Nobody (thekidwhodies) wrote in repose, @ 2020-03-20 20:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | *narrative, alex white |
Narrative: Alex
Who: Alex White
What: Meeting his father
Where: At home
When: Friday, midnight.
Warnings/Rating: Low, with mentions of death. Also, long read.
The clock struck midnight, and Alex died.
Again.
This time was not like the others, though. Nothingness did not await him, the gap between death and life he had experienced a hundred times over: The Blankness, The Void. This time, he was aware. Death came for him, stealing his soul away from the somnolent form it had been so blissfully inhabiting until the moment his heart simply ceased to beat.
A sleepy awareness came and resolved into a cavernous hall: walls and ceilings of black marble veined with silver, the floor a glittering black quartz, chips of mica reflecting the light of onyx torches, burning purple where they were held in wall sconces. The light reminded Alex powerfully of the club in The Capital he'd visited a couple months ago, or the blacklit back room of some novelty shop that traded in retro velvet posters, lightning balls, and novelty sex toys.
Two figures awaited him at the end of the hallway. Seeing no choice, and half-convinced it was a dream, Alex moved in their direction. His shoes clicked against the floor as he walked, and it gave him pause. He looked down, rather astonished to notice they were accompanied by a pair of black slacks, black jacket, and a dark purple shirt, though that also looked nearly black in the flickering torchlight. Okay, weird. It was enough to convince him that this was really some sort of odd dream. Odder than most, anyway. He trained his eyes to the two figures ahead.
The figure on the right caught his attention first, not because of his appearance, but rather the long pole he was holding, easily ten feet tall and resting against his shoulder like the polearm of a bored castle guard; the proverbial ten-foot-pole. The guy himself seemed rather ordinary, and dressed much like Alex himself wished he were at the moment: comfortably. He had Mediterranean features: olive-complected, with short, dark hair and a short, dark beard.
Next to this man stood a woman, who smiled in a friendly manner as he approached. She was pale, with shoulder-length black hair and straight-cut bangs that dropped to the line of her expressive eyebrows, which perched above eyes indeterminately blue or gray; it was really hard to tell in the lighting. She was tall, and wearing a fashionable, sleeveless black sundress with a pattern of white flowers, and agate-slice rings on both hands. The white flowers seemed to glow in the purple light.
It was the woman who spoke first. "Alexander," she said, still smiling. Her voice was warm and low, even welcoming. "Do you know how hard you are to get a hold of?" She wagged a finger at him and put on an accent that sounded very...what? Upper Midwest, Minnesota or Wisconsin perhaps, to his ears. He'd heard it in places like Iowa and South Dakota, though never quite so...exaggerated. "Young man. Goodness gracious. You die one hundred times and not a single letter or phone call? Oh me oh my," she said, finger still waving back and forth, sharp and stern.
"Uh, I, sorry?" Alex was taken aback and words were, well. This had to be a dream, right?
"Well," she said, thankfully back to what he had to assume was her normal voice. "I suppose you're something of a big deal around here, and all. Unusual case, which of course are the most interesting, and really when it comes down to it, it's all politics." She put on another voice: this time, a teen girl whose natural habitat was the closest mall. "But, gah, like annoying, am I right? I should've at least been consulted. Pshh." She tossed her hair for effect.
"I...didn't mean to die more than the once," he said slowly, feeling that he needed to defend himself, even if he was massively confused.
"Yes, I know. The pills, and--" She waved her hands. "Nevermind. We're getting off track. Point is, I'm usually involved. In fact, I always am." Of course, that hadn't what he'd been talking about either. "The leading cause of death is life," she went on. "And I'm batting a thousand."
"Than doesn't like to be left out of the death...process," the man with her said, speaking for the first time. His voice was cultured, even a little prissy. "She's very possessive, as you might imagine."
"So...'m dead again," Alex said flatly. Yes, he was starting to pick up on some of what was going here. While he remembered dying, literally every single time, this was the first time he remembered being dead. Maybe that would be too fine a distinction for most people, but this was a fact that had shaped his entire life and belief system. No heaven, no hell. Like going to sleep without dreaming. Gone in pain, and awake the following morning with just the memories of what had happened before. The shuddery, crawly feeling of being ripped apart and put back together, the worry that some vital part of him had gone missing in the process. But death itself had always been a blank. Nothing. Only now, there was a something.
