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She wasn’t a bad person. She was not. She loved her friends, she helped strangers, she looked after a cat.
She wasn't evil, or vicious, or cruel.
Or maybe she was. Because good people didn’t cause massacres.
It wasn’t her fault. She just saw those humans devouring a temple and everything after that was like she only saw it through the smoke. The memories were there but they also weren't. She was herself, but she also mostly wasn't.
When she woke up it was to find out she was about to go to hell.
She didn't try to resist. What sense was in that? The fates have decided her destiny, and if it was to burn until the end of the times, so it be.
Hermes lead her, but familiar face didn’t make it easier. He was mourning her even though she wasn't dead yet. She could see it in the set of his lips, in the crease between his eyebrows that he tried to cover with the usual chatter, which didn't really work out as well as usual.
There were a lot of things that were worse than death. Being an immortal wasn’t always a blessing. Sometimes it was a curse.
It was a curse if you were about to spend the rest of eternity under the tortures no mortal man of woman could imagine.
They went down.
It tore her heart to leave the world of green and life to step into the internal darkness.
Well, it's not like those people she killed appreciated saying goodbye to their lives. It was a fitting punishment.
Only this wasn't her punishment, was it? That was yet to come.
She was met by a somber looking man and led through the whole realm. People around her cowered from her, avoiding her eyes.
Was her fate so bad it scared even the ghosts?
Even those whose time to be happy and sad and scared had passed?
The Underworld was like nothing she had ever seen. It was dark and cold and there wasn't even a hint of greenery anywhere in it.
It was all black and gray and brown, with splashes of ruby-red and emerald-green wherever the gems laid.
It shone with the pale glow of the shadows, with the burning eyes of the monsters, with an enticing light of the faraway stars.
It was magnificent in its own frightening beauty. It was terrific in a grotesque way.
She went past Elysium, the islands of heroes and saints.
She went past Tartarus, where the remnants of the creatures older than gods laid.
She went past Tantalum and she went past Sisyphus. She didn't want to think about the fact that her last stay would be somewhere between them, a demonstration of the Ruler of the Underworld's creativity.
She then stood in front of the Throne. The man on it, the god on it, was like his world. Dark and eerie and beautiful.
His voice was deep and low, and even then he managed to grab the attention of everyone in the Palace and everyone in this whole realm.
"Welcome Persephone, the Bringer of Death. Welcome to my realm. I look forward to ruling with you on my side."