It was far too late before I realized what I had done. Other pirates had tried to pull me off of Captain Rhys, but anyone who touched me had their skin decay with age, some shriveling, others melting away to the bone. Death surrounded me, in an aura, in my flesh. Creeping black veins extended from where my hands absorbed the Scythe and I could feel it moving around inside me. Becoming part of me, like when Alma had been inside; possession.

  In my distraction and panic, the pirate captain shoved me away and scrambled across the floor. Everyone in here had given me a wide berth, my heartbeat ringing in my ears as I tried to get out. I could still feel Siobhan behind me. As my head stopped pounding and the black veins retreated from my arms, the first thing I could hear was her breathing. Her familiar scent rushed back to me and I settled. I found myself wanting to disappear into her frizzy red hair.

  I turned, only to find that she looked more terrified than anyone else in the place. Her make-up had run, and her lips quivered. There was fear and confusion painted across her face. I wished I could also say I was confused, but I feared I knew all too well what I'm becoming. My hand touched the door of the tavern and the wood began to rot.

  "Siobhan..." I begged, coming out as a whisper.

  She just stared at me, horrified; I had caused irreparable damage. She feared losing me, but she knew she couldn't stay with me. Not now. Her face passed through a range of emotions from anger, to sorrow. But fear remained constant.

  "What the hell are you?" Captain Rhys broke the silence between us, clutching his mutilated face, his crew holding him up. Where I had punched him had decayed so badly, the side of his face was greying flesh and visible bone. His shaking hands gripped a flint-lock pistol and it was aimed at me when I turned to face him.

  I wanted to say something cool and dark, like "I am Death" or "I am the Darkness".

  "I don't know..." escaped my lips instead, as I felt my heart break. Monster was the word that came to mind.

  I tried to take a step forward, to come back and apologize when I heard the gun go off. I felt the burning sensation in my head. Suddenly there was darkness, but not like the other times I had died. No, this was only darkness on my left side of my face. My vision narrowed. I reached up and felt around the hole where my eye socket used to be.

  "Dyson!" I heard Siobhan shout. I knew she was close, but the ringing in my ears made her sound distant as I gripped my face in agony. There was this high pitched whine in my ears, and I swear I heard sirens. Not the scary fish kind, but the loud, ringing klaxon kind. I remembered what dying felt like. No matter how many times I did it, there was always the same feeling. The darkness, the quiet. This was not that. This was something far beyond that; the pain was unbearable.

  This time there was a deep bass-like boom; the time bomb going off. I felt a wave erupt from my body as my vision continued to darken. I couldn't see anything after that.

  Then there was no sounds except for the lapping waves hitting the sandy beaches and the port docks; no shouting, no crying, no gun fire.

  "Dear me, what has happened here?" The voice was almost mocking, and I strained to see through the darkness with my remaining eye.

  A man who bore a weirdly similar resemblance to Anders walked toward me. His suit was well pressed and maintained, black on black with thin white pinstripes. His black hair was slicked back and tied into a neat ponytail; his long beard neatly trimmed.

  "Have I come at a bad time?" He cocked an eyebrow at me, motioning to the darkness like it was a full room. That was when I realized I wasn't struggling to see. I was in a realm of complete black, similar to when I died the first time. The only color was this man, and myself, and he almost seemed to blend in.

  "What do you want?" I snapped.

  "Well, I was on my way to come have a chit-chat with the one who wields Death's Scythe, but boy, was I surprised when I arrived and found he's in the habit of mass murder. Quite the feat, this." He said gesturing around him again, like there was something there.

  "Leave, or I'll...I'll kill you too." I growled. My chest was heaving. My head, throbbing. I wanted nothing but to be removed from everything around me. I remembered the burst of death that had erupted from my core. And then I suddenly remembered that Siobhan had been at the other end of the tavern. I looked around frantically trying to locate her in the darkness, ignoring the man.

  "I'd commend you to try, but that won't be necessary, or possible for that matter." He moved without walking, right up in front of me and stared down. "You should have your face checked out. That looks gruesome." He pointed at my face.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  I manifested the Scythe and swung, but a huge skeletal hand reached out of the ground and held me tight. I squirmed and fought it, but the man and his magic were too strong.

  "Who are you?" I growled, struggling fruitlessly.

  "Hades. Lord of the Underworld, at your service." He bowed deeply.

  "What? You've got to be kidding me." I rolled my eyes, ceasing my flailing.

  "Listen kid, you lost your eye, not your ears. You heard me right." He smirked, crossing his arms across his broad chest. He shook his head at me as he eyed me pitifully. "What a fine mess you've made here. And so far away from home, and your Order. Alone with none of your friends to save you." He 'tsks tsks'd at me, wagging his finger back and forth. "I think it's time you went back home boy."

