||Koi No Yokan|| Park Seonghwa

||Chapter 15||

Warning: a tiny bit of angst, mentions of death (duh) 

The first thing Jongho sensed upon entering the underworld was the omnipresent stench of death. He wasn't surprised: what unsettled him the most, was the complete absence of light. Being the god of the Sun, he could not conceive a world where its inhabitants were drowned in darkness. And yet there he was, following Yeosang through the underworld's doors.

He kept very close to the divine messenger, his eyes slowly getting used to the lack of light: he began seeing faint silhouettes of people gathering around him, or better, around Yeosang. He used his powers to communicate with Yeosang through his mind and asked him who were those people.

"These are your travel buddies" he replied "Souls that have to be guided to the other side, fresh out of the Lethe river"

Jongho kept looking around, the silhouettes becoming more defined the more they approached the Acheron river: men, women, a few children...

When they arrived at the Acheron river, Jongho had regained a bit of his courage. Everything seemed to go smoothly. That was, obviously, until a six-foot-tall, three-headed hound made his appearance.

"Don't worry, he's just here to scare the souls into behaving" Yeosang explained "He lets anyone in...but doesn't let anyone out"

"That's...good to know, for sure" he retorted, wanting nothing but to get on the damn boat.

"You'll be alright, just remember what I told you to do. Charon will take you directly to the Moirai so you should be fine. One last thing in case you forgot: don't, under any circumstance, try to speak to the souls or the infernal hounds will be at your throat before you can even think of running away. The dead don't speak."

"Again, that was really reassuring"

"Good luck, I'll see you at the castle"

And just like that, Yeosang disappeared. The souls around him began moving towards the shore, where a black shadow was waiting for them. As it turned around, he could see it had eyes. No, "eyes" wasn't the right term: they were, in fact, flaming embers, devoid of any expression.

"That one must be Charon," he thought, as he handed him the golden drachma. Charon stared at him for a while: he had recognized him, and the golden drachma meant that he needed to be brought somewhere else than the place where all the other souls were heading. Charon grunted, allowing him to sit on the very end of the boat.

The journey to the other side of the river was eerily quiet. Jongho sat by himself, avoiding eye contact with the other souls. He expected them to be louder, maybe crying or begging for mercy. However, nothing came from them: once the souls passed through the waters if the Lethe river, they forgot everything about their past life. Therefore, they had nothing to be sad or worried for. Every worry was washed away, every memory erased: he thought it was unfair that this could only happen to the dead. While the dead forgot, the living kept on remembering: a heartbreaking paradox.

Soon they approached the opposite shore; all the souls minus Jongho went off to be judged and then sent to the infernal fields. Or the Elysium, if people who were deserving of that honor still existed.

Charon let out a grunt, then abruptly turned the boat in a different direction: the Moirai lived right between Elysium and the infernal fields, which meant they had to bypass the latter to get there.  Jongho tried to ignore the souls who were suffering their eternal punishment beneath him, focusing on the task he had to complete: speak to the Moirai, go back to the palace, leave.