I tried to brush off what Dr. Stavros said, telling myself it was just nerves, too much coffee, or maybe the cave dust. Whatever it was, I didn't want to think about it anymore.
So, we kept moving.
The six of us walked behind the narrow beams of our helmet lights, pressing forward into the long stone hallway. With each step, a feeling of claustrophobia wrapped tighter around me, the dust sticking to the back of my throat like gritty ash. Our boots disturbed the ancient carpet of dust, each step unleashing tiny clouds that smacked of cold earth and age. The soft echoes of our footfalls bounced between the walls, amplifying our isolation. The air hung heavy, laden with the scent of minerals and a tang of incense, deepening the feeling of our surroundings. The deeper we went, the more it felt as if time itself had paused, leaving us stranded in a forgotten era, igniting a quiet resolve in me to uncover whatever secrets lay ahead.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber. I stopped dead in my tracks, heart thudding as my breath caught in my throat.
"Holy—" Ethan's voice broke the silence. "You seeing this?"
Yeah. I was seeing it. My hands tightened around the flashlight. I couldn't look away.
The room was huge, a round cavern supported by stone columns. In the middle stood six massive statues around a raised platform. The gods and goddesses looked larger than life in our flashlight beams. Zeus held his thunderbolt up. Poseidon's trident seemed to slice the air. Hades, carved from darker, worn stone, looked sad, as if the sculptor were afraid. Hera, Demeter, and Hestia completed the circle, all staring inward. My knees went weak, a shiver running through me. The air felt heavy, and I had to swallow hard as the scene's power pressed down on me. In that moment, an unexpected memory of my mother's stories surged forth, tales of ancient powers both breathtaking and terrible. I realized how quickly awe could turn into fear, how fragile the boundary was between reverence and horror in the face of such monumental gods.
All around the chamber, the walls were covered in carvings. There were hundreds, each one a scene frozen in motion.
Marcus whistled low. "These carvings are… old. Like old-old."
Rosalia had already lifted her disposable camera, snapping pictures, her voice low and reverent. "This is insane. They said it was the 'Tomb of the Gods,' but this—this is a whole damn civilization in stone."
I walked closer to one of the walls, my flashlight sweeping across the carved panels. The detail was astonishing.
One panel showed six figures fighting a huge, crowned titan; Cronus swallowed his children, then was overthrown. Another depicted them battling Typhon, a monster with serpent wings, jagged scales, and stormy tendrils. These stories had always echoed in my family, passed down as if they were part of our blood. My grandfather used to hint at a special lineage in his fireside stories, often invoking the name of an ancestor, Theodorus, who supposedly wielded a shield crafted by the gods themselves. There were tales of wars, floods, blazing suns, heroes rising and falling—every myth I'd studied, now mingling with family secrets and promises that were never kept.
"This is…" I whispered, "History written by the gods themselves."
I turned, my light catching something tucked away near the back of the room. Almost hidden in shadow.
It was another statue—smaller than the others, set apart, not one of the Olympians. It had wings, chipped and eroded by time, arched over its shoulders. It held a long, carved stone slab in one hand.
I stepped closer.
The writing wasn't Greek or Sumerian. I had never seen anything like it. As I stared at the strange, curved letters, something shifted. I felt a prickling behind my eyes, like a door opening in my mind. My heart pounded. Somehow, I could read it. The meaning filled my mind, as if something was helping me understand. Maybe there was more to my family's old stories about an ancient bloodline—stories my grandfather used to tell at family gatherings. I remembered lying in bed at night, listening to cicadas outside and my grandfather's soft voice. He would whisper about long-lost relatives with strange powers and warn about what our family carried. Back then, I thought he was just telling stories to entertain me. But now, his words echoed in my mind, making me wonder if there was some truth to them.
"The gods believed themselves eternal, beyond death, beyond decay.
They were warned, and yet they did not listen.
When the Great Devourer came, it took all their might to cast it away beyond the stars.
Two thousand years they bought for mortals, giving them time to grow and prepare.
And when they perished, they sealed their memories in the Genesis,
A crystal of their divine breath, that mankind might ascend before the end."
My breath caught. I blinked, struggling to process what I'd just read, pulse pounding louder than ever.
No way.
It was nonsense. Just another ancient apocalyptic story. Every culture had one: the flood, the end times, Ragnarok. Maybe it had something to do with the pranks my brother used to play, like the time he convinced me our town was cursed, only for it to be a clever trick. Surely, this was just another tale spun to frighten the gullible.