"Only temporarily," the woman told him. "It's more of a summons. Don't get me wrong; you're absolutely, completely, one-hundred percent very, very much dead right now. Your body is. But we'll get you back in there as soon as you're done here." She sighed. "It's not how we usually do things here. But, everything about this is highly unusual, yeah."
So, that was plenty to process. Dead, summoned, unusual. And wherever "here" was that didn't usually do things this way. And while reading was fundamental, it was reading comprehension that was vital, and Alex had been doing a lot of reading, lately. And yet, of all things, the first question that came to mind was: "Will my cat eat my eyeballs?" Not something helpful at all like "summoned by who?"
"Oh, honey." He got a quirky smile in return. "I could write you a whole book on that. Short answer: Maybe. Given enough time. But it's only for a couple hours, and right now, it's time to get moving. You'll need to go with Charon here."
Charon. Yep, suspicions confirmed. So, the full-on, real-life (real-death?) Underworld. Grecian style. And Charon had called her 'Than,' which Alex was certain now made her Thanatos. All the reading really hadn't been for nothing. It was both a relief and well, vaguely terrifying. His biggest fear should have been dying. And yet, that had been taken away from him long ago. Which naturally only left what came after death. "Don't I need to pay you, or?" He asked, looking at Charon. Alex patted down his pockets but they were completely devoid of gold coins. Also, just completely empty in general. And while he was at it, the clothes were entirely too nice. He wasn't made for fancy clothing. Also, his hair wasn't falling into his eyes, which must have meant someone had done something to the pile of blond fluff that usually sat on top of his head.
"This one's on me," Thanatos told Alex with a positively gleeful look. "Dress with pockets!" She enthused in a stage whisper, pushing her hands down into them, showing them off for a moment, before producing a gold coin and flipping it over to Charon, who caught it, bursting out in spontaneous song:
"Toss a coin to your boatman--"
"What did I tell you!" Thanatos cut him off with a glare. Arms fully crossed, dirty looks fully given. Then, she pointed a pink-nailed hand in Charon's direction. "Go on, now. Alex shouldn't be late. And...I've got to get back to work. It's a busy time."
"I'm going to see him, right?" Alex interjected, even as Charon made a motion that he should follow. "Hades?"
"Nobody else down here has the right to summon you like this, yes," Charon told him as he worked up to a brisk walk. Alex had no choice but to follow. He looked back at Thanatos, who gave him a cheery wave before disappearing into a puff of purple smoke.
"I've died a hundred times," Alex said. "Why now?"
"I'm going to leave that up to Lord Hades to explain," Charon said. "Really not my place. Just the ferryman, you see." As they left the hall where Alex had appeared, the corridor narrowed and the ceiling lowered to just above their heads. Charon was taller than him, but not by much. He wondered how anyone over six feet could walk down here comfortable. The floor began to slope downward, a cool breeze blowing in from ahead of them. It had a peculiar scent, of citrus and anise and...fish? Rotting ones. It wasn't pleasant.
"You're taking me to the Styx?"
"Right-o, Little Alex. And across it." The passage opened up into a large, natural cavern, almost completely filled with a churning black river. "River of hatred and unbreakable oaths. Don't, you know, fall in, or anything. I'd hate to try and have to explain that one." There was a rickety-looking wooden dock, jutting into the water, and tied up to it was-
"Is that a speedboat?"
"Sure is! The Charon I," Charon said with obvious pride. He gestured with the pole he still carried, seemingly amused by Alex's astonished look. "This? It's for show these days. A sign of office. Can you believe I used to have to pole all the way up and down this blasted river? Modern technology, eh?" He hopped into the front seat of the boat, stowing the pole behind him. "I can ferry ten souls a day, now. Efficiency, that is. Not that we get a lot of business anymore. People have to believe a thing is real," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Kind of rough times for our lot. Anyway, in you get!"
Alex had never been in a boat. He was certain he was going to slip off the dock and into the murky water, his soul carried away forever. He had never wanted that, though. Just a normal life, not one so frequently interrupted by his own death. Not eternal whatever-the-hell-would-happen-if-he-fel
"This won't take long. Not much to see, I'm afraid," Charon said, starting up the boat. The motor roared to life and they sped away down the river, the rock walls of the cavern lit intermittently by torches. It was clear he knew the route well, because it didn't seem like there was enough light to navigate by whatsoever. But then, Alex figured, if you've been taking the same route for, what? Five thousand years? Longer? You probably knew it by heart. He tried to ask more questions, but if they were anything to do with why Alex was there, it was "Lord Hades" this and "Lord Hades" that. Finally, he gave up and fell silent, counting the torches and twisting his fingers in his lap.
