A Day in Hades

Gillian reimann

 

Billowing out behind him in great sweeps like a raven’s wing, Hades’ cloak heralds his descent from the dark gates of his palace into the rest of his domain. Echoes of guttural, primordial snarling follows in his wake as Cerberus watches from his post, all three heads homed in on the fading shape of its master.

 

Fields of Asphodel

 

Mist rolls along the dewy graying grass clinging to the ankles of wandering shades, their translucent forms contrasted against the rise of the veiled sun. Constant, they mill about the fields, peaceful and monotonous. Tracing a pathway along the haze, his hawk-like gaze pierces through the shades as he strides, their fading pasts as traders and farmers pale in the face of the Lord of the Underworld as he passes.

 

Elysian Fields

 

Crystalline, shattered light upon the raised dais, a chalice full to the brim with golden wine, a rich reward at the end of a long journey. Raucous laughter fills the marble halls as heroes and heroines engage in orgiastic displays. Silence falls amongst the revelers, the shadow of Hades’ presence darkening their heroic light, as Hector and Achilles bow their heads before him in deference and fear.

 

Tartarus

 

Hills and feasts and hellfire swirl around a blackened pit, an open maw, full of tormented screams, mortal and immortal alike joined together— molded into perpetual damnation. A smirk appears on his pale face, lips tight in mockery as the screams of his uncles and father mingled with the dredges of humanity, Sisyphus and Tantalus harmonizing with Kronos.

 

Turning on his heel, the edges of his cloak brush against the void waters of the Styx as he boards Charon’s boat, and heads back to his palace, back to his wife Persephone and her floral embrace, spirits bowing before his passing form.

 

It’s good to be king.

 

 

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Gillian Reimann is a passionate writer with a background in both fantasy and memoir writing. With a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing from Pacific University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Saint Mary’s College of California, she has experience with both the academic worlds of writing and the real world of fanfiction and other mediums.