16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Theron
H e bolted for his chambers as quickly as he could. The tears were coming, whether he liked it or not. He needed to get somewhere safe. Fast. He wasn’t ready to go to that room . Not yet.
Fortunately, the corridors were empty. It was to be expected at this time of night. The demons, soldiers, and guards who normally bustled through the labyrinth were likely either asleep or working, guarding more crucial areas, as this part of the labyrinth was reserved for him. Things were always so chaotic in Tartarus. In Hades. This Underworld named after him. It didn't bother him that most gods and creatures referred to it as "Tartarus" instead of its official name it shared with his title.
If this is my world, why do I still have to answer to him? The anger was strong in his body, but the fear was greater, which answered his question. He wouldn’t be allowed to take over until he could stop being so afraid. So pathetic. Thanatos made it clear that he had a long way to go. And now he had to go back to that place. How much time did he have to compose himself until then? How much time could he buy before Thanatos found out he wasn’t there?
He couldn’t make it to his room before collapsing into tears. He tucked himself into a nook. The cold stone wall was like ice against his back. He bit down on his fist and bundled himself into a ball. He was desperate for the tears to stop, but they were falling in droves down his bloodied face, forming a growing puddle around his feet.
“Pfft. Are you crying?”
Theron’s body tensed. He shot a glare up at Nikias. The waspy blonde wore a smug grin on his pinched face. Theron tried to surreptitiously wipe his face as he got to his feet, but he didn’t know how to respond. He’d obviously been crying, and Nikias told Thanatos everything. He would love to give him this information.
“I’m focused on training.”
Nikias laughed. “Please.” His arms were tucked behind his back in his usual prim and completely aggravating stance. He gave Theron one last pretentious look before turning on his heel to leave. “You’re pathetic. You know that? And you’re supposed to be the god here someday.” He let out a sharp, disdainful laugh. “When you’re here, sniveling like a child.”
The cries Theron had heard echoing through his mind over the last two days came racing back, and suddenly, he felt all the little prods and pulls that awaited him in that room. Because he still acted like a child.
Theron
Twelve years prior
“Get in there, boy !” the man hissed, tossing the young teen into the room.
“No! Please!” The pain of his master’s claws against Theron’s fresh wounds stung like bolts of lightning—what he thought one of Zeus’s bolts might feel like. But the deity didn’t budge. Fear ripped through Theron’s chest. “Please,” he whimpered, but the large god only growled and threw him to the floor and locked him in the room.
The moment the door creaked to a close, Theron’s heart stopped. His stomach plummeted to his feet. The clammy air was sticky against his skin, made more palpable by the sheer darkness of the room. He couldn’t see a thing. Being tossed into the room was like being thrown into a shadow. He curled into a ball in the corner of the room. He felt the cold, stone floor beneath his bare fingers and toes to ensure nothing was lurking behind him before firmly nestling his scrawny spine into the corner closest to the door.
It probably didn’t help to be tucked into the corner like that, but it gave him a small sense of safety whenever he was in this room of nightmares. He told himself it could protect him, but whatever protection it offered wasn’t enough.
It didn’t take long before those things slithered over his bare ankles. Before the voices began to wail. And everything else began. The faceless monsters he only knew by unwanted touch and unrivaled pain.
Expecting something never makes it easier.
When the first slimy claw latched onto his bony ankle, the boy couldn’t help but scream. He tried shaking it off, but more unwelcome creatures swarmed his body, these ones smaller but more ravenous as they tore at his skin with broken teeth.
The first shriek was like a harpoon propelling into one ear and bursting through the other. He clapped his hands over his ears to protect them from the sound, but then he couldn’t swat anything away. Fear spiked through his chest. Claws ripped at flesh.
He was helpless to the bites and scratches of the creatures but, every once in a while, a fire would ignite and extinguish right before his eyes, long enough that he would catch glimpses of what these hellish creatures looked like, and it made his blood turn cold. Their hollow eye sockets and pointed grins burned into Theron’s mind, so even when they weren’t sucking his blood, they were gnawing at his psyche.
The noises grew louder, the pain more acute, and the peculiar rotting smell rising around him was more pungent with every passing second. The worst part was knowing it had been his fault that his master had thrown him in here. Thanatos never let him forget it. He said it was for his own good. That he needed to do better—be who he was destined to be—and that this was all part of the process.
But it was hard to care when the pain was so all-consuming that Theron had to remind himself that he was still alive. Despite how little he wanted to be.
Theron
Present Day
Theron’s head throbbed the whole way there. Snapshots of women screaming and children crying ruptured through his mind. He winced as he remembered the claws tearing at his flesh. That room. It had been such a large part of his life when he arrived here. How had he forgotten about it?
He still remembered how to get there, and when he saw it, his stomach sank just like it had when he was a boy. He was older now—stronger—and knew there were worse punishments he could be given. So, when he came upon the black door with that gnarled handle, he opened and closed it without so much as a tremor in his hand, shutting himself in and waiting for the creatures to attack.
