Ho+el

0.4

Nora

I awoke from my dreams of honey-golden eyes with a cough.

It felt as if it was ripping from deep in my stomach, and I instantly brought my hands to my mouth as I racked with coughs.

"It's just another symptom of Withering,"

The voice was small, and I had to glance up to see her standing by the cabinets, her arms crossed over her chest. She wasn't much older than sixteen, at most. Her hair was long and the color of sand on the beach, I was instantly envious.

That's when I noticed that my hands were sticky and wet and I glanced down at them, a sick feeling settling in my stomach when I realized it was blood. I was coughing up blood.

"I told ya," she said simply, coming to sit on my bed, it impulsively made me scoot away a little, which hurt her, I could see the pained flash in her features.

"You don't have to be afraid of everything, ya know that? I wouldn't much hurt a fly," she said, grimacing a little, but her face instantly brightened back up with a cheery smile, "I'm Isabelle's daughter, Ellara."

"Isn't Isabelle a little too old-"

"I wouldn't say that around her, that's liable to get you a good smack upside your pretty blonde head, and no, she's not too old! Our world works a little bit differently than yours, silly, age has no meaning here. I mean would you believe me if I said that I was really twenty-eight?"

My eyes widened reflexively, there was no way.

"See? Told ya, you don't believe me. Well, in human years, I am exactly twenty-eight years old. Now stop insulting my mama," she frowned.

"Sorry," I muttered, considering that I was being a tad bit rude.

"So, you're the soul shatter they keep talking about, they're pretty certain that you're one of 'em."

"People keep saying that, but yet no one wants to explain what a Soul Shatter is."

"Well, supposedly Soul Shatters were what guided spirits from the human realm to ours, they were witches of sorts if you believe in that stuff," she shrugged, "they're very powerful beings, there's a Greek Mythology story about them, but they leave out the entire part of her being a Soul Shatter, hold on."

Ellara stood up then, leaving the room, I could hear her rifling through books in the desk just outside of the door.

She quickly re-entered with a dusty book, which she hastily blew off before opening, "Now tell me, have you ever heard the story about the abduction of the Vegetation Goddess, Persephone?"

"Yeah, we read it back in school, The Rape of Persephone?"

"Correct, anyway, that story wasn't exactly fully-fleshed out, at least if you believe in Soul Shatters. Supposedly," she turned a few pages in the book, "Persephone herself wasn't a Soul Shatter until her abduction by Hades, but when people were damned to hell they were far more willing to follow a beautiful young woman like Persephone than they were to follow such a horrid man like Hades."

I nodded in my agreement and found that my stomach had begun rumbling. How long had it been since I had eaten? I vaguely remembered making my mother a turkey sandwich-- yet that seemed like forever ago.

"Here," Ellara said as if reading my mind, she handed me an apple, it was bright crimson, almost the same color as the decorations in the lobby.

I eagerly took a bite.

"Anyway, upon realizing that the damned souls were more likely to follow Persephone, Hades granted her some powers, she became kind of a gateway in herself, guiding all those spirits into the underworld, Hades fell more in love with her because she was such a powerful Priestess, which was ultimately her downfall."

I finished chomping through the apple, completely enthralled by her story.

"So, Hades became so enthralled with Persephone and her power, that he became envious of it in ways, no longer was he the sole King of the Underworld, but now he had to stand behind the powerful Queen. So he killed her. Legend has it he stabbed her in the heart, and her soul shattered into two pieces, Jareth believes that you may have inherited one half, if the wither doesn't kill you. The other half has yet to be found."

"I don't think I'm your Soul Shatter whatever," I replied, "just a few days ago I was wondering how I was going to pay my power bill, shouldn't Persephone's descendant be elegant-- and magnificent or something?"

"Not hardly, remember, the human belief is that Persephone is a whipped wife of Hades, but like all things, men tend to change the story of what actually happen. She got strong, he got jealous, and if you are her descendant, you very well could be the next queen of the Underworld."