Still, it felt different. Too specific. Too deliberate. My stomach twisted in unease, a chill tightening at the back of my neck.
"Hey," Ethan's voice cut in, "you good, man? You're just standing there, staring at nothing."
I turned. "Nothing? The winged statue, the slab—don't you see them?"
Rosalia frowned. "What statue?"
I looked back.
Empty space. Just a bare stone wall.
"I… what the hell…" I muttered, shaking my head. "Never mind."
"Bro," Ethan laughed. "You sure you didn't inhale some ancient god dust or something?"
"Shut up," I muttered. "I'm fine."
Trying to distract myself, I looked at the center where the six statues stood. My light caught something shimmering, a faint glow hanging in the middle of the circle. A soft, steady sound echoed through the chamber, like water dripping deep underground. I paused, my breath catching as Ethan moved forward, his steps echoing ominously in the stillness. The sound grew stronger with each footstep, like a heartbeat pulsing in the stone, building an unsettling cadence that wound around us. Marcus squinted and asked, "What is that?" The sound intensified, now a deep, rhythmic thrum, matching the beat of my racing heart. It looked like a crystal, floating just above the platform. Its surface shifted through gold, violet, blue, and white, each color bleeding into the next. A chill ran down my spine, and I tensed up, barely able to breathe.
"That's gotta be the Genesis," I whispered before I could stop myself.
"The what?" Ethan asked.
"Nothing— just don't—"
Too late. Ethan grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Finders keepers, man. I'm grabbing it before the professors get here."
"Ethan, no!" I reached out, but he was already climbing. His boots scraped against marble as he stepped on Zeus's shoulder and Poseidon's trident like it was a jungle gym.
"Ethan, get down!" Rosalia yelled.
"Relax!" he laughed, reaching out a hand. "It's just a rock—"
For a second, absolute silence fell, a moment that stretched out into infinity. The air held its breath, and even the persistent drip that had accompanied us seemed to pause. Then, the moment was shattered. The moment his fingers touched the crystal, the air seemed to scream. A bright, unnatural emerald-green light rippled through the chamber, clashing with a deep, thunderous hum. For a second, a strange beauty mixed with the chaos, making the shock even greater. Then the light burst outward, flooding the room with blinding brightness.
"ETHAN!"
The crystal pulsed once, then twice, and then shattered.
A wave of energy tore through the room. The blast flung me backward. I hit the ground hard, my ribs aching, as dust and fragments rained down and statues cracked and collapsed.
I gasped, struggling to breathe. My vision blurred. Something sharp burned in my chest. When I looked down, I saw a piece of the crystal stuck in me, glowing softly. Panic and pain hit me at once, and I let out a cry I barely recognized. My hand shook as I reached for Ethan, my closest friend. His face, always so full of life, was now still and cold. As I bent over him, a faint whiff of aftershave—citrus and rosemary, a scent I had always associated with Ethan—cut through the dust and blood. It lingered like a ghost, filling my senses with a bittersweet memory of mornings spent joking in front of his bathroom mirror. I hesitated, my fingers just above his skin, torn between love and disbelief. Even as reality crashed over me, I couldn't let go. I gently closed his eyes and whispered goodbye, my heart breaking.
"What the hell—"
Before I could move, a second wave of energy rolled over us, burning hot and cold at the same time. I heard Rosalia scream. Marcus shouted something, and then there was nothing but ringing silence.
I blinked through tears, through dust and haze, my mind struggling to make sense of the chaos.
"Ethan?"
No answer.
I staggered to my knees. The world tilted and spun. My friends—all five of them—lay scattered across the ground. Their cameras, notebooks, and helmets were cracked open like broken relics. Helplessness clawed up my throat.
"Ethan!" I crawled toward him. His skin was pale, faintly glowing from within, veins lit, as if lightning pulsed through them.
"No… no, no, no—"
I pressed my hands to his chest, shaking him as I tried to do compressions and check his heartbeat and breathing. To my horror, I could feel them both start to slow down. "Come on! Wake up!"
Nothing.
Marcus. Daphne. Cassandra. Rosalia.
All the same, their bodies were faintly glowing as the light began to fade.
I screamed for help, my voice cracking, echoing against the stone until it faded. Chest heaving, throat raw, desperation turned to hopelessness.
And then something happened.
A voice answered, with a cold edge that made it sound... rough.
"He shouldn't have touched the Genesis."
I froze. My breath hitched, heart hammering. The voice was deep, resonant, vibrating through the air itself, making my skin crawl.
