Hell Is An Empty Heart (Book One of The Triple Moon's Chronicles)

79 | To Her World On Fire

She bathed to breathe better in this cruel, picturesque world.
She bathed to clean her body from evil.
She bathed to heal her heart.

Demeter was perched on one of those trees that provided everything necessary for life. She tore its fruits like she took away the children from their mother's arms. A produce that she then severed in two with a machete before extracting from its hollow white heart the vegetal meat for her daughter's bath.

Flesh after flesh, they were all drowning in a hot water jar to rain their milk over Demeter's daughter. Persephone slowly shut her eyes to her world on fire, a meditation needed before she would have to meet her father.

Alone with herself, she was back to the night before. The evening where her fists pounded on his chest with her matter-of-fact voice, ordering him not to leave her. There was despair etched in her shaking yet powerful punches. Emotions choked in her eyes to run down her cheeks as tears; he couldn't hear her heart racing under her ribcage, but Hades only just held back her wrists.

It was in this moment that their eyes met—a glimpse of a time when she saw his Adam's apple bobbling down for everything else to cease to exist. Her anger passed away suddenly, like her arms surrendering and dropping to each of her sides. After releasing her, Hades drew her close enough for her fear to melt away in his arms. Although it was on an impulse, Persephone took control and pulled him closer to press her lips against his.

The memory of a kiss that invaded her as its taste seemed too sweet, too real, even to this day. She remembered the fire within her bones and how she stole all the air in his lungs, but it was just a speck of time that had already died as the hours had gone.

She now just recalled herself nesting in his arms on her hammock bed, twisting a strand of her hair in her fingers while he confessed to her. "Such emotional matters seldom sit well with Zeus." A grim twist appeared in his mouth—the smile that didn't feel right. "He will have no other choice but to consult Mother Rhea for this."

A flush of adrenaline shot through her body, and Persephone suddenly sat up. She then whirled around to face him. "What can she do that he can't?"

"You do know of their intentions, don't you?" he asked as his tone became tremulous. Shaking her head and shielding her ears, Persephone knew of the unfathomable outcome he mentioned—the same one as her mother. Hades rose half of his body at her sudden discomfort and he wrapped his arm over her shoulders. "They will set a judgement day for you."

"What does that even mean?" She pushed him back and leaped from her hammock. In a fit of rage, Persephone crossed her arms, walking further away from Hades and the light to stand in a dark corner of her room. "I'll be judged and stared at like an animal among all of them. How can he humble me even more when he has already given and taken me back?"

Before inhaling deeply, Hades gazed aside into the void. It was time for her to know the whole truth. "He gave me your hand for my promise to never set foot on Mount Olympus, and then he ordered me to surrender my cloak of invisibility."

She swung her head around as her hand touched her parted lips. "So that means if I am ordered to stay with my mother, you won't be able to see me ever again, and no one won't be able to marry me either—"

Hades gave her a curt nod before cutting through her panicking chained of words. "I won't let it happen." His determination in his strong posture and the sound of his slightly raised voice calmed her doubts. Inhaling and exhaling, Hades got up on his feet to pick up his cape. Persephone could still clearly remember the sadness in his eyes. The trapped blood over his ashen skin, bruising with chagrin, with nowhere else to go but to turn into a silent pain over the piece of clothing that he mercilessly tore in two.