Chapter Text
Very slowly, she woke up.
She felt as if she were inside a cocoon. A cocoon that was too tight, too cold, too silent. Where was she? The question floated for a moment in her still-hazy mind, without finding an answer. Gradually, the sensation changed. It was no longer a cocoon. It was a cold room. A room without walls, without a bed, without anything else but this constant pressure that wrapped around her from every side.
She tried to move.
A strange mass prevented her, as if she were stuck in still-fresh cement. Everything around her was cold. A coldness that did not come only from the outside, but that seemed to live inside her own skin. What could she possibly be doing here? Her memory failed her. The memories slipped, blurred, incomplete, like images seen through dirty water.
She tried to move her fingers.
Her knuckles met a grainy resistance. She felt the matter crush and mold itself between her hands. Earth. She was sure of it now. Cold, damp earth that seeped under her nails and clung to her skin.
Suddenly, her thoughts stopped.
Earth?
Was she going to die?
Panic began slowly, like a small flame at the bottom of her chest. What if someone had buried her alive? The idea struck her full force. She abruptly came back to herself. She did not want to end up asphyxiated under tons of earth. Not like this. Not without understanding.
This earth was truly cold. A heavy, damp coldness that clung to the skin and seeped under the nails. It pressed from every side, as if the entire world were trying to keep her buried, to silence her, to make her disappear.
She opened her mouth to scream.
No sound came out.
Instead, earth rushed between her lips, grainy and bitter. She coughed, choked, felt the taste of dust and something more ancient, almost sweet, fill her throat. She pushed with one knee. Her arms beat against the darkness. Something soft and living slid against her cheek — a petal, perhaps. Or a root. Who had taken the care to bury her like this under the earth? she wondered, panic rising another notch.
The only thing she remembered was a phone.
Then the bluish light of the screen in the darkness of her room. The words scrolling. Percy. Apollo. A story she had reread too many times since the end of her semester at college. The sentences had mixed together in her head, the scenes too. She had fallen asleep on it, her cheek stuck to the pillow, drool at the corner of her lips. She vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of the night, wiping her mouth with an awkward gesture, then… her head spinning. The floor that was no longer the floor. A dull pain in her chest, as if something were being torn from the inside. A sharp white noise that had replaced everything.
Then, nothing.
Now, she was suffocating.
Her fingers finally found a hold. A root. She pulled. Tiny thorns sank into her palm. She moaned in pain and bit her lip until it bled. The coppery taste mixed with that of the earth. She pulled harder. The earth gave way with a soft, almost indecent sound.
Air.
But it was not the usual air. Not the air of her room, nor that of the street, nor the air she was used to breathing on the surface. It was a heavy, sweet, almost metallic air that burned her throat as it entered. She hauled herself out of the ground, gasping, on all fours, her arms trembling. Clumps of black earth slid from her shoulders and fell softly around her.
Her long black kinky hair was heavy and soaked. It clung to her face and back like a second skin. She ran a hand through it out of reflex and felt under her fingers thick curls, still damp, as if she had just come out of the water. Or from a womb.
She had no clothes. Or rather, she did: a sort of thin, almost transparent fabric stuck to her dark skin by the moisture. It looked like a Greek garment, a chiton far too light to hide anything. She could make out the shapes of her own body through the cloth, and a sudden unease knotted her stomach. She was not supposed to be like this. Not supposed to be… naked under a fabric that barely hid anything. She sighed, uncomfortable, but did not care about it just yet.
Her eyes opened wide.
The sky was not a sky.
It stretched above her in tones of deep gray and dying violet, without sun, without moon, only a diffuse clarity that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Around her, flowers. Hundreds. Thousands. Pale asphodels with straight stems, corollas of an almost white pink that glowed faintly in the dimness, others darker still, of an almost black purple. They grew directly from the earth she had just emerged from, as if they had accompanied her in her rising, as if they had been waiting for her.
She got to her knees, then straightened up, staggering. Her legs barely held her. She raised her hands in front of her face.
Brown skin. Smooth. Intact.
Eyes… she could not see them, but something flickered at the edge of her vision, a pale pink glow, like a diamond held against the light. This was not her body. Or rather, yes. It was hers now. And that thought alone was enough to make her nauseous. Suddenly, a silhouette detached itself from between the flowers. A woman. Tall. Beautiful with a beauty that hurt to look at for too long. Her skin had the matte softness of fertile earth, her hair fell in dark cascades speckled with living flowers. She wore a simple dress the color of ripe pomegranate, and her eyes… her eyes held both spring and winter.
She stepped back one step. Then another.