"It is a surprise that his body, or any of the others, didn't fully combust from the direct contact with the divine energy."
A figure stood among the ruins, tall and draped in black and gold robes that shimmered in the dim light. His hair was dark as obsidian, streaked with a figure that stood among the ruins, tall and dressed in black and gold robes that shimmered in the dim light. His hair was dark with silver streaks, and his beard was neatly trimmed. He stood straight and looked powerful, like a noble, even though he seemed old. What unsettled me most was that his body wasn't solid. There was a soft glow around him, his form almost see-through, fading away near his legs like a ghost. Hear and understand me?"
I swallowed hard, nodding slowly.
The faintest smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. A dry, humorless laugh escaped him. "Ha. How interesting! A mortal who can understand the language of the gods! You are quite different than your friends."
I blinked, heart hammering. "Different? What are you talking about?"
The man looked past me, his eyes on the shattered remains of the statues and the ruins of the gods. His expression grew darker. A flicker of nostalgia softened his gaze, perhaps recalling the golden age when Olympus thrummed with life and the laughter of gods filled the air. So this is what remains of Olympus…
I followed his gaze, still shaking. "You're— you're not real. You're some… projection, a hologram, or—"
"I do not know what those are. I am Hades, the King of the Underworld."
The name hit me like a thunderclap.
I laughed, because what else could I do? "Hades. Right. Sure. The god of the Underworld. Great cosplay, man. Where'd you come from, the afterlife gift shop?"
But he didn't smile. He only studied me, like I was something that shouldn't exist.
"You're mortal. And yet, you still breathe after being pierced by divinity itself." He gestured to the glowing shard still embedded in my chest. "How?"
"I don't know—" I coughed, tasting iron. Blood splattered the floor.
He frowned. "Hmm. Not for long, it seems."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"That shard embedded in your chest is burning inside you, completely burning away your mortal body," he said simply. "It's a wonder you're still conscious."
I pressed a hand to my chest, grimacing. The pain was sharp now, like molten glass burning under my ribs.
"I don't— understand—"
Hades sighed, rubbing his temple. "You mortals," Hades sighed, rubbing his temple. "You mortals always mess with things you don't understand. The Genesis crystal was the last piece of our kind—a vessel for divine memory. It was never meant to be touched." Above us, stone cracked and dust drifted down. The ground trembled, reminding us how fragile this place was. He paused, lost in thought as rocks shifted around us. "Back when Olympus was young, the gods knew their power would fade. To save their wisdom for the future, they made the Genesis from the breath of the first dawn, binding it with the whispers of time." A deep rumble shook the chamber. "It was both a record of our victories and a shield against chaos. Only gods could unlock its secrets, but now it's been touched by mortals." The temple seemed to sigh, the stones warning us of the end. reach it?"
I nodded weakly.
"Then his death was instant," Hades said quietly. "The Genesis does not tolerate greed."
"Shut up," I snapped, trembling. "You're lying. This isn't real. It's some hallucination— I hit my head or—"
"The Great Devourer," he interrupted, eyes narrowing. "Do your people still prepare for it?"
I blinked as I recognized that name from earlier. "The what?"
He stared at me, disbelieving. "The Devourer. The Eldritch one that consumes worlds. We sacrificed everything to cast it beyond the stars, bought you mortals two thousand years to prepare. You've done nothing?"
I don't even know what that is! The echo of his words surrounded me, each beat of my heart pulsing with a growing sense of urgency. Thoughts raced through my mind, tangled with fear and a creeping realization.
Could I simply run and abandon this madness, or was there a chance, a burning obligation, to stand and fight? Was I nothing more than a coward afraid to confront the end, or did I possess the courage to face our doom head-on?
I looked up, meeting Hades' gaze, my voice trembling yet determined. "What happens if I walk away? What if I decide not to fight? What becomes of the world then?"
For a moment, Hades remained silent, his expression grave. "If the Devourer is not stopped, if no one carries on the fight, all that you know will cease to exist. The world will fall into oblivion, swallowed by chaos. Eventually, even memories will fade, lost to the void forever."
A shiver ran down my spine as his words settled over me, the weight of the choice pressing down harder than before.
He cursed, the sound sharp and ancient, echoing like thunder. "Malaka! You idiots have condemned yourselves to death, and there is no afterlife awaiting you."
A sudden chill swept the temple. My breath fogged in the air. The light from our lamps flickered and dimmed, shadows stretching and writhing along the walls.
