room with many sets of bunk beds laying against the wall. In each, there seemed to be a person. Their clothes ranged from greek robes to victorian suits to modern jeans as I looked down the rows.

A slow chant started up as I slowly walked through the room. "One of us, one of us, ONE OF US, ONE OF US!"

I eventually found an empty bed far from the door and sat down.

"ONE OF US, ONE OF US, ONE OF US!"

"Oh crap," I yelled over the chanting coming from the beds filled with all of Astrea's past lovers.

"ONE OF US!"

The End