Charon fell into silence as well as they continued on down the river. For all the unnerving conversation, for being talked around incessantly, Alex found a sense of comfort in this dark and foreboding place. He couldn't put his finger on the feeling, not entirely, but it was like when he walked into his apartment at the end of a long day, work in the morning, class at night. When Nyx came out of nowhere and jumped into his lap. When he got a text from Mal. Maybe he should've been nervous; clearly the Greek gods were real, and Alex had cheated true death a hundred times, and now Hades, Lord of the Underworld, had killed Alex so he could have a talk. But the fear ebbed, replaced by curiosity and wonder. He was in The Underworld. Orpheus, Odysseus, and now, Alex.
"Here we are." Charon's voice broke Alex from his reverie. He'd pulled the boat up to another dock and expertly tossed a rope around one of the pilings, reeling it in to hold it steady. "Everyone out. This is where I leave you, Alex. It's been a pleasure." Alex scrambled up onto the dock.
"Thanks for the ride?" Was that the sort of thing other damned souls did? Thank Charon for bringing them here?
"My pleasure." Charon tipped an imaginary hat, flipped the rope back into the boat, and did a 180 turn in a long loop before speeding away back up the river.
Alex turned away from the water, and faced with a black stone path set into bare brown rock, leading out of the cave, he knew he had no choice but to follow. His shoes tapped on the stone, echoing off the wall of the cave as he moved up a slight incline. There was nothing to see but the stone. It was neither warm nor cold, and he hadn't expected that. It should be cold, because it was the land of the dead. It should be warm, because it was underground. Cool, because it was a cave. Hot, because...what, hell? But it was neither, and with no other choice, he walked, and walked, for a good ten minutes, until he came to the mouth of the cave.
Which he might have expected, was barred by a large, black iron gate, at least fifteen feet tall. And standing out front: a giant dog, big as a pony, and with the requisite three heads. Thing was, all those books of myths and their occasional illustrations all failed to adequately describe what a dog with three heads might actually look like. Thing was, none of them seemed to account for the fact that a dog would have to be an absolute unit to accommodate three heads. Its front paws were at least three feet apart. Six eyes trained upon him, three noses sniffed out in Alex's direction.
Thing was, not a single one of those books had ever mentioned that Cerberus, in reality, was a three-headed Shiba Inu. And having Triple Doge grinning a doggy grin at you was kind of adorable, even if the thing could tear him apart and not leave much but bones. Alex laughed a little, and approached with his hand out. "You're not here for me, anyway. You just keep people in, right?" Three voices barked back, and the little (well, massive, but relativity was in play) curl of a tail wagged back and forth as Cerberus came forward and sniffed, each head taking a turn. Then the right head gave him a hot lick on the cheek and a joyful bark.
"Dude," Alex laughed, pushing the head away, but another came in for kisses, and he had to relent and scratch each head behind the ears and under black, spiked collars before the dog finally relented. "Okay, okay. Look, I gotta go see...him. Y'know, your master. I'll come back and play if I can, though."
Cerberus seemed to understand. He whined a little, barked, stepped aside and turned a circle. Behind the dog, the gate opened to let Alex in.
The landscape behind the gate looked misty, foggy, but the air here was was clear. As a place, however, it seemed to be a near uniform gray, a far cry from the opulence of the...receiving area, or wherever Alex had started this journey. There were trees with gray bark and charcoal leaves. The grass underfoot a washed-out eggshell white. There was a chill in the air, here. Not cold, but somehow brittle, like everything was covered in a rime of frost. But touching one tree, Alex found it was smooth, hard as iron, and cold like touching a poorly insulated wall on a winter evening. Not freezing, but not warm, either.
"Alexander."
The voice came from everywhere at once, and Alex jumped. Alarmed, he instinctively pulled at the shadows around him, but they wouldn't obey.
"This is my realm, child. They won't do that for you unless I were to allow it."
Realizing what he was doing, Alex dropped his hand, forcing himself to calm down. Well, as calm as you could be, while speaking to a god. "Ha--uh, Lord Hades?" Did he bow? What was the thing he should be doing here?
