We Bent Fate

Chapter 24.

MARTHA

The world opens up with a burning pain in my chest. I cough violently as I sit up and feel the wetness from the licks of the sea water spitting on my forehead.

I blink with perplexity at the foam forming seashore and the caves around. Where am I?

Mother has taken her place up the sky above as the sun swims down into the nearest pool of the sea.

Tartarus, Austin, the summoning and the storm. Everything comes back with a wild splash of a wave and I stand up, pacing around.

"Where the hell am I?" I panic into the thin air but obviously no one answers.

I keep pacing around, replaying the events again and again in my mind. What did I do to get here? I think about the words I had spoken to summon the judges, a gust of wind, a familiar face and a maze.

I was about to turn around to sprint on another patch of the land when my eyes landed on a familiar pair of green eyes. My steps came at a halt and a series of images drew in my mind and I gasped. "I know you."

She nodded, her lips moving but I couldn't hear her. She was standing within a distance which would take me to swim a little into the water.

And so I dipped my feet into the salty water and her voice became a little audible. She was not speaking, she was singing something.

"Daughter of Nyx comes to my shore,
Here, she searches for a thread, there a thread
Searching for her own identity and more."

She sings and I hear a distant harp playing. Her voice is beautiful and before I know it I am just a few steps away from her.

"Daughter of Nyx comes to my shore to slay
a power she created, her demons and green eyes
Amused with her, here I lie
Watching her kill herself to finally belong to the place
Only to prove none that she should stay."

I stand inches away from her and my eyes examine her. She takes a step back into the woods behind her but not in fear.

She smirks at me and I think I see something behind her. I crane my neck but it is of no use. She continues to sing, her legs taking both of us into the woods.

"Daughter of Nyx, my eyes are green like you
Meddling with people's life thread is my passion too."

She turns around and I finally catch the sight of her wings. She is a siren.

I shudder in fear but my legs don't stop. She doesn't turn around to check if I am following her because she already knows how powerful her voice is. She keeps humming.

After a few minutes when both of us are well into the thinning forest, she turns around and grins. It takes me a minute to realise that her wings are flapping and within seconds, she flies away.

"I have to go back." I shiver in the cold and then I see her again, her face disappearing into another wide stretch of woods ahead. I follow reluctantly.

Cornering around the leaves and the pointy edges of the branches, I reach a wide platform with a neat entrance staring blankly at me. The green eyed siren had disappeared into the dark sky but I can still hear her and so I follow her voice and gait my way through the entrance.

There were about five pathways stretching ahead and with it came, three dead ends. I slowed my track and realized that siren had long gone, her voice fading into the mist although still vivid in my mind.

I take another right and find a dead end. So I turn back and take the left pathway, each one just identical to the last one, registering in my mind that I have entered a huge maze.

With every turn, my blood boils and my heart thumps a little louder inside my chest. This is not right. I was supposed to be confronted by the judges, prove myself to them and leave.

But obviously nothing can go how it is planned in my life, right? What a story to tell to little kids about the goddess of fate itself. Brilliant!

Wherever I went, the walls as well as the pathways stretched as far as the eye could see. The paths go on for miles before there is a single turning or a choice to make, the walls stretch up to the lowest cloud of the sky as if they were meant for a giant.

I was just a second into scratching my nails on my face in frustration when I heard a nearby bush moving and then the one next to it moved. Minute by minute, each of them moved, making a rustling sound with their leaves and then with a blink of my eye, I see it.

I see the maze changing.

I groan in frustration. This isn't what I signed up for! Then a fear tumbled over me and I shuddered. What if I never get out of here? Everyone knows how bad I am when it comes to remembering directions.

Panic scrambled through my head and I felt dizzy, my mouth drying like a desert. I swallowed and kept moving.

Then with another rustling of the leaves, I see the paths change again revealing a barren and I sighed, hope swelling inside me like a bubble; fearing to get pricked by something blunt and sudden.

I looked around and found myself completely alone in the plain area. The trees hooded around the place like a wide cup holding whatever that was inside. Except there was nothing, no one but myself.

Or so I thought, for then came a voice.

"So what's your poison?"

My body stiffened in response as I looked around and found no one.

"Hope." I said and heard a faint cry of laughter. I cringed at the voice and then the leaves rustled. From between the trees came a tall, muscular man, his face split into a wide amused grin.

"Ah, Martha. That will kill you." He waved a hand at me. "I'm King Minos, by the way. Your judge."

"What were you saying?"

"I think you took the poison part a little too literally when you replied 'hope'." He said with a blank expression.

"It won't kill me." I stiffened. "Not, if you kill me first."

He smiled again at my challenge, impressed with how good I was at hiding my anxiety that was eating me up.

"Now, my lady. You are the daughter of Nyx, the demigod of death and fate. I don't have any hard feelings for you so let me just ask you a simple question and I will appreciate if you answer as honestly as possible." He cleared his throat before resuming.

"Why do you think I should let you go?" He asked.

"To control something I had created ages ago. I did something to bring the peace but it turns out that I unleashed the devil, instead."

"Hmmm...the devil. Tell me about it."

"Yeah well I would if I remembered..if you would just bring me back my memories..." I tried to ask humbly despite the irritation.

Minos laughed, his voice echoing and I flinched. "You already know everything. You just need to dig deep."

"You think I haven't tried?" I scoff.

"Look, I would just give you what you want, sweetheart but I need an alibi. I need to know that you need your memories back for a genuine reason. Besides, I have heard things. Everyone in the living world, especially the Gods are up against you."

"Yeah, ever wondered why?" I finally snapped back in frustration.

"Because you fell in love with a mortal even though it is not written?" He guessed and I shook my head, my eyes closing momentarily to find some calm.

I huff audibly and look at him into his eyes, "What do I have to do to make you believe me? I'll do anything."

Minos grinned.