Ava's
POV:I didn't come out of the room for the next two days, I stayed inside. Unfortunately, there was no lock on the door. Fortunately Hayden, the mysterious guy who'd kidnapped me, knew how I didn't want to see his face.
So, he stayed away.
"The breakfast, miss." I heard the voice from the other side of the door. Pulling the sheets over me, I sat up on the bed.
The door opened and a woman came in. She was almost mom's age. From the first day, she had been coming in either with food or clothes. I had rejected both of them.
Because either time when my stomach had grumbled with hunger, I had remembered grandma's words. If this place, by any chance, was Underworld then I wasn't supposed to eat the food.
The legend said how Persephone got stuck in the Underworld just because she ate few pomegranate seeds there. She had no way out.
I
soundedsocrazy.And I missed grandma so much.
"Do you want new clothes?" Her pale skin was hard not to notice. It was paler than Hayden's, more translucent. But she seemed polite.
How
wassheevenlivinghere? DidHaydenkidnaphertoo?"No." I whispered, eyeing the tray of food. I felt like throwing up.
"You really should eat some food." She said in a small voice. As if she was scared on sharing her opinion.
"Do you know any way I could escape? Runaway from here?" I asked instead.
She gave a slow, sad smile.
"I'm sorry, miss. I can't help you on that matter."
I blinked and looked away. They were all crazy. Things like Underworld did not exist. They were just stories. Legends.
"Maybe, you can take a walk around the gardens?" She suggested. A small, strange feeling bursted in my chest. Maybe it was relief.
"There are gardens here?"
She nodded with a smile. "I'll bring you some clothes first. And then we can go to the gardens."
ו•————————••×
Once I was changed in a surprisingly soft silk dress, I was glad to leave that room. For some reason, I was looking forward to those gardens.
Maybe
thatplacewouldn'tbesocreepy.Surprisingly, my hunger seemed to fade away too. I didn't feel hungry like I should've. A normal person might've died without eating anything for days.
I didn't die.
You
arealreadydead."There are the gardens." I couldn't help but shiver at the aura around that lady. Something was definitely wrong with her. Or maybe it was just this whole place.
"Do you want me to accompany you there?" She asked before we stopped near the gates. I just shook my head which she responded with a nod.
And then I went inside.
Saying I was surprised would be an understatement. I was beyond surprised when I saw the gardens. Fresh air hit me so hard, that I found it hard to breath for a whole wide second.
The sky was still grey. I couldn't make out any hints of the sun. Maybe it was just stormy out here in this place. Below the sky, the ground was filled with roses. And tulips. And lilies. And orchids. And pansies. And irises.
But
they were all black.I couldn't help but feel a heavy feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. As if I was sick. Or going to throw up any second. Moving closer towards the nearest flower, I touched its petals lightly.
At least, it felt like a flower.
What
kindofpsychopathonlyplantsblackflowers?Deep down, I knew how this wasn't just the flowers. It was everything about this place that was dark. And dangerous. This place was strange. Not like any normal places.
Maybe
Haydenwasn'tlying.I sat down on my knees, the soft soil grazing against my bare knees. I wanted to see the sun. Any color. Whatever this place was, it was horrible. I missed my home so much.
Why
wasthishappeningtome?That's when I heard the voices. Not voices of people talking. Instead, they were hushed whispers. Hissing sounds. As if millions of people were hissing at each other angrily.
Even if that creeped me out on a whole new level, I still went towards it. Getting up, I followed the direction and found myself clinging to the fence. A dark black, old fashioned gate all around the garden. Keeping me from going out.
But the small gapes between it were enough for me to make out the view outside. And it was nowhere near a normal street. Or houses. Or forest, like I had been expecting.
Instead, all I saw was a vast deserted land down below. This palace looking house was built on a mountainous terrain. I could almost make out the stormy grey clouds in front of me.