Her bare feet sank into the soft earth, and the cold contact sent a shiver up to the nape of her neck. She did not take her eyes off the woman. Every detail imposed itself on her with an almost painful clarity: the way the flowers seemed to lean slightly toward her, the pale light that slid over her matte skin, the pomegranate-colored dress that barely moved, as if the air itself did not dare touch her.
“Who… who are you?”
Her voice was hoarse, foreign. She did not recognize it. It sounded too deep, too broken, as if it belonged to someone else. Someone who had just been born and had already screamed too much.
The woman did not answer right away. She only tilted her head, an almost tender gesture. Her dark hair, speckled with small living flowers, slid over her shoulder. A petal detached itself and fell slowly, without ever reaching the ground — it simply vanished into a fine luminous dust.
She felt her heart race.
This was not normal. Nothing about this was normal. The air was too heavy, too sweet, with that metallic taste that remained stuck at the back of her throat. The flowers around her continued to glow faintly, as if they were breathing. And this woman… this woman was looking at her with a gentleness that was more frightening than any threat.
I am in my room.
The thought rose, sharp, desperate.
I am in my room. It is night. My phone is next to me. The screen is still on on the last page. Percy. Apollo. My eyes are burning because I have read too much. I am just going to turn over and fall back asleep.
But her feet were bare. The earth was cold. Her hair, heavy and soaked, clung to her back and shoulders. She ran a hand over her face out of reflex and felt the smooth, warm, different skin. Not hers. Or rather, yes. Hers now. And that idea alone made her want to vomit. She stepped back again.
The woman took a step forward, very slowly, the way one approaches a wounded animal.
She shook her head.
“Don’t… don’t come near me.”
Her voice was trembling. She had the impression that the words were breaking before they even came out. Her hands searched for something to hold on to — a branch, a wall, anything — but there were only soft stems and petals that crushed under her fingers.
The silence of this place was not a true silence. There was a constant, almost imperceptible murmur: the rustling of the flowers, the distant breath of something vast, the dull beating of the earth under her feet. And in the middle of all that, the woman’s gaze.
A gaze that knew.
A gaze that had already seen thousands of souls arrive, lost, terrified, and that waited patiently for the panic to pass.
But she was not ready for it to pass.
The memories were crowding now, sharper, crueller. The blue light of the phone in the dark. The taste of toothpaste she had not taken the time to rinse. The sensation of the sheet a little too warm against her leg. The drool at the corner of her mouth. The exact moment she had sat up, her head spinning, the floor giving way. The pain in her chest. That sharp white noise that had filled everything.
Then nothing. Until now.
Until this cold earth, these glowing flowers, and this woman who was looking at her as if she already belonged to her.
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
The woman finally opened her mouth. Her voice, when it came, was soft, low, almost singing. It had nothing threatening about it. On the contrary. It was enveloping, warm, like a hand placed on a feverish cheek.
“You are already home, Corelianna.”
That was the sentence that made everything collapse. The panic did not arrive gently. It did not rise by degrees. It struck her full force, like an icy wave crashing down on a body already on its knees. She felt the air leave her lungs in a single breath. Her vision blurred. A dull buzzing filled her ears. Her knees gave way. She staggered, nearly collapsed onto the flowers, then, in a purely animal reflex, she spun on her heels so fast she almost fell face-first into the ground. The flowers crushed under her bare feet.
Pale pink petals stuck to her damp skin. Stems broke with a soft sound. She ran without direction, without goal, driven only by the desperate need to get away. To flee that gaze. That voice. That earth that had vomited her up and that now seemed to want to take her back.
This is not real.
This is not real.
This is not real.
The words spun in a loop in her head, faster and faster, louder and louder, until they became a silent scream that tore at her chest from the inside. She repeated them like a prayer, like a spell, as if saying them loudly enough could bring the real world back. Her room. Her bed. The blue light of her phone. The familiar smell of her pillow. Anything. Anywhere. Just not here.
Her lungs burned.
The air of the Underworld was too heavy, too thick, too sweet. Each breath gave her the impression of swallowing honey mixed with ash. Her feet slipped on the soft earth. Several times she nearly lost her balance. The stems of the asphodels whipped her legs, leaving small pinkish marks on her dark skin. She could no longer see anything clearly. Only patches of pale pink and shadow dancing before her eyes. And somewhere behind her — she could feel it without needing to turn around — the calm silhouette of the woman who was not even chasing her.
Because she did not need to chase her.
Because she was already a prisoner.