The figure resolved in front of Alex, out of the very shadows he'd been trying to draw to himself. It was...well, a man. Man-shaped god. Yes, he was tall, but not crazy so. Taller than Tandy, maybe, when Tandy was a dude, but not eight feet tall, or anything like that: black hair, pale skin, eyes that might have been gray but were lit with some internal purple glow. The same glow which had permeated the receiving chamber. He was ressed in a nice suit, hair neatly groomed. Though, he did wear a crown, rough spikes of some black metal, same as the gate now behind Alex. Iron, maybe. And, well, you just didn't see a lot of crowns, nowadays.
But it worked. Because he was no man, but a god.
"Alexander," he said, his voice like a knife scraping bone. It stirred a memory, but when the words registered, Alex grew cold: "Welcome to the Fields of Mourning, my son."
Alex had never really believed. Kratos, he was just some crazy dude who said he killed gods. Possible crazy, and built like the offspring a Mack truck and a brick shithouse; you just nodded and smiled and said yes sir. The research into myths: it was just a lark, an interesting way to kill time and learn some cool new things. Most of it had been idle reading, though the names and the stories had stuck with him. Of course he'd still gravitated toward the ones about death and the gods thereof. The dying, it was just who he was. A quirk of nature, a fault in his stars. But provided this was no dream...
"Dad? You're...my dad?"
Hades held out a vial of clear water. "Drink, Alexander. It will be easier if you remember our first meeting."
"Our first...?" He took the vial. The touch of Hades' - his father's - hand was cold.
"I gave you the waters of the Lethe. You were not ready, yet. Now, drink of the Mnemosyne."
It looked like regular water, and it couldn't have been more than a thimble-full. "What the hell," he sighed. It tasted just like regular water. He shrugged and was about to pocket the vial when everything came rushing back:
--the train, the train. Nicky Sherwood. Rainbow socks and a skull ring and snakebite piercings. Purple smoke. Yeezy Guitar Guy. Watching his life play out for an evening, with Hades - his father - whispering in his ear. I will come to you at the equinox, when my wife again walks the world of the living. This one of my children, my son, in another reality. See what he can do? Pulling gems from the earth, summoning the blade Thanatonyx? These gifts are your heritage, Alexander, and my legacy. You have a sibling, my other child in your world. Perhaps they will seek you out. There was a boy Nicky had loved. Golden son of Apollo. There were others like him, a whole place full of them, safe for them. But not in this world, where people had lost so much of their belief, so much of their reverence. You will do great things, Alexander: Wrap yourself in shadows, use them to travel. Summon the dead to do your bidding. Command the earth. Use the common person's fear of death as a weapon against them. You will be the Ghost King--
He found he was on the ground, palms flat, then curling into fists and clutching at the pale grass: whole body shaking, hair fallen down over his eyes and tears streaming down his cheeks. "You...did this to me," he said with a shaky exhalation. "Your own kid. I've died a hundred times, you asshole, and for what?" He wiped tears and snot away with a sleeve of the expensive jacket he wore and got unsteadily to his feet. "Why?"
Hades seem unfazed by the anger in Alex's features. "This reality is thin. It fades slowly, for the old gods. We tread here less often. Many are dead, but death never dies, do you see? I needed you strong. To not fear death. For the Underworld requires a ruler, and as such, I required an heir."
"An heir? So you just...like, what, hooked up with my moms?" Alex wondered if she had known, all this time. But why not tell him? Why not believe him when he said--
"I chose her carefully, Alexander. Came to her as the man you have always called your father. She was...ideal. A life of depression and poverty was what you needed to grow. I needed you to live a hard life, to strengthen you. And it has, I see. But there...there is something missing. Something washed away. The sorrow. The pain. You needed these things, and yet here you stand without them."
"Because I got out of that place," Alex forced out from a clenched jaw. "And places worse besides. I got a real life, real friends. I'm not alone. So you tried, but you fucked it up because I'm not any of those things you wanted me to be."
"I wanted you strong, and you are that." Hades rasped out a laugh. "Your precious little life, those friends...were I to pluck them from your hand, one by one, you could yet still bloom in sorrow. Audrey, Holly, Noah, Billy? Ah, or Malachi Reed? Thanatos does not follow my bidding, but that of the Fates. Threads have been cut short before, Alexander."
Each name hit him like a blow. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering, hunching down. This was the worry he'd always carried, if this impossibility had somehow been true all along. The responsibility. The inability to live a normal life. He didn't fear his own death, but the deaths of his friends would be too much. He dragged the words out of his throat, somehow: "What do you want me to do?"
"For now? Learn. Grow in your powers, Alexander. Use them. Maybe even do some of that good you're so fond of. I am not a cruel god. I am your father, and I care for you, though you will not believe me. I have watched you grow, and I am proud of the way you have seen yourself through your trials."