And down below, it looked like a beach. A dull grey beach. All I could see was grey sand, millions of fragments of stones on the ground. The dark sky made it look creepier. I realized how I was right when I saw the shoreline, a little far away.
Even
thewaterlookedmurky. Dark.But that wasn't what horrified me.
The mere fact that thousands–no–millions of people were crowded near the shoreline was enough to make a gasp escape my lips. That crowd was so huge, that it was hard to focus what was actually going on there.
I tried squinting my eyes for a clearer vision, but it seemed like they were all going far away. On purpose.
A frustrated groan escaped my lips.
The hissing voices were still there. But harder to understand. I tried moving towards the other end of the fence and pressed my ear against the cold, metal.
"You
wanttoescape.""We
knowhowyoucanescape.""It's
hersoul.""He
has her.""Escape!"
I pulled back abruptly in clear shock. All those voices were mixed up together. Repeating those words again and again. As if talking to me.
That's
crazy.Nobody knew how much I wanted to escape. More importantly, what was this place? Who were those people crowded at the shoreline? What were those voices?
"The
Underworld.""He
trappedyouhere. Allforhimself!""You
needtoescape!""Foolish
mortal! Youneedtoescape!"My eyes widened in horror when I realized how I could still make out those hissing voices. My ear wasn't pressed up against that fence anymore. How the hell was I still hearing those voices?
"The
LordoftheDeadwillneverletyouescape!""He's
mean. Hewilldestroyyou!""You
needtoescape."My legs worked themselves and I found myself stepping back. This was all too much. It was freaking me out.
"We
knowthewayforyoutoescape!""Fool
himtotakeyoubacktotheEarth.""Fool
himandbetrayhim.""You
shallescape!"I covered my ears with my hands at that moment. And ran towards the doors. As if on cue, when I closed the door behind me, all I heard was silence in the long hallway.
My ears were still ringing from those voices. They had sounded so shrill and quiet at the same time. As if some silent force was screaming in my ears.
An involuntary shiver escaped down my body.
I just knew one thing.
I
neededtoescapethisplace. Thishorribleplace.Ava's POV:Two more days passed by. This time, I didn't stick around in the room that was supposed to be my room. Instead, I started visiting the library more often.It wasn't actually a library. At least not like the ones back where I lived. Tall dark shelves with thick leather bound books. That's all this place was filled with. Not a single couch. Or a chair to sit on. There was this some sort of strange vibe in that room which made me want to visit it.At least this room was better than those gardens. Or this whole dark mansion-looking palace.I did want to visit those gardens once again. Even if those flowers looked lifeless, they were still flowers. But the mere fact that I'd hear those voices again, was keeping me rooted to my spot.I had to find a way to get out of this place. And there was only one I knew. What those voices had said.I needed to persuade Hayden to take me back.Whatever this place was. Whoever he was. I needed to stay away. I couldn't help but shiver every tim
Ava's POV:Time passed by in a flash. But to be honest, I didn't even know how many days I had been trapped here. Things were the same here in Underworld. Dark grey sky in the mornings. Dark grey sky in the nights.But one thing was for sure.I had somehow died. And ended up here, in the Underworld. And Underworld really existed. And I was trapped here with the only guy I shouldn't have been trapped with. Hayden, the so called Lord of the Dead.My old self wouldn't have believed this. At all.But it was true. And for some reason, he wasn't letting me go. Unlike other dead people, I didn't see a light in a dark tunnel when I died. I didn't get to go over to my afterlife.When I died, I had still been there on earth. I remembered how I could've seen the ambulances around that forest. I had seen Will. And myself. My dead self.But then Hayden had come. And took me here. Without my permission. Something was highly wrong about that. I needed to know why he was doing this.But he wasn't tel
Ava's POV:I picked out a thick leather bound book from the shelf. Its black rough surface was covered with dust. Wiping it with my palm, I looked at the title.Senex Animarum.Once again, I felt the frustration gripping my insides. Every single book in this place was filled with a language I didn't know.I should've taken French this semester.But this language looked nowhere near French. I opened the book and looked at the worn out dust-filled pages. There were diagrams. And foreign words.Nothing made sense."Old Latin."I turned around so abruptly that the book in my hand fell down on the floor with a loud thud, making a small wince escape my lips.Unfazed by the sudden reaction, Hayden bent down and picked up the book. "You wouldn't understand the words."I took the book from his hands and sat down on the floor, my back against the hard shelf. "You know how to speak this language, don't you?"I had heard him speak some foreign language at times. And I'm sure it was the same langu