That thought struck her in full flight and nearly made her stop dead. Prisoner. The word resonated too loudly. She had no chains on her wrists. No walls around her. And yet she knew. Deep down, she knew that no matter which direction she ran, she would stay here. In this sunless sky. On this earth that had brought her into the world. Under the gaze of this woman who had called her “my angel” in a voice too soft to be honest.
Dry sobs shook her chest. She was not really crying. She did not have the strength. Her tears remained stuck somewhere between her throat and her eyes, burning. She kept running. Her heavy, soaked hair slapped against her back. The transparent chiton clung to her skin, hindering her with every movement. She was cold. She was hot. She was afraid. A fear so vast she could no longer even name it.
I want to go home.
I just want to go home.
Please.
The sentence would not come out. It stayed stuck behind her clenched teeth. Her feet kept moving, more and more clumsy, more and more heavy. The flowers stretched as far as the eye could see. Always the same ones. Always these pale asphodels, these pinkish corollas, these patches of almost black purple. As if the entire world were made only of that. Of earth. Of flowers. And of that voice that continued to resonate in her head.
''You are already home, my angel.'' the woman said.
She clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms. She did not want this home. She did not want this angel. She wanted her bed. Her phone. The sound of the street at night. The smell of coffee in the morning. She wanted to be real. Not… this. Not this thing that had just come out of the earth, covered in petals and soil, with eyes that were not hers and skin that no longer truly belonged to her. She was still running.
But already, her strength was beginning to leave her. And behind her, invisible but present, the woman waited. Patient. As if she had all the time in the world.
She did not know where she was going.
The flowers crushed under her bare feet with a dull, damp sound. Petals stuck to her skin, stems broke releasing a sweetish, earthy smell. The earth was soft, sometimes too soft, as if it might open again and swallow her whole. With every step, she had the impression that the ground hesitated, that it weighed the pros and cons before letting her move forward.
She ran while repeating the same words in her head, over and over, like a desperate litany:
I am in my room.
I was reading.
I fell asleep.
This is not real.
I want to go home.
The sentences spun in a loop, faster and faster, more and more desperate. Her breath broke into irregular hiccups. Dry sobs shook her chest without the tears truly wanting to come out. She could no longer see anything clearly. Only patches of pale light dancing between the stems, and the shifting darkness that stretched on every side. Her soaked hair slapped against her back. The transparent chiton clung to her thighs and stomach, hindering her with every stride. She had the impression of being both too heavy and too light, as if her body no longer truly belonged to gravity.
Then something passed near her.
It was not a sound. It was a presence. A transparent shape, too long, too thin, that slid into her field of vision like a trail of cold smoke. A face without eyes. A mouth open on an absolute silence, deeper than any scream. The ghost brushed her. She felt an icy cold pass through her skin, as if something had tried to tear the warmth from inside her.
She let out a piercing scream.
The sound tore her throat. She swerved sharply to the right, stumbled over a root, and the ground disappeared under her right foot.
Black water.
The Lethe.
The river stretched right there, wide and silent, of a matte blackness that had nothing liquid about it. It was not water. It was something else. An immobile, opaque surface that absorbed light and sound. She felt the edge crumble under her weight. The earth collapsed in silence. Her body tipped forward. For a fraction of a second that lasted an eternity, she saw her own inverted reflection in that absolute blackness — pale pink eyes too large, a face frozen in terror — and she knew, with an icy certainty, that if she touched that surface, she would never come back.
A force pulled her backward.
No.
Not a force.
A push coming from below.
The earth split with a dull sound. An enormous stem, thick as a tree trunk, shot up beneath her in an explosion of petals and earth. A flower opened in a crown, wide, immense, of a pink so pale it became almost white under the strange light of the Underworld. The petals were fleshy, velvety, warm. They partially closed around her in a fluid, protective movement, lifting her in a single surge far from the edge of the river.
She found herself on her knees in the center of the corolla, her hands convulsively gripping the petals. Her heart was beating so hard she thought she could hear it resonating outside her chest. She was trembling with her whole body. Silent sobs shook her shoulders. She did not dare move. She did not even dare breathe too hard, afraid the flower would close completely or, worse, that it would let her fall back down.
Two silhouettes now stood at the edge of the water.
The woman from earlier.
And a man at her side.
He was tall, dark, wrapped in a shadow that seemed to belong to him alone. His gaze was ancient. Not old. Ancient. As if he had seen the first day and was patiently waiting for the last. Hades. She knew it without knowing how. The name imposed itself in her mind with the same evidence as the earth under her knees.
The ghost had disappeared.
Or rather, it had been sent away with a simple gesture of the man’s hand. A minimal, almost nonchalant movement, and the icy presence had dissipated like smoke.
