Tears cascaded down my cheeks, a silent plea to anyone that would listen, that could save us. At least Thalia. I wanted them to at least save my sister. But no other sounds echoedin the car apart from my breathing, and my mind knew even before my heart could accept it—they were all dead already.
My family was dead.
My eyes closed, accepting my fate, when the sound of metal screeching in the silent night, disrupting the thoughts of my impending end, made me open them again. A strong gust of wind slammed into my right, running over the only place I could still feel, just as something crashed on the ground.
Don't you die on me, Kaira, a voice popped inside my head.Don't you fucking dare.
Teeth clamped around my bicep, pulling me out of the burning car. My back slammed against the ground, yet the pain never came. My body was no longer my own and as the stranger dragged me over the ground, all I could see were the dark skies above me, littered with shining stars.
There was not a single cloud in the sky. There was nowhere for them to hide.
Twinkling just above me, eternal beauties, I wondered if we would end up being one of the stars or if my entire family would end up somewhere in the void where souls end up after they die.
"S-save…" I coughed, unable to tell them to save my family. Unable to tell them to get Thalia out.
Open your mouth, the voice piped in again in my mind.Open your fucking mouth, Kore.
My lips parted of their own accord and that's when I saw him—it, my savior. An elongated snout was the first thing that came into the field of my vision, followed by bright red eyes staring down at me. A scream lodged itself somewhere in my throat, only swallowed by the fear gripping every part of my soul.
I'm not going to hurt you,the voice said again.But I need you to open your mouth wider.
My lips parted as my wide eyes stayed glued to the crimson in his. A dog—a monstrously huge dog was standing above me. His warm breath washed over my face and it took me a second to realize he was hovering above my mouth, holding something in his jaws. Something red.
His jaw moved, biting into whatever it was he held and as the juices trickled down, my mouth filled with the bittersweet taste of a pomegranate. Seeds fell next, rolling down my tongue and into my throat.
Swallow it, Kaira. I need you to swallow all of it.
My vision turned blurry, unable to see him fully anymore. Unable to keep my eyes open, and as he cursed one more time in my mind, I let myself drift away, my mouth filling with the nectar from the pomegranate he was feeding me.
Such a strange dog.
Such a strange way to enter the void.
I stumbled backwards as the vision of Hades in front of me crystalized again, pulling me back from the nightmare I was stuck in. The nightmare when my family died, only this time I knew how I got out of the car. This time I understood that it wasn't some stupid stroke of luck or me somehow getting catapulted from the car.
The investigators could never explain how the doors were ripped off, but now I knew. It wasn't from the impact. They were removed by whatever had saved me.
Hades kept looking at me as I tried catching my breath, and as I looked down between us, that fucking thread I touched when I went inside his mind was still wrapped around my wrist. Glowing this time, almost burning bright green, mixing with the shadows still erupting from my skin.
The decay I touched in the center of his soul spread through my body, but it was no longer as strong as when I first noticed it. It was no longer eating at the God standing in front of me.
I had so many questions, and whether he was dying or not was not something we had to discuss now. Not when I just had another vision I couldn't understand.
"What the fuck just happened?" I asked, wheezing. How did I end up there? How could I see something like that by touching him, by touching his core, when Hades wasn't even there? "Were you there the night of the accident?" I asked, looking at him fully for the first time since I came back to reality.
His eyes shuddered, his long legs moving closer, and each time he tried closing the distance between us, I stepped back, until my backside hit against the trunk of a tree.
"Were you?" I bit out.
"No," he simply said, shaking his head. "But somebody else was."
Twilight had started falling down on the island since I ended up in that fucking space, and as I looked down at the ground, the familiar fog started billowing around us, as if it rose from the ground instead of the sky. But the fog wasn't what had me standing straighter.
Just behind Hades, not too far from us, stood three dogs. Three massive fucking dogs, staring at me.
They were motionless, looking like a mix between a Rottweiler and a Doberman, with their elongated snouts and massive heads, belonging to even bigger bodies. The two standing on the sides had silver eyes—a complete contrast to their black fur and rich, tan markings. But the one in the middle… he was bigger than the other two, with blood red eyes staring straight into my soul.
The eyes I had seen once before as he stood above me, feeding me whatever the fuck it was that he held in his snout.