Ava's POV:"Do you know how long has it been since I died?" I asked the same maid that always came in my room to offer me new set of clothes.Which were always the same. White silk dresses."I'm afraid we don't keep track of time here, miss." She replied in her soothing yet slightly creepy voice.After all, she was dead.Like me.The more I lived here, in Underworld, the more nauseated I became of the surrounding. This was all just too creepy."Maybe you can ask Lord Hayden?" She suggested.I had somehow persuaded Hayden in the past few days, or whatever time it had been here, to show me around in the Underworld. And he had surprisingly, agreed.I could've just stayed here in my room and tried to ignore him after that little incident in the library, but I decided otherwise. I needed to gain his trust. I needed to somehow persuade him to take me back to Earth.This place scared me more than anything. And I needed my life back."Yeah." I murmured with a little nod. "I'll ask him."Later
Ava's POV:"I want you to wear this." Hayden said, looking down at the red cloth in his hand.I looked at him, confused. Yesterday, after so much of my insisting, he had agreed to take me back to my parents.Just for an hour.I was ready. More than ever. Something inside me craved so much to see my parents. My little brother. And everything I had left behind.Hayden's eyes nudged me to take the cloth. Slowly, I went towards him and found myself pulling onto the edge of the smooth red silk.I was surprised when I saw something inside it. I pulled off the cloth completely to see a delicate bracelet."Wow." Was the only word that came out of my mouth when I saw it. It looked so beautiful and...deadly at the same time.Small obsidian stones dangled from the beautifully carved silver chain. It wasn't like anything I had ever seen. And amongst the colorless surroundings, it looked so precious.And beautiful."It's for you." He added.I couldn't make myself to look up at him. Something in th
Ava's POV:I blinked, feeling sad. And angry. And so much more. My best friend was standing in front of me. And I couldn't have done anything to make her feel better. To let her know that I was here, right here, and why couldn't she just see me?Zoe left after that. And I kept standing there for I don't know how long. Judging from their conversation, it looked like I hadn't died. Probably gone off into a coma. For an entire month.I hadn't even realized how quick time passed in the Underworld.But I wasn't in the Underworld now. I was here. And I wasn't going to leave. Not this time.I was interrupted from my thoughts when the door opened again and the doctor came out. Taking that as my cue, I slipped inside my room before the door could've closed.For a whole minute, I just looked around my room. It felt so long since I had been here. My own room.My eyes traveled from the light colored walls to the glass window. And my plants on the window pane. I literally breathed out a sigh of re
Ava's POV:Coming back from the dead wasn't as easy as it sounded.You would come back, of course, you would once again be able to look at and feel the lively surroundings—see your friends and family, feel the life coursing through your veins. But no such thing came without a price.I didn't know what that price was at first. But then the hollow feeling in my chest seemed to increase and increase, slow and fast at the same time until it felt like I would burst. As if I had lost—left something back in the Underworld.As if something still remained dead inside me.My parents were beyond happy when I woke up from the month-long coma. All I could feel was happiness and relief around me when I woke up. But at the same time, I couldn't really, truly feel it.I was so happy to see Mom again. And dad. And Will. Even my best friends came to see me along with so many other people I didn’t even recognize. It was overwhelming, but in the end, I was just glad, relieved, that I wasn’t still stuck i
