Hades, Burn My Heart.

𝐩 𝐫 𝐨 𝐥 𝐨 𝐠 𝐮 𝐞

9 years ago (Bella: 10, Rio: 12)

"What are you doing?" The scrawny boy with long, unkempt dark chocolate brown hair asked the mysterious girl. A girl he had never seen in his house before.

The girl shrieked and jumped at the sudden voice, "You scared me."

"What are you doing?" The boy pushed, ignoring her statement. He crouched down to her level to where she squatted observing the roses in his garden.

Before she had a chance to answer him, he roughly grabbed her wrist, causing her to fall forward and closer to him. He brought her hand in front of his face to inspect the red liquid mildly trickling down her pointer finger. Blood.

The girl pulled her wrist away quickly and abruptly stood up, wondering if she was in trouble. "I-I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" The boy asked. He stood up, pointing at the roses, "What were you doing with the roses?" His tone was more curious than taunting.

"The thorns." She whispered.

"What about the thorns?" He asked, his curiosity increasing. He could feel his heartbeat racing, awaiting her reply.

"I wanted to see the thorns." The girl answered, looking down at her feet, unable to meet his eyes. See the thorns, not the roses.

He didn't say anything, instead he plucked a leaf from one of the thorny stems that held the majestic, glorious red flower that the world romanticised, at least he knew his mother did, considering the plentiful amount she had planted in their garden, only to be cut and be placed in her room for its beauty and fragrance.

What the boy did not understand, was why she loved something that would always die after a week, and had to be constantly replaced, when she could have just let it be alive in the garden. The roses in his mother's room always looked different compared to the ones in the garden, they were bare. The boy thought that it was the thorns that kept the roses in the garden fresh alive, which is why the roses in his mother's room would always die. They were bare, without their thorns.

He wrapped the uneven green leaf around her finger, stopping the blood from oozing out. The girl looked at his pointer finger which had a band-aid wrapped around it, to which she questioned, "Did the thorns do that to you too?"

"No." He simply said. She was close to him, and her scent invaded his senses. Blueberries. Different. Unfamiliar. Exotic. Not roses.

She didn't question the boy further, and wanted to run back to her grandmother who was baking in the kitchen. Her grandmother would probably be mad she ran off, she thought. She might not get that slice of blueberry cake.

Once the boy let her not-so-neatly wrapped finger go, she ran, as fast as she could, not turning back once to look at the boy, not saying thank you, and definitely not wanting to be his friend. He scared her, he didn't seem like her other boy friends who played with her, who drew blue unicorns and rockets with her. He seemed like he would draw them all in black. Dark and spooky black.

The boy watched her leave, watched her run, as he stood there observing the back of her tiny figure. He watched her long, black braided hair sway as she ran. Pretty. She was pretty, he thought, but weak. He noticed her teary eyes. Oh how, frail and delicate she was just like the roses in his mother's room.

He walked back to his room, the familiar smell of the roses wafted across the hallway, and his mother's room. The thoughts of the mysterious girl not leaving his mind, as he looked at his bandaged finger. He didn't lie, the thorns did not do anything to him, it was he who touched them. He wanted to have thorns, to be strong, to be feared, to be alive.

He hated that she blamed the thorns for hurting her, but he loved the fact that she chose to see the thorns and not the dark red flower on top, that everyone was attracted to. Who was she? Why did she run away? Was she scared of him?

The boy lay in his bed, looking up at the white, empty ceiling. He closed his eyes, mentally adding to his list of favourite things that made him feel alive: The colour black, the God of the Underworld, roses with thorns, and blueberries.