CHAPTER 22: HURT AND HATRED
Charon pushed the wooden oar in swift strokes through the dazzling black water. The rickety boat dwindled on through the rugged stalagmite-filled cave, and soon they were out of the cave and into a bright orange light that blinded all. As they neared the end of the cave and finally headed out, she could see what the orange light was: fire. Lots of it gathered in flares around the pool of dark water. Suddenly the boat dropped and gained speed as it giddily zoomed forwards in a dizzied whir. It crashed down in a splash on what now seemed to be the first river.
“Welcome to the Acheron River” Charon’s frenzied, hollow voice spoke. “The river of wounds and hurt, the river of aches and bloodbath...the river of pain.”
Athena snuck a glance over the side of the boat. There in red gangs were the smears of crimson blood raging through the river like an uncontrollable fire, like pain. Its navy waters were stained for a long eternity.
A searing pain in her hand drew her away from the edge. Blood clotted round the cut she had made to get them in here. Perhaps her blood was coursing through the river as much as in her veins now. The pain highlighted itself for the rivers enjoyment and she knew. She knew that they can’t have been the only ones to try and get in here, the only living ones.
Emma was tapping her watch with her finger whilst wearing an aggravated expression.
“No, no!” she uttered to herself, still hitting the watch. “Athena it’s stopped working!” Just as Athena was about to reply a very different voice spoke, one that belonged to Charon.
“Time works differently down here, it gets lost somehow or never quite make sit. It’s never late or early, in some ways, it doesn’t exist at all.”
Athena’s throat went dry and her stomach flipped. No time? That wasn’t possible. Time may be different depending on where you are in the world, but for it to not exist at all was a paradox. Things had to have times, places had to have times, to think otherwise was completely irrational- not to mention illogical.
After a while Athena noticed what looked like rotting bodies on the edge of the crumbling, but never falling, banks.
“What are those things?” Athena whispered to Tom, knowing he’d have no idea either, but still posing it as a question.
“No blimin’ I-”before Tom could finish, Charon interrupted again and Athena was sure that if he was capable of wearing a facial expression it would be a smirk. Instead, he gave a slight cackle.
“They’re souls” he scoffed hollowly “neutral souls, those who led neither a good or bad life”
“I thought the neutral souls went to the fields of Asphodel” Emma piped up; once again Tom was surprised at how much she knew.
“Oh most do, but some, mostly those with unfinished business or quests, even those with an unsolved mystery that had plagued them dwell here. So they are forever trying to figure it out by staring into the river. However, they can’t; their life is over, they are mere existences, bare entities, stripped of everything.”
Athena looked at them more closely, they were naked but their legs were tangled in a crisping mess so you couldn’t see anything below the waste. As for their faces, they had fleshy, olive skinned sockets where their eyes should be, their noses were barely there and their mouths were sore-covered and dry. They were skeletal and odd bones stuck out from every thin strip of skin. To Athena, they didn’t look how she’d imagined souls. She thought they’d be transparent and heavenly, perhaps a bit more ghost-like.
