Author Games: Red Room

Task Six: Dionysus

Time was no longer a reality. It had faded into the background and was washed away. Dionysus had laid in darkness for so long and yet it had passed in a moment.

Darkness was his friend now. It hid the rivers of blood drying on his skin. It caressed his skin and surrounded him with safety. Offering a silent escape the dark beckoned to him with a bony finger. It was coating him with icy trails of fear and warmth and crushing his soul and baring his body to the open.

He never thought he would love the dark. So much hid in its depths and yet as he remained in his cage the darkness hid the demons roaming about. It hid the tears in his eyes and removed his humanity.

Reality passed in a blanket of night and torment and Dionysus forgot where he was. Obscurity changed into clarity and he was able to walk between worlds. Stepping on coals of fire as his body throbbed and fought against demons which had no name.

Demons with covered his body with kisses and left their marks over his skin.

Angels beckoned him away from the pain and for a moment he was tempted to walk into the light for one last time. The pain began to fade away as the darkness lost its touch on his body.

Fire no longer licked up his belly and into his very mind. It faded away into a dull burn and lessened into soft touches of discomfort. As it passed, the light seemed less inviting and the darkness appeared as his friend once again.

He did not know what he could trust. The darkness was where everything good and evil hid. The light would separate him from his body once and for all. For all that the light offered him, the darkness offered him more.

So the light faded away yet the calls of the angels still lingered in his ears.

Yet now they sounded more like screams then songs now. Dionysus opened his eyes to see his dimly light cage surrounded by the now familiar hooded figures. For some reason, his eyes darted to find the one whose name he strived to know and couldn't find him.

The screams turned into sobs and the boy looked at the two figures kneeling down on the other side of his cage. They were crying. Tears soaking their clothes as they reached out to him with hands that clutched at empty air.

He looked at their hands for a moment until he saw the golden ring on one of the fingers. Only then did he look into their eyes and see the faces of his father and mother.

Reality tilted upon his axis and although he knew who they were. He knew what they must be feeling he could not manage more than a quivering whisper.

"M-Mum? Dad?"

This was the women who caused his life. She clothed and fed him. She loved him even when he wasn't going marry a blonde haired girl and move into the house next door.

This was the man who cared and provided for him even when the world seemed to be crushing them all down.

These were the people who accepted him for who he was. These were the people who changed their lives to accept his.

"Dad? Mom? I have something I need to tell you..." Joseph fidgeted on his feet, clasping his hands behind his back, fingernails gripping the skin.

They sat at the dinner table, eating the meal of salad and meat laid out before them. It had been silent for most of the meal with only a few mentions of the weather or politics. This had not changed the butterflies dancing in his stomach or the giant chasing them around and trying to kill them by waving a sledgehammer.

They both looked at him and at his pale face. A soft smile had crept across his mother's face as she took in his expression and his father had simply nodded for him to continue.