Alex wanted to say that it was Hades' fault there had been any trials, but, well, what if it wasn't? Plant a seed in some shit and see how it grows. If all he'd given Alex was the ability to come back from death and a shitty start to life, could he really be blamed? Shit made good fertilizer, after all. "And then?"
"Eventually...you will take your place here. But not for some time, yet. You and my other child shall rule the Underworld."
"Other-"
"I will give you nothing regarding them, other than that they exist. If you two find one another, so be it. The Oracle has made this very clear, that nothing of the other save their existence must fall from my lips to your ears, or it will mean the ruin of my kingdom."
"You care about it so much you're just gonna give it up to someone who doesn't have a fuckin' clue what's going on?" Alex snapped.
"You'll know, when the time comes, my son. And you will rule well."
"So I'll be...what, a god?"
"You will be neither god nor man, but Co-Regent of the Dead, with your sibling. The Ghost King, the master of souls."
Alex shivered again. "I don't want it. If they want it, it's theirs. Let them rule all of this."
Hades shook his head. "You are two halves of a whole. Two half-gods, to take the place of one full god. So that I can turn my attention finally away from this blighted reality where I have been dead for years, and toward my important work. The world in which I am still honored."
"Then go have like twelve more fuckin' kids until you find two that are willing to do this shit!" Alex suddenly shouted. I just can't be bothered was so fucking selfish! "This world is fucked enough, you'll probably find plenty if you keep trying hard enough." And yes, Alex knew that let someone else do it was equally selfish.
Hades didn't shout back, of course. He also didn't strike Alex down in any number of horrible ways. "Much has changed in the past twenty years. Belief is too thin for me to enter your world physically any longer. Not the way I once could. Come. I will show you. It is time for you to return."
Not that Alex had any say in it, but he was ready to leave. There wasn't a flashy light show, or the purple smoke of Nicky, his erstwhile sibling's god magic, or whatever. Just one moment, the two of them were standing in the dead grass of the Fields of Mourning, and the next, they were in Alex's bedroom, looking down on his currently-dead body. Something else accompanied them when they arrived: a sound that was more of a feeling, ominous and dark; a rushing night wind howling down from a hilltop charnel house and out into the night. Nyx, who had been mewling and batting at Alex's face, trying to wake him, suddenly calmed and nestled back down beside him, purring loudly.
"The cat," Hades said. When Alex looked at him, he was no longer the sharply-dressed man-thing. Instead, he wore tattered black robes, and his face was a fleshless skull, covered tight with stretched, leathery skin. And he was...misty. Incorporeal. Not quite there.
So, this was Dad. Great. Cool.
"Look upon him, Alexander. The good you've wrought with the gifts I have given you. I give you another now: the blade Thanatonyx. Your scepter, your sign of office, and if need be, your weapon. Stygian Iron can cleave the soul from the body and send it to the Underworld. Use it well." The ring - the same ring Nicky had been wearing: the black iron skull with amethyst chips for eyes, appeared on Alex's hand. Both the dead Alex, in bed, and Alex the spirit, looking down on his own temporary corpse. "It will be at the ready to defend you and, you will find in time, it has its other uses as well." Alex looked at the ring on his own translucent finger, and then up to his father, who had the height now that he remembered from his night aboard the train as a watcher.
"This is why," Hades continued. "This form you see me in now, is why you are the last. I can no longer manage more than this, in your reality. Your rule, my son, will be a service to both the living and the dead. Consider wisely before you reject it out of hand."
Alex scowled sullenly. Just when - maybe - he'd started to feel at least somewhat kindly disposed toward Hades. It wasn't like he had much choice in the matter. His dear father had basically threatened to kill his entire chosen family if he refused. "Thanks, Dad," he spat. "Just go."
"As you wish." Alex wasn't exactly placed nice and neat back into his body, edges all tucked in and strings tied up. As Hades departed, his soul was shoehorned back in, causing him to sit up, gasping in pain, in remembrance. Nyx bounded away, scratching Alex's arm and mewling his unease from the far end of the bed. Alex held out his arms until Nyx got back the courage to come back to him. Alex gathered him and cradled him until the agony ebbed, and finally faded.
He considered the ring: a dark circle around his pale finger, fading into the black of the cat's fur, the purple eyes gleaming back out at him as they caught the light. He wouldn't sleep. Not for some time, no.