What If Our Life Threads Bind?

Chapter 57

It all happened in snippets of time.

It almost looked like how they show it in movies; everything blurs. People move around you with commotion in fractions of time and only a few glimpses of them is what you comprehend.

A few words. A few strides. A few hands on you, maybe. And, like a puppet, you do what they tell you because you are too much in shock to do anything on your own.

Like a puppet, I got up too when Lila pulled me up and rubbed my back. I wasn't crying anymore. I wanted to cry but I couldn't. I felt hollow. I felt nothing.

I saw Lila's lips moving but I couldn't hear her. Didn't want to. She tried to lead me out of the room but I couldn't move either and didn't want to.

"He is dead, Martha." I heard a soft soothing voice telling me.

"Your Austin is dead."

No.

I shook my head, my lips trembling and my face too hot to respond. When I looked up, I saw a lady kneeling down near me who I have never seen before. She was a little bit older than me, maybe in her late twenties and was wearing a white maxi dress with a grey denim jacket. Her plump lips quirked up as she stared at me and then I looked into her shocking blue eyes.

I frowned, trying to understand what she was doing, and then I blurted, "What do I do?"

"He will be in the underworld." She grinned and something in her eyes sparkled. Suddenly I was too aware of everything. I stiffened as I saw her get up.

Psyche.

She nodded as if understanding what I was thinking and grinned, throwing a last glance at me. I saw her moving towards Eros and disappearing into the crowd that led outside of the court.

I looked back at Austin's lifeless body and then at the guards who were now coming towards Austin to take and burn his body, perhaps. I quickly noted that the Gods had left the court room. I couldn't find Lila, Chloe and my parents anywhere either.

Crawling towards Austin, I held his pale face with both of my hands and bit his lower lip, half hoping that I would now feel him shudder back to life or feel him smile under my lips. But he didn't. I closed my eyes, my nose touching his and then opened them immediately. When I moved away, I saw that I had done what I was trying to do.

I had stopped time. Again.

"Martha!" I heard Lila calling out for me, and winced, cursing to the law that time would not stop for the Gods. I wish I had some power to maybe freeze her or something. But I can do something. I ran towards her and held her shoulders, staring into her amber eyes and told her to not stop me till I come back.

"Okay." She said simply and I grinned.

Sometimes I really like these powers.

"Oh, and don't tell anyone that I am gone." I said and she complied.

I race my way towards the door and didn't stop till I saw the Erebos' palace which was to the west of the mortal world. It was not far from here, the court. It can take me for about twenty minutes to reach Erebos' palace and from there, I'll take the ferry.

My rasping throat was as parched as a dead lizard in a hot dead dessert sun. My head bobbed loosely as I hear each of my footfalls touch the road. I quickened my pace by twice the speed for a stride to reach what I reckoned was Hermes' place. My skull and my eyes felt heavy just as my breathing.

I pressed the doorbell and saw Hermes' opening the door. He looked at me astounded as I too checked him out from head to toe. He was wearing a white sweatshirt and black yoga pants. He grinned after a minute when he took in my identity. "Daughter of Nyx."