He had over a decade of training and was more powerful than anyone on Olympus. The creatures couldn’t touch him now. He had no need to fear.
Theron swallowed the lump in his throat and willed his body to stop shivering. “You’re no child. Get it together.” He sucked air into his lungs and readied himself for whatever would come. He wouldn’t let fear in the way he had when he was a boy. He’d battled demons a thousand times more lethal than those confined to this room.
At least, he thought he had. The truth was that no matter how much he tried to remember, all his mind could find were the sounds and feelings that pumped through his preteen body back then. He remembered being covered with scratches and having night terrors. But the latter never stopped.
So, surely, whatever was in here was capable of great things.
He took another breath. No. I was just a boy. I wasn’t a warrior yet. Not a true god like I am now.
So, he waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But nothing came.
It was only him. He couldn’t see, feel, hear, or sense anything else. He had been plunged into pure darkness. Nothing was coming.
He turned to find the handle, but it was gone. Panic hit him like a heavy wave. Suddenly, he wasn’t the big bad Theron anymore. He was the thirteen-year-old boy sent off to be groomed into the all-powerful Hades. A title he had yet to live up to.
Now, it seemed like he was back at square one.
He fell to the floor and instinctively slid back to that corner, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t see—or even sense—a thing.
Nothing is coming , he reassured himself, but slowly, his limbs grew weary, his body going limp. “What’s . . . happening?” The words were strained, and it was hard to breathe. It felt like a rock was pressing hard against his chest.
Something was taking over him, sucking his life out and rendering him motionless. Helpless.
And tired.
The more he gasped for air, the harder the effort became. His throat tightened, and all the thoughts in his mind blurred together. Tears silently escaped his eyes, but he couldn’t wipe them away.
The man struck him again. This time, Theron couldn’t get up. His body had hit the tiled floor at an awkward angle, kinking one of the nerves and sending a bolt of pain ripping up his torso. Tears streamed down his face. What had he done to deserve being hurt like this? His mother and father had never hurt him like this.
“You worthless boy!” Thanatos snarled. “Do you think crying makes you any more of a man?”
But the tears didn’t stop, of course. Has anyone ever stopped crying when screamed at?
Theron did his best to suck in the tears. He even bit his tongue until it bled. But it was too late. “Put him back,” Thanatos ordered the guard behind Theron.
The young boy’s face twisted in horror. “No! Please! I won’t cry anymore! I promise!”
His sallow master scoffed. “Maybe next time, you won’t miss your strike during your practices or cry when you meet your punishment.” He nodded to the guard. “Take him away.”
“No! Please!” Theron cried, tears dripping to the floor as the guard dragged his bruised body back to the room.
Theron jerked awake, cool with sweat but still unable to see. The memory was gone in a flash, but the scar it left remained. He was still in the room. Years upon years later. And for what?
Correlia’s face materialized in his mind, but he pushed it away. It was all her fault. She’d made him lose focus. He’d gone backward in his training. He couldn’t let himself be so selfish and sloppy.
He could never see her again, and that was that.
Slowly, Theron got up. First, by bended knee, placing his hand on his thigh and pushing himself to his feet. He grasped at the wall until he felt something that relaxed his shoulders. The doorknob was back. He could go back to his chambers.
The dim light of the labyrinth was like a bright sunrise compared to the void he’d been encased in. He slammed the door behind him and flinched at the loud noise and subsequent echoes that ricocheted down the corridor.
He heard a cry, and it jolted something in him. A flash of Thanatos’s face from back then forced itself into his mind. ‘Did that dungeon scare you, boy?’ He heard the past words of his master as he hastily bolted toward his room.‘ N-no,’ Theron had said. He remembered it as if it had just happened.
Theron tried shaking the memory out of his head and focused on the door of his chambers, which had just come into view.
‘Liar!’
He threw himself into the room and limped toward the fountain in the attached washing area. Blood pulsed in his ears, and the muscles inside his chest turned like a key cranking in a lock.
‘No, I wasn’t scared today! I was brave!'
The deity struck the boy and grabbed him by his shirt.‘Look at me!’
Theron threw water on his face and tore off his armor and undershirt. He splashed water all over his body and scrubbed his arms as hard as he could. He didn’t stop until he could no longer see the memories of his master terrorizing him and slashing at his limbs.
‘You make me sick!’
The words stung Theron like a hot iron. He kept scrubbing, but nothing was getting better. The feelings were still there. He ripped off the rest of his clothes and threw himself in the small pool next to the fountain. He sat, curled up, trying to visualize the room around him. That was a long time ago , he told himself. It’s okay. I didn’t get hurt. I have no reason to limp or wash blood off my arms.
But it felt like it had happened only moments ago. The pain was tangible.
He wanted it to stop.
Why wouldn’t it stop?
He stayed there as the hot water scalded his skin, and as the old pain made way for the new, Theron let himself scream. A loud, crescendoing roar. He didn’t care who heard. It would probably scare them anyway.
People feared him now. The guards and the demons—they feared him. He wasn’t that little boy anymore.
He wasn’t.