A few days later, I found a chance - an opening to visit my Grandma. In retrospect, I shouldn't have done that. It was an absurd thing to do especially when no one sane would’ve expected me to do something so closely related to the accident - to my near death experience, as the doctors called it. But grandma was someone I found comfort in. Her house felt like more of a home to me than the huge mansion I lived in. Grandma didn’t make me feel confined. She knew me - she really, really knew me. Mainly because my new life back at home felt as reclusive as it hadn't been before. I mean, it had been awful before but now even more.I constantly had to steer away from my mom because all she did was check on me and my health and whether I was doing okay. That would've been welcoming only if she wasn't constantly pestering me to eat and look good because her dear guests kept on coming. She wouldnt give me a chance to just breathe, to just be by myself. It was like she was scared of finding me g
The morning came too soon, the first rays of light filtering through the dark clouds that always seemed to hang over the Underworld. I lay in Hayden’s arms, my body still warm from the night before, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I allowed myself to feel at peace.Hayden’s chest rose and fell rhythmically beneath my cheek, and I could hear the steady beat of his heart. It was a sound I never wanted to stop hearing, a rhythm that had quickly become the anchor to the storm that had taken over my life.But even in this moment of tranquility, my thoughts were a tangled mess. Last night had changed things between us in ways I wasn’t even sure I could fully understand yet. The connection we had felt when we made love—it had been more than just physical. There was something deeper, something primal that bound us together now.I shifted slightly, careful not to wake him, and stared up at the ceiling of the cavern we had taken shelter in. The flickering shadows danced across
The silence after the battle with the furies clung to the air like the oppressive weight of a storm that had yet to pass. My heart still raced in my chest, and though Hayden stood before me, the sword he had wielded so fiercely was now lowered, his body stiff with tension. His eyes, sharp and blazing with that fierce protective fire, met mine. For a moment, I felt a swell of relief wash over me.But that feeling was short-lived. A dark presence still lingered, and though the furies had been driven away for now, I could feel their eyes on us from afar, watching, waiting. My body trembled, not just from fear, but from something deeper—a growing realization that no matter what, they weren’t going to stop.“Are you alright?” Hayden’s voice, though steady, held an undercurrent of tension.I nodded slowly, though I wasn’t sure if I was answering him truthfully. Physically, I was unharmed, but inside, my mind was a whirlwind. Everything that had just happened—it left me shaken. The furies ha
The air in the Underworld was different tonight. It was heavier, pressing down on my chest with every breath, as if the very atmosphere knew what was coming. Hayden and I had been hiding, waiting in this barren wasteland, but I could feel it in my bones—we were running out of time. The furies were close, closer than ever before, and the silence of this place only heightened the tension coiled within me.I hadn’t slept well. My dreams had been filled with twisted images, of flames and green-eyed creatures whispering my name. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the furies, their distorted faces grinning as they reached for me, their claws outstretched to rip me apart. I woke up several times in a cold sweat, my heart hammering against my ribs, the sense of dread lingering long after the dream had faded.But there was no time to dwell on nightmares. Not here. Not with the threat of the furies hanging over us like a storm ready to break.I sat up, pulling my blanket tighter around my shoul
The cold air hit me like a wave as we crossed through the portal, the world on the other side unfamiliar and foreboding. My chest tightened as I looked around, trying to orient myself. Nothing felt right. Everything seemed darker here, the sky an endless stretch of stormy clouds swirling above. My pulse quickened."Where are we?" I whispered, my voice barely cutting through the silence.Hayden was beside me, his hand gripping mine tightly, but his expression was distant, unreadable. He didn't answer right away. He just stood there, his body stiff, tension rolling off him in waves. I wanted to pull him closer, ask him again, but something held me back. Maybe it was the way his eyes narrowed as he scanned the landscape, or maybe it was the fear gnawing at the edges of my mind.It was like the very air here was charged with something dark, something old. I could feel it beneath my skin, a low hum that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end."It's a place in the Underworld," H