Persephone approached the flower. Her steps made no sound. She placed a hand on the edge of the corolla, and it tilted gently, with an almost living obedience, setting her down on the ground without the slightest roughness. The petals remained open for a moment, like an outstretched hand, before slowly closing in on themselves.
“Gentle,” she said.
Her voice was still just as soft. Still just as singing. But now that she was on her knees in the cold earth, her heart beating fit to burst, that gentleness frightened her almost as much as the black river behind her.
She raised her head.
Persephone was looking at her.
Hades too.
And for the first time since she had opened her eyes in this earth, she understood that she would not be able to run away.
Not this time.
Not from here.
She backed away on her knees, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso as if to keep her body from coming apart. Her soaked hair clung to her face and the nape of her neck, heavy, cold, foreign. She was trembling with her whole body. Not only from fear. From exhaustion. From something vaster, more ancient, that did not yet have a name.
“I… I want to go home.”
The sentence came out broken, almost inaudible. Her voice was no longer her own. It sounded too young, too broken, too new.
Persephone knelt in front of her, at a respectful distance. Close enough to be present, far enough not to smother her. Hades remained a little aside, silent, but his attention never left the young girl. His gaze was heavy, ancient, and yet there was no cruelty in it. Only a sort of infinite patience, as if he had already seen this scene thousands of times and knew exactly how it would end.
“You have just been born,” Persephone said softly. “You are still a child. A child of this realm.”
She shook her head violently. The damp strands slapped against her cheeks.
“No. No, I am not… my name is…”
The name did not come.
It was there, somewhere, just behind her lips. She could feel it. She could almost taste it. But when she tried to form it, it sounded wrong. Like a piece of clothing too small forced onto a body that had already changed. Like an old photograph whose outlines had faded. She opened her mouth a second time, then a third. Nothing. Only a strange emptiness, an empty place where her old name should have been.
Her eyes filled with a mute horror.
Persephone held out a hand, without touching her yet. Her palm was turned toward the sky, open, patient.
“I know you are afraid. I know everything seems impossible to you. But you are here. And you were born from here. The earth carried you. The flowers accompanied you. You belong to me as much as you belong to yourself.”
The words sank into her like roots. Slowly. Inexorably. She wanted to reject them, deny them, spit them out. But a part of her — a brand-new, still fragile part — already knew they were true. She felt it in the way the earth answered her weight. In the way the flowers around her seemed to lean slightly toward her. In the way her own tears, when they fell, made something grow.
Hades spoke for the first time.
His voice was low, deep, almost gentle despite its depth. It carried the weight of centuries, and yet it did not crush.
“The river would have taken your memories. You were lucky.”
She lowered her eyes to her own hands.
Bown skin.
Smooth.
Intact.
Clean, slightly pinkish nails. Small grains of earth still stuck to the joints, like memories she could not shake off. She touched a strand of hair that fell over her shoulder. Curly. Heavy. Still damp. She slid it between her fingers, over and over, as if the contact could give her back something familiar.
Nothing came.
She began to cry.
Not loud sobs. Not screams. Just silent tears that slid down her cheeks, one by one, and fell onto the petals of the flower still open behind her. Each drop made a new tiny shoot grow, of an almost translucent pale pink. The stems rose in silence, fragile, determined, as if her tears themselves refused to die without leaving something behind.
Persephone watched her do it. A barely perceptible smile brushed her lips. Not a smile of triumph. Not a smile of pity. Just… of recognition. As if she were finally seeing the proof of what she already knew.
“Come,” she said at last.
“You need to rest. And to understand. We have all the time.”
She stood up slowly and held out her hand. Her palm remained open, steady, without impatience.
She hesitated for a long time.
Her fingers trembled. She looked at the outstretched hand, then at the black river behind her, then at her own knees covered in earth and petals. A part of her — the part that still remembered a phone, a bed, a finished semester — wanted to refuse. Wanted to get up and run again, even if she knew her legs would no longer carry her.
But another part, smaller, more tired, more true, knew she had nowhere else to go.
Slowly, very slowly, she raised her hand.
nHer trembling fingers met Persephone’s. The goddess’s skin was warm, almost hot, and of an impossible softness. She felt something loosen very slightly in her chest. Not peace. Not yet. Just… a little less pure terror.
She let herself be helped to her feet.
The flower behind them closed in a murmur of petals, like a sigh. The small shoots born from her tears remained upright for a moment, then gently inclined toward the ground, as if to greet her.
And the Lethe continued to flow, black and silent, as if it had never almost taken her.
As if it were already waiting for the next soul.