Hades Legacy (Hades Series #3)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

y'all aren't even prepared for this chapter

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Destiny has always been a word that has puzzled me.

Even before my parents told me about the Fates' prophecy, I used to always try and figure it out into something of logicality, and the most basic definition I could ever come up with come up would be that destiny is something that is to happen, or has happened to a particular person; the predetermined, usually inevitable, course of events.

But even that definition in itself is ambiguous. What is this something? How can something as important as a destiny both happen to someone and also happen in the future; shouldn't it be one or the other? And most importantly, how can someone's life be predetermined? In what life, in what world is it fair that from the very moment someone is born, they have to live a life where every single one of their actions is predetermined; inevitably drawing them to the one certain event that their entire life has been leading up to?

But now, it wasn't the ambiguous logistics behind the definition that was really what puzzled me anymore. Now, after everything that had happened, after everything I had been through, I was left with just one question about destiny.

Why me?

Why was I chosen for this particular destiny? Who decided that it would be my future for me to cause the world such catastrophic pain? Who decided that my every action, that my entire life, would inevitably lead to this course of events no matter how hard I fought against it? Why have I been destined to die?

Why me?

Those were the question that plagued me that fateful morning after Alex delivered his ultimatum. The entire time, even though my mother, Spencer, and even Eric, all spent every second they could telling me to ignore Alex's offer, that I shouldn't even consider it, that was all I could think about. Because it was the only way I could find a logical reason, a logical explanation for the way everything has turned out. If I could find a logical reason to explain everything, if I could find a logical reason for why I had been chosen to walk this path, then maybe I could justify it. To myself, to my mother, to Eric. If I could answer the question why me, then maybe I could finally accept the destiny that had been given to me.

But I couldn't do that with them all crowding me telling me exactly what I should do, instead of letting me make the decision myself. Which is why, with only an hour to go until my deadline, Eric found me sitting all alone at the one spot he took me that night of my party, numbly overlooking the beach.

"Your mum is flipping her shit, just so you know." He tells me, sitting down on the ground next to me. "I mean, literally flipping her shit. You walk through my house feeling like a bat. I can see where you get your violent tendencies from now."

I don't reply, keeping my eyes fixed on the beach in front of me. Small dots swarm the beach like tiny ants, constantly moving as they scurry around talking to each other; so many dots that it looks the beach has lost its iconic, golden sand quality and given into one of black darkness.

So many dots. Thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of them. An army of them.

And they're all here because of me.

Why me?

"You okay, Ellie?" Eric asks, watching me closely.

I slowly look up to stare at him in disbelief. "Are you honestly asking me that question?"