"Ashes to ashes we fall".
That's what the old seer had told me. Her one glass eye had glinted dangerously in the moonlight. The blue iris had shone as brilliantly as the moon, threatening to drown me within its azure depths. I had been warned not to look upon it with impudence.
I found myself on the wild roads, chasing quest after quest to quench this insatiable thirst to fill this void within myself.
I scaled the walls of Olympus, to look upon the faces of the Gods, for no man had ever done it before. But they never thought a woman would succeed. The Gods couldn't bear to banish into dust something they thought was as fragile as the petals of a flower.
I set foot on Olympus, a weeping woman with torn clothes, a demigod with an unknown father, a "victim" of some nefarious plot. They fed me, clothed me, kissed my cheeks.
Amidst all this, my eyes found Apollo's. He was a God in the truest sense with hair as dark as the night sky and eyes as bright as the stars. He pulled me away to the dark recesses of Olympus. He sang to me, his poems flowing forth his lips like butter, dripping on to me until I felt nothing but warmth.
That night, I lay with him amidst the fireflies of Olympus and Aphrodite's sweet melodies drifting in the air.
The next morning, I was gone, and Apollo woke from death with a dagger in his heart.
Gods cannot be killed by demigods. But I had thrust that dagger into him anyway. For no one had ever done it before.
Apollo had tasted sweet. But even honey turns bitter on my tongue.
At the gates of Valhalla, I came across a Valkyrie. She was the most beautiful and fearless thing I had seen. The road to Valhalla was tough, it tasted like death as it should be. Do not ask me how I gazed upon Valhalla while there was still breath in me. I will not answer. But I will tell you this. There are fewer things in life more comforting than being encased within a Valkyrie's wings. They drain almost all the bitterness out of you. Almost. But the poison in me was too strong and too much and she could not bear it and crumbled to dust, leaving nothing but her mark upon my back.
With her mark, I entered Valhalla. You would think there would be a magnificence at Odin's feet. But death, even a glorious one, still remains death.
I saw once proud warriors weeping for their lost children and lost loves, their bodies battered from a lifetime of war.
I saw Odin, a broken man on his throne with his head in his hands, ruling over an Asgard broken by feuding sons.
I knelt before the old man with one eye, my head bowed. He took one look at me and he saw. He saw the rot within. He sighed and his hands trembled as he touched my forehead. I took my dagger, slashed both my wrists and held them up to him in offering. The God held my wrists and I felt him. I felt his essence flowing through my veins. It was pure light and it was warm and it felt like my dead mother's lullabies. But the darkness was too great and ran too deep and Odin shed a tear for me and said nothing more. So I walked out of Valhalla, a hall for the fallen heroes.
I bribed Charon with a bag of gold coins and a kiss upon his mottled, dead lips. He ferried me across the Styx for I was the only creature he had felt a kinship with in eternity. At the gates of the Underworld, he wept for me, for he knew I would find no place, not even there. I walked into Hades's Castle and Cerberus whimpered as I stood before it.
Dark things have a thirst for the light and so I followed it until I stood in front of Persephone herself. She was ethereal and she was sorrow personified and she wept for her cursed life. She wept even as I kissed her breasts, she wept even as I lay her in her bed. I tried to show her whatever wretched love I was capable of. But still, she wept. I held her in my arms and she clung to me and she wept till my breasts glistened with her tears. When I asked her why she continued to weep, she said she had never before felt a creature more cursed than her until I walked into hell.
I kissed her forehead and I turned to leave but she held my hand and begged me to end her plagued existence. I kissed her Ruby lips and as our tears mingled, I slit her throat. For Gods cannot be killed by demigods unless they lead a life so wretched, that death would be a kindness.
After that, I ran. I ran through the Meadows of Asphodel amidst the stationary dead. I pushed them and screamed at them until my throat bled and gouged their eyes out. But they showed no response to the injuries I inflicted or to my presence. So drugged were they by the flowers, they retained no spark of sentience.
I envied them. I wished to be wiped of everything. I wanted to rid myself of the abyss that was me. So I lay amidst the Asphodels, staring up at the boiling clouds of the Underworld that threatened to rain blood any instant. I do not know how long I lay there. It could've been an eternity. I waited for blissful oblivion, but I was too much and too horrific to forget. So I stood up and walked out of hell. I thought of drowning myself in the Styx as I swam through it. But no River, living or dead, was enough to contain the misery that was me.
And so here I am now, at the edge of Tartarus. At the edge of the world as you know it. My heart is gripped with fear for I can hear Kronos bellowing from the depths of his prison. But I also breathe freely for it is only the Father of the Gods who can give me the relief I ache for. One need only jump.
I am Nerezza, daughter of a dead mother and an unknown God. I have been cursed with a darkness and fury since the day I was born. I've fought in wars, I have wiped out villages. I have laid with Gods and Valkyries. I have looked Odin in the eye, I have given release to Persephone. I have done all this, and more. And yet, I could not heal the tear in my wretched soul.
Ashes to ashes, here I fall.
