Proserpine

My mother always said that when I eventually succumbed to the call of death, I’d go straight to hell. She also thought I’d never die, its the spiteful ones that live the longest. It was a point she made almost religiously.

I never really took her seriously. I’ve been an atheist since before I can remember. She was a devout catholic, who honestly thought that the invisible God of the universe, the same God that sent his son to die for us, would smite us for eating bacon on a Friday.

Since she passed I’ve been eating all the bacon I can on Fridays, just in case she’s right, so I don’t end up in the same realm with her. I’m honestly unsure if I can handle an eternity with that woman. I mean she’s nuts. Apparently when she was 8 months pregnant with me, an angel appeared to her in a dream and told her my name should be "Proserpine" but my mom had no idea what that meant, so she named me the next best thing, Persephone.

Persephone Durnam.

"What’s up, Persephone?" It was my boss, Teddy. The general manager of the Chili’s that hired me as a waitress. He sounded like black guy from the Jersey shore, but his complexion was white. He has big brown eyes and the prettiest smile, and he’s so oblivious. Oblivious to the level that he doesn’t even realize I like him. I picked up table 34’s order and noticed one of the orders was wrong. I sent it back to the kitchen for a remake. As I went to explain to the customer that it would be a few extra minutes, I saw a man in a black hoodie walk through the front door, and He was wielding a Gun.

I calmly went to the front to greet him. I thought maybe if I just got him seated and got him food, things might shift to the safe side again. As I approached him, he shot three rounds into my chest, and continued walking towards the bar. I assume he got the money because a few minutes later, he ran out the door. The searing pain in my left side was almost immediately too much for me, the moment he was gone, and I fell unconscious.

The next thing I knew, there was a dark figure standing next to me with a scythe.

"Are you here to harvest my soul?" I asked, genuinely curious. "What? No. This old thing? No. You have the choice to stay or go, but I need this to protect you from the monsters on the way."

"Monsters?" I began to wonder if someone had drugged me with a hallucinogenic.

"Yes, monsters." His voice was gentle and he sounded old and frail. He swept my dark hair behind my ears. I finally found the courage to look up and realized that he had no face. He was a skeleton in a cloak made of darkness. I began to contemplate how on earth he could talk with no vocal cords.

He spoke again, and this time I realized he didn’t even use his facial bones to speak. “So are you coming with me? Or do you wish to stay here?”

I pondered that for a moment, but anything was better than my life.

“I think I’ll stay with you” he cocked his head to the side, I think he was confused.

“That’s a first”

His cloak swallowed him whole.

“As you wish”

he grabbed my hand and we began to fly in some unknown path and pattern.

"So where are we going?"

"To hell of course, for your coronation, my queen.”