DEMENTED | Romance | Fantasy | Slight Thriller

Chapter Twenty-Two: Gods past

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Chapter Twenty-Two: Gods Past

While Ebony was dealing with her own past in Absinthe, the Prince found himself immersed in his own back in Janaria. And they were even less pleasant than hers.

He regained consciousness in a small, dimly lit dungeon–the place he'd spent his first century within. While Ebony had been suffering within a golden cushioned cage, the Prince had suffered within a rusted and cramped one–not to mention immeasurably cold. His pain during his early life had been primarily physical.

You see, when the Goddess first lost her right eye and it shifted into another being, she wasn't quite sure what had happened. And all beings, godly or not, are always afraid of that which they do not know. And the Goddess knew everything. So when her right eye became the Prince of Death and All things Coming to an End, her fear was thirteen times that of any mortal's. So she decided that she would hide him away until she knew what to do with him.

But the Prince had Her same fear, only his was worse–for he did not know anything other than the dark and dimly lit prison cell. Until he did. But it was so dark, and so dim, and he could not die. The century he spent there seemed like an eternity as he simply stayed there, waiting. Waiting for something–or someone he did not know of. It was the worst sort of feeling.

When the Goddess remembered she had her eye stored in the dungeons that 100 years later, she quickly released him. She could sense it on him then, and dubbed him so. He became —, the bringer of the dead. A most wonderful title, she promised. It was not.

The first few beings he brought to Janaria were simple. Easy. He guided them to the lad of the dead with no difficulty, the souls seeming more like sheep than beings.

But deaths became much harder after that. There were wars–those caused tons of traffic between the living and the dead, making it much harder for him to acquire souls. It made it easier for him to collect the wrong ones. And the souls who didn't want to go–they would beg, plead to be spared, and received no such luck, but made their travel to Janaria much more difficult. And then there were emotional deaths. The ones where their family watched them deteriorate before their eyes, or where they died in their lover's arms. Those deaths were the hardest–they caused the biggest toll on what the Prince believed was his heart. That was, if he truly did have one. Not even the Goddess was sure of that when he asked her.

Come to think of it, he realized in the present day, he had not been needed as soon as Ebony sought him out at the cathedral.It was as if there had been no death since, but that was impossible–months had passed since he last reaped a soul. Or... someone else was reaping for him.

He pondered this for a moment, but then the scene before him changed. It darkened before him in a gradient of pain to despair.

He was sitting on the floor of another prison cell, although this was not the cold and frigid bars of Janaria–it was mortal-made inside the Asylum he and Ebony had recently escaped from. A prison made for a human. But it was lined with rubies, and those he dared not touch. They were the weakness of the Goddess and all of her Unholy Beings–life, when She so often had brought about death. He had touched one, once, and been overcome with searing pain, as it was the crystallized blood of Gods before them. The Goddess, with her new worlds, had torn down those before her and spilled their blood over the fresh, new land. Before he had become separate, he remembered watching this through her eyes–a strange sort of glee befalling her. A new feeling, one she hadn't fully felt before.

But he wasn't alone in his ruby-lined cage–across the skinny hallway there lay a boy of nineteen, hair a chestnut brown and skin the color of rich caramel. No scars riddled his fingers, his arms, his face–but they would soon, when the face of youth was a little less prominent in his features.

He remembered his name with a bitter taste in his mouth. Astrophel. In the present day, he'd cut his hand off with little remorse. Astrophel would no doubt try to murder him again, the Prince thought to himself. He wouldn't succeed, but he would try.

Slowly, the young Astrophel regained consciousness, eyes opening blood red from injections and puffy from crying. He tried to focus on the stranger chained with reddened jewels, but the drugs in him made everything swirl. He felt underwater, and his head hurt. He fell asleep again.

The Prince knew he would wake again soon. When he had known him, he never slept long. Insomnia kept his mind awake, and the signs of fatigue would soon appear. Across the room lay another figure–a decade older than Astrophel, but young nonetheless, who would soon grow into the Augustus Blackhouse that had built his way into Aurian High Society today.

They once had been all each other had. In the darkest part of the Aurian Asylum, when the government hadn't forgotten about their tests altogether, their patients were also used for experiments, from cures to poisons–patients who were poisoned died soon after. The Prince did not. And it hurt him immensely–not only to be poisoned by what could easily kill any mortal, but to see those who had died wandering around the asylum, tethered to the building, unable to be reaped. Their reaper was with them, but unable to help. Every day and every night, he heard their cries, sometimes mixed in with Astrophel's.

They slowly bonded over the pain as months bled into years and neither could tell the difference. Astrophel grew older, but the Prince remained the same–a fact he didn't know or question. Augustus grew older too–too old to be tested on, and so he was discharged early on. But Astrophel and the Prince grew closer, and plotted their escape–it was an ingenious plan that even now he agreed with. And yet it still did not fully succeed.

Because Astrophel did not make it out of the Asylum they so dreaded. Once the Prince was no longer barred by his rubies, he was no longer trapped. But Astrophel was a mortal, his tether to the earth beneath him was too strong. They were accosted by guards, and had the Prince not been a God of Death, he would've saved them both. But as a cost for his work, he could not kill. He could only watch as they dragged him back down into the world that would soon kill his soul.

Astrophel's face then haunted his mind still. Terror, shock, and betrayal–he screamed at him, unable to make out words, and the Prince gave him a sad smile–and vanished. By that time, Augustus had just started climbing the ranks of the Aurian bureaucracy with a hefty sum to his name, and paid for Astrophel's release several months later. But by that time the Prince was long gone, back to his dwellings in Janaria, involving little in mortal affairs–that was, until Ebony came along.

Ebony. The momentary lapse in memory provided clarity for the present. He knew little of her past, but from the way she had regarded blood and ichor no doubt came with traumatic memories. He felt a strange feeling then, something he hadn't felt before. Is this what mortals call worry? He thought to himself, pondering it. Odd.

Then he woke up.

Word Count: 1288 Words

Hi again! I've gotten so much free time recently that I've actually written all of this TODAY!! It's such a strange feeling! Like seriously... what is going on?

All the time I spent last night (5+ hours!) doing homework and making up work was WORTH IT! I mean, don't tell that to my failing math grade, but I have never ever written this much at a time this year for this story. IT'S CRAZY!!

How is your free time? Do you think you get enough? What do you spend your time doing? I'm genuinely curious lol

Thank you all so much for voting and commenting! It really supports my writing and I love to read what you say!

anywaysssss... mavis out~