Deepest Darkest Secrets

Chapter 17 Shade under the hanging tree

Disclaimer: This chapter contain abuse and gore. Not ideal for children and for faint- hearted.
You might feel uncomfortable reading some scenes. Tread carefully. You have been warned.

I am dedicating it to @sarahannamj so that she can update behind the mask and the late princess.

Despite having different parents and different godly upbringings they all went well together.

After a few weeks, since their arrival, which was a rather grand entrance for Jayden who had a privilege of landing right on Cupid, who was currently in the middle of a session of explaining emotions was quite fun for Kai, Dayna, and Percy but rather embarrassing for Jayden.

Since he was not yet sixteen years old he was sent straight to Cupid. They all had become fast friends, eventually, they become best friends.

A Certain rule came up too, which all four of them obeyed, no one made the rule it just came up.

Never ever approach the primordial topic in the conversation, it just came up with the lack of enthusiasm in all their faces whenever Cupid mentioned something about their primordial parent or more likely something about their resemblance with their parents, which exasperated them, which led to the guessing that no one liked their primordial parents much.

Whenever someone was dangerously close about bringing primordials into their talk sharp glances would be sent in his or her in Dayna's case, direction to turn the conversation back on the track, many times they would lose their will to talk.

These primordials never got the meaning of the word privacy. Dayna had stopped responding when someone would call her Delia, even if it was Cupid as it was given from Tartarus himself. No one knows why he chose this name as in the Greek language the name it means From Delos. Derived from the name Delos, the island where Apollo and the Artemis have been born.

Cupid was obstinate, he never met Dayna's demand.

Percy crossed his arms behind his head and leaned against the rough bark of the tree. After a long walk in the forest, they have chosen one of the few green trees. It was a huge, mundane one which gave them a sense of home.

Dayna was lying on soft green grass, a mischievous grin on her face which, unfortunately, brought bad luck to her brother. Jayden and Kai were on the ground laughing hysterically. His sister had just exposed the forbidden topic to everyone.

The strong wind played with their hair and with the leaves of the trees. Percy's advanced ears often caught thumping sounds above, leaves would fell occasionally, Percy looked around the number of leaves which fell from other trees were nothing in comparison to this one.

No one else seems to notice except him. The leaves were dense and the dark clouds have covered the sky making it hard to see what was causing the mess.

Must be squirrels.

"Seriously dude, I pity you, the Cupid primordial god of love and whatnot kissed you, "Jayden said in the middle of his laughs.

"I pity you more, at least I didn't stay in a girl school for a week." The table was turned.

After a while, Jayden groaned and got up, brushing the dust from his pant, others too got up sensing the upcoming storm, but before they could walk, a sound stopped them dead in their tracks, it was loud, they looked down to see what had fallen.

"What was..." Kai's scream tore through the air like a bullet, which soon followed by Percy and Jayden.

"What happened? why are you all screaming?" Dayna asked staring at their startled faces. No one knows from where did the son of Gaea get the courage to point next to Dayna.

This time Dayna screamed louder, her shrill voice ringing against Percy's eardrum made him dizzy.

A pair of legs were dangling beside her, the digits of the foot almost brushing her shoulder. Percy couldn't tear his eyes away from the legs.

"Man," Jayden voice wavered, somehow putting everything into one word.

His sister's action surprised him, he didn't know what gave her the courage to pull the legs of the body or she must have felt some responsibility of being the eldest one in the group or simply her Tartarus genetics must have kicked in.

After much effort, the weak branches freed themselves from the corpse, Dayna immediately left it. Her so-called duty of being the eldest one is over now it was their turn to deal with the scathing situation.

It was a woman, that was clear. She reeked of rotten flesh, the strong smell of the moisture in the air made it even worse. They covered their noses to block the smell but it didn't help much.

From head to toe, she was covered in mud, as if she was swimming in the pool of mud before her death, twigs and leaves were tangled in her hair making it look worse than a bird's nest. There were deep marks on her wrists, they looked like rope burns. Fortunately, her dress was still intact, the gaping hole in her thumb stood out like a sore thumb. No blood was coming out of it as the body was completely drained of blood.

Percy tore his eyes and moved them on her face which was the most horrifying.

Her mouth was opened as if to scream, but no voice came out from her dead vocal throat. She had no eyeballs, Percy stared into the yawning whole, the dark pools stared back, promising to haunt him forever.

The intestine which was tightly coiled around her neck explained the hole in her abdomen, the murder must have hanged her with it. Her nails were long and covered with the milky white substance of her. She clawed her own eyes.

It was the worse corpse Dayna and Percy had ever crossed, and they didn't wish to cross something like this a second time. Kai and Jayden looked, even more, worse than them. Percy bends down and gently closed her eyes with his almost stable.

The sullen silence was broken by Cupid's arrival.

"Why were you all screaming your throats raw, is there is a shouting contest going on here?." His rich and deep voice woke him.

Percy got up and along with the crowd stepped back so that Cupid can have a good view.

For a while, Cupid' state was no better, but he recovered quickly. Cupid eyes darted towards Percy. The body was drained of blood and of course, he was the prime suspect. For a split, second blood red eyes met black-silver-sea green and crimson eyes. While the blood red eyes gleamed with doubt, the other pair was emotionless. Cupid broke the eye contact and turned his gaze back on the corpse.

Percy felt a spark of anger and irritation, he took a long deep breath, it was natural for anyone to accuse him because of his actions in the past.

"Everyone back to your rooms" it wasn't a request, but a command.

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Percy was sitting on the thick stone railing which marked the end of the balcony, the rain had started almost a half hour ago, the clouds releasing all their anger on Percy in a form of a downpour.

 He diverted his eyes from the Rubix cube he had solved eighteen times and sighed. He didn't expect to meet the primordial god of love a second time of the day in front of them.

Cupid was sitting in front of him, he too was as drenched as Percy which told him that he was there for a long time his snowy white wings were soaked with rain. His straight black hair was flying in the air, but they didn't grasp his attention to remove them.

The poisonous mixture of blood in his eyes was glued at him.

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