Ch. 002: Waking Up as Hades
I gasped as my eyes flew open, air filling my lungs as though I’d just surfaced from the depths of some dark, endless ocean. A faint glow filtered through a narrow window, casting shadows across the room, each one strange and unfamiliar. For a moment, I lay frozen, gripped by an uneasy silence. I wasn’t dead anymore— that much I knew. And yet…
I was in a body. A real, solid body. I could feel its weight pressing into the bed beneath me. But it was different from before— stronger, sturdier, powerful in a way that made me feel like I’d been reborn in stone. Eager to confirm what I was beginning to suspect, I sat up, and the sheets slipped off, revealing skin so smooth it looked untouched by time or pain.
I blinked, half-expecting to wake again, to find this was nothing but a delusion. Yet there I stood, my reflection staring back at me from a tall mirror across the room. The sight was breathtaking— no, chilling. My frame was tall, muscular, and radiating an unnatural vitality. Skin smooth as marble, faint scars around the edges of my chest, and hair a deep, mesmerizing blue. I reached up, fingers brushing over the hard contours of my face, my brows drawn low. Even in this dim light, there was no mistaking it.
Hades?
That cursed name echoed through me, and a thrill of something— apprehension? Awe?— curdled in my veins. I tried to smile, but Hades’ face seemed locked in a perpetual, brooding scowl. Fitting, I thought, for the ruler of the underworld. But a shiver raced down my spine as I tested the voice that would now be mine.
“How… interesting.” The words came out low, rough carrying a peculiar depth as if dredged up from the depths of the Underworld itself. It almost unnerved me.
“Am I really Hades?” The question whispered into the silence, as if I needed confirmation from the dark itself. I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the slow, steady heartbeat beneath. This body was perfect— powerful, eerily similar to a human’s yet entirely foreign, a form sculpted for something far beyond mortal whims. This wasn’t the soft, worn vessel I’d left behind. No, this was divine, forged for something ancient and fierce.
Just as the weight of that realization began to sink in, a bright flash burst through the window. It flickered in the darkness, illuminating a part of the room. Curiosity stirred within me, and I moved to the window, yanking back the curtain with bated breath.
Outside, a sprawling city stretched into the distance, towers clawing toward the sky like skeletal fingers. But this wasn’t the Underworld I’d known— not the dark, silent realm of the dead, its rivers sluggish with forgotten souls. No, this was bustling, glimmering with lights, flashing signs, and winding roads.
And there, blazing in enormous letters: WELCOME TO THE UNDERWORLD YOU UNLUCKY SOULS. PLEASE IDENTIFY YOUR TIME OF DEATH TO RECEIVE THE BEST POSSIBLE TREATMENT!
I froze, heart pounding as the city pulsed with life, a strange energy. This was not the bleak kingdom I’d always pictured. This place was alive, modern— a metropolitan maze of skyscrapers, spas, and resorts. Where was the River Styx, the deathly stillness, the ancient silence that should have wrapped the Underworld in its chilling embrace? The agony of souls, the cries of the damned?
I felt my hands tense on the windowsill as an unsettling thought unfurled within me: Was everything I knew a lie? The stories, the myths I’d read all my life— was it all some clever illusion? Was this— this urban labyrinth— what the Underworld truly was?
I pulled back from the window, the room cold with my growing unease. I’d prided myself on my knowledge of the gods, on the history of the Underworld and its inhabitants, but now all of it felt hollow. I’d woken up as Hades, only to find myself a stranger in his own realm.
A sharp, metallic ringing broke the silence, jolting me out of my spiraling thoughts. I turned and, to my astonishment, saw a small, ticking alarm clock perched by the bed.
“An alarm clock?” I muttered. The gods had never created such devices? This was technology— something crafted by mortal hands. I let out a low, hollow laugh. “What kind of twisted Olympus is this?”
The thought gnawed at me, sharper than any blade. I had clawed my way back to life as Hades, god of the Underworld, yet I awoke to find myself in a world of mortal contraptions. Had my years of study been rendered useless? Was this some kind of joke?
Just then, a sharp knock cut through the silence, echoing like a threat. I turned to the door where the sound had come from. I didn’t know who or what lay beyond that door.
I thought Hades would be living alone so this was somewhat unexpected.
There was another knock, followed by a voice, smooth and deceptively calm. “Come on, open up! It’s me— Hermes!”
Hermes? The name stirred something in my gut, a flicker of irritation so strong that it didn’t feel like my own. Hades’ feelings of him seemed to course through my very veins.
A hollow dread washed over me as I realized, I would have to interact with the gods I read about and this was just the beginning.
I wonder if I should rehearse my routine.
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