  "I have nothing to go back to." I told him, defeated.

  "Quite the opposite. All you have is back there. Your friends need you. Well, more importantly, I need you. Back there. With the others." He seemed to choke on his own words.

  "I'm not following."

  "Listen kid, I'm not gonna repeat myself over and over, so pay attention..." He waved his hand and manifested a chair to sit in, and the skeletal hand I was trapped in opened up to become another seat. So I sat.

  "Olympus is threatened, and with it, my realm as well. As once we rose to stand against our father, so now the Minor Gods stand to oppose my brother, Zeus. Eris, Nemesis, Hypnos and the his brother Thanatos, are plotting to overthrow the throne and place themselves as the Major Pantheon. Normally, I would not bother in my brother's affairs, but I just know Thanatos is coming for my domain." He explained. I raised my eyebrows, and stared at him. Hades, God of the Underworld. What had my life become?

  "Anyway, my niece has already blessed one of your rug-rats and I figured I'd touch base with you. You know, join forces to stop the end of the world and all that." He waved his hand nonchalantly. I had a wave of fear slip over me, remembering the dreams I had been having; the end of the world, my nightmare realized...

  "But what if I just make things worse. What if...what if I kill them too?" I asked.

  "That's not really my problem." Hades chuckled.

  "So let me get this straight, the Gods need us to do this, so you guys don't get wiped out. And you don't have enough strength anymore because no one believes in you?" I asked.

  "Something like that, yes. We don't make a habit of asking mortals for help. Well, at least I don't." He rolled his eyes and waved his hand again. "I know you'll be honored to accept my blessing and take your place as a soldier of the Underworld."

  "No."

  At first he nodded, but then was taken back by my denial.

  "What do you mean 'no'?" Hades glared at me, drifting closer.

  "No. I don't want your blessing. I won't do it. That's not really my problem." I told him, plain and simple.

  "Do you know who I am?" His pale face went red with anger.

  "If I deny that you exist, don't you get weaker or something? If I stop believing in you, will you go away?" My mouth turned up in a wicked grin.

  "I should drag you into the Underworld myself and torture you for eternity you ungrateful little shit!" He shouted in my face. His breath smelled strangely like peppermint.

  "Probably better than living in this hellhole." I shrugged, or as best I could as the skeletal hand wrapped down around me again.

  "Any other of you pitiful Chosen would jump at the opportunity to be blessed by a God. Any God." He growled in frustration.

  "I'm not a Chosen. I'm Dyson. And I give zero fucks. Nice to meet you. Now let go of me and get out of my face." I sneered.

  "Perhaps we can strike a deal?" He offered, cooling.

  "No."

  "But I'm the God of the Underworld. I could give you any number of things. I could bring someone back. Would you do it then?" He grinned widely as my face shifted through a range of emotions.

  "I've read enough mythology to know that making a deal with Hades isn't going to work out in my favor. Especially when it comes to freeing someone from the Underworld." I let my hope die, almost as fast as I normally do.

  "Don't believe everything you read kid." He chuckled, nervously.

  "Bugger off then. I'm done." I slumped into my skeletal prison.

  Hades stomped around the blackened rot, that began to appear around him as the darkness began to retreat. The world came back around me slowly. There was the remnants of the little tavern with splintered wood everywhere. Parts of the roof and walls were missing; like a bomb went off.

  Blackened charred bodies lay all around me. Viscera was scattered in unnatural patterns and Hades kicked it about as he paced, muttering to himself and throwing his hands around.

  "You'll regret the day you were born Dyson Weiss. You'll come crawling back to me, one way or another." He said, before disappearing into a cloud of inky black smoke.

  "Jokes on you..." I shook myself free of the crumbling skeleton hand. "...I already regret living."

  I became acutely aware of Siobhan's absence as soon as Hades was gone.

  Panicked, I searched for her body, or something that resembled her body among the wreckage. I scrambled among the debris and dug till my hands were bloody. I managed to find her bandana laying among broken parts of the tavern, but there was no body. Nothing that even resembles her

  "What have I done..." I whispered, tears filling my remaining eye.

  I looked around at the devastated island and cringed. I had single handedly destroyed everything in my immediate vicinity, rotting and charring wood, flesh and metal. Outside of that, the wave of death that had left my body had wilted trees, burnt away the tips of grass and darkened the sands.

  I collapsed to my knees in the debris and stared out at the sky, lost. If only I had paid attention in training. If only the Order of Vigilance had better prepared me. If only...

  A feather floats into my vision, falling from the sky somewhere. A reach out my hand to catch it, pulling it close; a white swan feather.

  I hoped that meant Siobhan had used her cape to get away. Either that or I mangled a large bird somewhere.