Hades stiffened. "It seems that he nears this world; soon it shall become nothing more than ruins left behind as he seeks another world filled with life."
"What— who?"
"The Devourer, keep up."
The ground began to shake. Dust fell from the ceiling. Somewhere in the distance, stone cracked like thunder. The shadows grew thicker, jagged, crawling up the pillars like living things.
"Wait, you're a god, right? Can't you stop it?" I gasped, my lungs still burning from the explosion, the shards of Genesis glowing faintly in my chest. My friends lay scattered around me, unmoving, looking almost holy, almost desecrated. The light from our helmets flickered, and shadows crawled across the walls like liquid black.
"I am but a memory," he said bitterly. His voice echoed in the cavern like the rumble of distant mountains. "A fragment bound to that crystal. My original body has long returned to the void. The divinity is gone, dispersed. All that remains is a fraction, a whisper."
I felt the ground shake under me again. The walls cracked. Dust rained down.
I coughed. "Then—then why are you still here?"
Hades turned his gaze toward me, eyes like molten coal flickering in eternal shadows. "Perhaps… not all of it perished."
"What… what do you mean?"
He stepped closer, and the air seemed to thicken. A cold, impossible weight pressed down on me. I could feel the shard in my chest react to him. First, there was a faint pulse, then a surge of energy that made the hairs on my arms stand up.
"You still breathe, mortal. The Genesis shard inside you burns with pieces of my divinity," he said, his words heavy. "But it can be tempered if I act now. However, this power comes at a cost. A memory once cherished will fade with every beat of your heart, or a sensation dear may slip away, forever lost."
As his words sank in, a distant memory tugged at the edges of my mind. I recalled our family gatherings in the old summer house, laughter resonating through the halls. My grandfather, with his soft voice and mesmerizing stories, always held a captive audience in the warm glow of the fireplace. Among those tales, the lingering scent of cinnamon from his apple pies and the soothing sound of waves crashing against the shore painted a vivid picture of happiness and comfort. I feared this was what would slip away, a piece of my soul that I clung to unknowingly, anchoring me to my past.
"What do you mean, 'act'?!" My voice cracked as the temple shook and a dark, swirling wind whipped around us. The shadows on the walls grew jagged and restless. Eyes blinked open in the darkness, fangs glinting, claws scraping the stone. The chamber groaned, and my stomach went cold.
Hades raised a hand. The air rippled around it, shimmering with light I couldn't process. He touched the shard lodged in my chest, and I screamed as a torrent of icy fire, pure divine energy, coursed through me. My vision fragmented, white-hot flashes exploding behind my eyes, and my body felt like it was being torn apart and rewritten at the same time.
"Forgive me," he said. His voice was both everywhere and nowhere, echoing in my skull. "But if the world is to survive… one of us must return."
The chamber shook as if the world itself were fracturing. The ground quaked violently, fissures zigzagging across the stone floor. The statues of the gods—Aphrodite, Ares, Athena—shattered under the force, marble cracking and splintering, fragments flying like hail.
And then I saw it.
From deep below the temple, from the very bedrock beneath Mount Olympus, black tendrils of corruption spilled upward. It was alive, writhing, spreading faster than any liquid could flow. It hissed as it moved, thick and viscous, streaked with crimson glimmers that pulsed like veins. The air reeked of sulfur and decay, heavy and metallic.
The Great Devourer.
It wasn't subtle. Its hunger radiated outward, a force so vast I could feel it tearing at the edges of the planet itself. The marble walls around us seemed small and helpless as the corruption licked at their surfaces, dissolving stone and fresco alike. The temple trembled and groaned as if mourning its own death.
I looked at my friends.
They lay still. Ethan, Marcus, Daphne, Rosalia, Cassandra—bodies crumpled in lifeless heaps. No glow. No shimmering veins of light. Dead. My stomach dropped, and for a heartbeat I couldn't breathe.
Something moved in the darkness beneath the corruption. Jagged shapes rose from the black ooze, dripping with coagulated blood, shadows writhing independently of the walls. Hundreds of eyes blinked open in the void, teeth gnashing, claws scraping against the stone. My throat closed.
"What… what are they?" I whispered.
Hades' voice cut through the chaos, calm yet cold. "Ghouls. They are fragments of the Devourer's hunger, its will made flesh. They consume everything—even this temple. You would not survive if you touched them unprepared."
The shapes surged toward us, writhing and snapping. The floor shivered beneath their weight. Marble statues tumbled, walls cracked and blackened, ancient frescoes liquefying as the corruption licked at the pigments. Columns crumbled into dust, and even the remains of the gods' statues fractured under the Devourer's presence, their faces lost forever.
