ONYX

Chapter Thirty-Three

“What is it?”

And then a piercing scream tore through the silence. It was so loud that Alessandra had to use her hands to cover her ears, but Hades seemed unaffected. He merely grabbed her hand and guided her towards the door. Instead of opening the front door and walking in, they walked through it like they were ghosts of some sort. Alessandra gasped and held on to Hades for support. She was officially afraid.

“Hades, what is this?” She whispered. The home had belonged to a middle class family judging by the well-maintained structure of their home. They had a sculpted fireplace made out of stone, but it wasn’t lit and grand furniture that was carved from the toughest wood.

But what had really taken her breath away was the sickening sight lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. Two bodies, a male in his late years and a young girl that probably hadn’t reached her adolescent years, were lying parallel from one another in silence.

With a pool of blood surrounding them.

It was hard to tell from a distance, but the shiny thing embedded in his neck was a blade and she was a different story. Her abdomen continued to bleed out rapidly even as she lied on the ground unmoving. Hades could see the slow rise and fall of her chest as life started to leave her.

He had to act fast.

“I don’t understand.” Alessandra said, fear churning inside her bowels. “Why are we here?” This was not what she had in mind for the answers that she sought from him.

“I want you to take her soul.” Hades said. He let go of Alessandra’s hand to face her.

“Why?” She asked, but more importantly, how?

“You and I are one in the same, Alessa. This is what you need to know in order to start uncovering the truth about yourself. Doing this will help you find the answers you seek.” He replied. “She is a young girl in a unsavory predicament and he is a fool for harming her. An innocent and a bad soul need to be judged in order for one or both of them to move on.”

“Is this what you do? Is this what you did to my mother?” She asked next, widening the distance between them. She was abashed and daunted by the idea that he got to decide who would live in the Sanctuary or who would perish in their personal hell in the Sea of Souls.

“Yes, I do this. And no I didn’t do this to your mother. She was a special case.” He had to be careful how he worded it because he didn’t want the conversation to stir in that direction. “I gave her what she always wanted in the end.”

“What was that?”

“To make sure that you were safe and for her to be reunited with her other children.” He answered. He remembered Elizabeth’s face as she finally saw her children in their older years prospering in the afterlife. She could finally touch them, talk to them, and express her undying love for the kids that she couldn’t meet in the time that she carried them in her stomach. “She is happy.”

Alessandra closed her eyes. It’s been the first time since she heard about her mother in a long time. She knew she was in a better place that wasn’t where she was now and it comforted her even more to know that she was reunited with her lost brothers and sisters. She wished to join them, but a part of her knew that that would be impossible.

“What do you have to do here?”

“You have to talk to the girl. Approach her, be of a guide to her and show her that death isn’t something to fear.” Many had the misconception that death was the end, but it was only the beginning and Hades didn’t want the souls that mattered to be sad that their lives on the physical plain had ended. He wanted them to rejoice and look forward to the afterlife, which wasn’t all that different from the world of the living.