Hades drifted in the dark between heartbeats, the weight of the dead pressing against him like an ocean trying to claim its own. The throne room had become a memory—stone walls dissolving into endless fields of black flowers that whispered secrets in voices he almost recognized. Persephone walked beside him there, barefoot through the blooms, her hand brushing his like she used to when the world was younger and kinder.
"You've held them long enough," she said, voice soft as spring rain on parched earth. "Let some go, my love. The cage is killing you."
He tried to answer, but the souls surged again, drowning her words in a roar of grief and rage. A mother's final scream. A child's unanswered prayer. The last breath of a warrior who died believing his gods had abandoned him. Hades staggered, shadows bleeding from his form in ragged strips. The green light in his chest flared brighter, fighting back, but every pulse cost him another piece of himself.