The fire between them simmered, lingering in the air long after they had pulled away. Hayden’s hands slid from Ava’s waist, but the magnetic pull remained. Ava could see it in his eyes—the unspoken desire, the fear that came with it. The battle wasn’t just against the furies; it was within themselves too. And right now, they had reached a precipice, standing at the edge of something inevitable.Ava shifted slightly, her gaze flickering toward the window where the faint glow of twilight crept through the curtains. The world outside seemed quiet, almost too quiet, as if it were holding its breath for what would come next.“They won’t stop, will they?” Ava’s voice broke the silence. She wasn’t asking a question, more so confirming the dark truth they both knew. The furies would never stop. Not until they had Hayden’s power, not until they tore them apart.Hayden’s jaw tightened as he stared into the distance. “No,” he admitted. “They’re relentless.”Ava swallowed hard. “Then we don’t hav
I paced across the room, my heart racing as the echoes of my last dream still clung to my skin. The furies. The whispered warnings, the icy grips, and the terror—they were becoming more real with every passing day. The eerie connection between me and the Underworld was no longer something I could brush aside.I glanced at my bracelet, the obsidian stones now cool against my skin. They’d stopped heating up, but the memories of their warmth haunted me. Every time they had glowed, I had felt something lurking—something close, as if the furies were watching me from the shadows, ready to strike again. And they had. More than once.Hayden hadn’t been around as much since their last confrontation, and that absence gnawed at me. I had told myself I didn’t need him to face my problems, that I could handle it all alone. But the truth was, she missed him—missed the way he seemed to ground me when the world spun out of control.A soft knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. I knew who it was ev
My mother's relentless pursuit of a marriage arrangement had reached a fevered pitch, and I found myself trapped in a web of expectations and obligations that threatened to smother me. The rich family boy she had chosen as my prospective groom came from a background as opulent as our own, and the alliance was deemed advantageous for our family business.It was an arrangement my mother had been working on diligently, convinced that it would offer me stability and security after the harrowing near-death experience that had marked my life. Her intentions were well-meaning, but the weight of her expectations pressed down on me, making me feel like a pawn in a game I had no desire to play.The news of this impending marriage was a suffocating revelation, and I couldn't bear the thought of a life mapped out for me, devoid of choice and autonomy. Panic gripped my heart, and I knew I needed an escape from the stifling confines of my world.I had heard about a crowded bar on the outskirts of t
It was a warm summer evening, and my mother had spared no expense to celebrate my birthday. The grand ballroom of our mansion was adorned with opulent decorations, and the chandeliers cast a soft, golden glow over the elegantly dressed guests. The air was filled with laughter, clinking glasses, and the hum of conversations as the well-dressed crowd mingled.The party was a lavish affair, a spectacle designed to showcase our family's status and wealth. My mother had invited an array of influential people, and the mansion's gardens were transformed into a wonderland of twinkling lights, flower arrangements, and tables laden with gourmet delights.Despite the grandeur of the celebration, I found myself retreating from the crowd, excusing myself with a polite smile and a promise to return shortly. The truth was, I felt like a mere observer in this extravagant display. The faces around me were familiar but distant, and the smiles and well-wishes only served to remind me of the enigmatic wo
It had been a few days since the chilling encounter at the charity event by the lake. The events of that night had left me shaken, and I couldn't shake the feeling that a sinister force was closing in on me. The bracelet with its obsidian stones and the enigmatic connection to the Underworld had become a heavy burden I carried, and I found myself longing for a sense of normalcy.On a quiet afternoon, my grandmother came to visit with an air of unease about her. Her normally cheerful demeanor had been replaced by a sense of foreboding. She had been having troubling dreams, she told me, dreams that were filled with darkness and whispered warnings. Her charms and divinations, passed down through generations, were telling her that something ominous loomed over our family, and, most importantly, over me."Darling," she said, her eyes searching mine with concern, "something is amiss. The charms have been restless, and the dreams have been haunting me. Have you noticed anything unusual? Have