King.
He turned from his memories and back to the woman standing in front of him. “Why do you call me prince?’
“Because you are not yet a king.”
The darkness in his mind bristled at her response, but only said,“We mustn’t waste time on the musings of sinister beings. Ask her why we are truly here.”
His passenger had always forced itself on him, testing boundaries and barreling through the smallest holes in his armor. It was easy to use that fear and anxiety to fuel the strength to push it back and patch the walls. Never, though, had he broken the barrier on his own and, now that he had, his passenger seemed to be working in tandem with his will. Rather than bucking against the restraints, his passenger was standing patiently beside him.
It was empowering to control the lurking monster, and through that budding strength he found a certain familiarity with the presence slowly creeping in. It was as if he donned glasses after stumbling around a blurry landscape.
“Why have you brought us here?” Brooks spoke, but the deepness of his voice surprised him. It resembled his passenger’s more than his own. He tried not to let it deter his focus and closed his eyes.
“She is here, and she is the key to your destiny. Look through his eyes and together you will find the way.”
Brooks inhaled deeply and let the brine and power fill his lungs. When he opened his eyes the island was different. Still gloomy and craggy, but bustling with life.
People.
To his utmost confusion, the scene before him was like the underground hussle of a big city. Everyone was dressed to impress in barely-there strings of fabric and loomed around an enormous building placed right at the peak of the sloping island.
A sleek black sign with purple neon lights adorned the broad face of the building and read Club Hel. Bobbing heads loitered around the entrance and funneled through more slowly than sticky ambrosia.
Sweat and something sickly sweet burned his nostrils, and he was overwhelmed by the sudden change in atmosphere.
“Do you see it now?”
“Christ!” Brooks startled. Lost in his surroundings, he had forgotten Atropos was at his side.
“Club Hel? Seriously? What is this?”
“I told you. It is where your journey begins.”
“You’re pulling my dick,” he deadpanned. “On an island in the middle of the ocean at a shady club full of illegal, black-market shit?”
“She calls to you.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that already. Who calls to me? Who is my destiny?”
“The Siren.”
Her tone was so matter of fact that it set his bones on edge.
“I don’t know what you’ve been steeping in your looney tea, but no one calls to me. I am a paranoid schizophrenic. I have auditory hallucinations. Including you, now that I fucking think about it,” he scoffed, throwing his hands up to the sky before placing them on his hips.
Atropos turned and stepped toward him, crowding his space until he had no choice but to step back.
“It’s time for you to wake up and take your crown, prince. We have waited long enough.”
Her skin grew more sallow with each step she took. A crown of thorns, long as her forearms, pierced through her skull. The ever-present iridescent tears streaming down her pale face pulsed with power as lightning thrashed violently through the night sky. Each strand of silver hair illuminated in the moonlight was alight with her tears. She was deadly and radiant– a true goddess.
Panic surged but a quick scan revealed nowhere to run. His passenger rose to the forefront of his mind, but whether it was to take him in his moment of weakness or protect him, he didn’t have time to analyze.
His back hit ragged stone and caged him between it and the raging goddess closing in. Brooks raised his hands in surrender. What he glimpsed from the corner of his eye pinned his stare on his splayed digits.
The black covering his fingertips engulfed his hands dissipating into crawling veins and disappearing under the leather cuff of his jacket. Pure terror made his heart skip a beat. A yell caught in his throat as a great chasm opened in the sky and released the mother of all storms.
Rain pelted his skin as he scratched and rubbed at his hands, the fear pushing every rational thought or instinct from his body. His passenger was making a lunge for control.