I pressed my hands to my face, desperate. "My friends… I can't—"
"You cannot save them," Hades said, hand still burning inside my chest. "Their lives have been claimed by this. They are gone."
"No…" I shook my head, staggering back. My legs trembled. "I can't leave them. I—"
Hades' eyes fixed on me. "Do not worry, I believe that one day you will see them again," he said, his tone knowing, a hint of something enigmatic and hopeful in his gaze. I felt a flicker of something deep within me, a connection, a promise unspoken yet reaching through the void.
The black tendrils of corruption surged higher, cracking the ceiling. The entire temple seemed to tilt, groaning, threatening to collapse into itself. I watched, paralyzed, as the ghouls rose from the ooze, snapping at empty air where my friends had fallen.
"I… I don't understand," I said, choking back tears. "How… what are they?"
Hades' lips curled slightly, almost sad. "They are the Devourer's parasites, damn ghouls. Everything it touches, it twists. Soon, the planet itself will bleed into this black. These… these creatures will keep coming until all that remains is void."
The chamber shook again. Dust and large rubble of stone and marble rained down. I wanted to run to my friends, to reach them, to save something—but their bodies were gone in a way that made my heart ache. Lifeless, empty, consumed.
Hades' hand lifted from my chest. The runes hovered in the air, pulsing with light and shadow. His other hand traced sigils through the darkness. "The Genesis shard is the vessel of all fragments of Olympus," he explained, voice calm, almost tender in the madness of the chaos. "Through it, I tie their lives, your soul, and mine together. You will carry what I cannot, mortal. You will be the instrument of change. The Devourer will not wait, and neither can we."
The ghouls surged. Fleshy, malformed creatures, some with gnashing fangs, multiple blinking eyes, jagged claws tearing at the air, lungs gurgling blood, tried to penetrate the barrier around my friends. I could hear Hades mutter something like a prayer, ancient Greek or perhaps older, and a faint dome of shimmering energy flickered in front of them, repelling the creatures.
"They are… strong," I croaked. "But… they're breaking through!"
Hades' eyes glowed with a terrifying light. "They are ugly, annoying, persistent… but mortal cleverness combined with divine sigils is enough. Just long enough."
My chest burned. The shard inside me screamed. My vision blurred, and the cavern walls twisted into jagged shapes. Somehow, I could see the world outside, as if through an impossible window. Cities burned, oceans boiled, mountains fell. The sky tore open as black, snake-like shadows swept across the land, devouring everything. The Devourer had arrived.
"I… I can't do this," I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "I'm not you!"
You are now, he said, his voice both thunder and whisper. But you are yourself. That is the power. That is the choice. Become the god you want to be. You do not have to become me, so make your own choices.
A heavy weight pressed down on me as his words echoed in my mind. Every part of me wanted to run from this nightmare, but something inside pulled me to stay. Not enough, not enough. Doubt ate at me, questioning if I was strong enough to handle the responsibility placed upon me. Memories of my friends and their laughter ached in my chest. Yet beneath the fear, there was a spark of hope, a stubborn belief that change was possible. This wasn't just about surviving or fate; it was about deciding who I wanted to be and what I would stand for, even in the face of impossibility. As the divine energy pulsed once more, a single drop of blood traced its way down my fingertip, gleaming in the shard's glow, as if echoing the heartbeat of a world on the brink—a fleeting vulnerability against the cosmic power set before us. The energy pulsed again. My friends flickered, their forms twisting as if the divine fire within them was being pulled toward the runes now circling me. I felt a strange sensation, cold and burning and infinite, climbing my spine and filling me with a power that was not mine and yet somehow was.
The ghouls screamed, lunging at the barrier. Hades muttered curses, his figure starting to blur, almost see-through, as he poured the last of his fragmentary divinity into the runes. The barrier flared violently, and the ghouls shrieked in agony, clawing at it with every ounce of their jagged forms.
I felt the corruption creep over my hands, my chest, and my face. But there was no pain, only a heavy, inevitable pull, as if the universe itself was rewriting me. I closed my eyes, holding the shard in my chest, ready for whatever came next.
The last thing I heard before the world dissolved into white-hot nothing was Hades' whisper:
"Please... protect our family."
The light swallowed everything. For a moment, as the brightness surrounded me, I saw a single drop of blood shining on my fingertip, reflecting the shard's strange glow. It hung in the air like a crystal, then disappeared into the endless light.