Risa had counted to nearly three hundred before she lost count again, the darkness and differing sizes of the stair splitting her focus between too many things. When she started again, a number for each step, the world above was already disappearing behind the walls of the abyss.

It’s all a dream, she told herself with each count. It’s all a dream. It would have been a good dream, one of forbidden love and midnight trysts, the kind of dream that left her longing to fall back asleep in the morning. Her heart would race with adrenaline in excitement, not in fear as it was doing now.

Of course, that kind of dream was just that— a dream. In reality, it was a nightmare. She looked down over the edge of the precipice to her side and felt her heart drop to the bottom; he was waiting, and the sweetness of those five pomegranate seeds promised a bitterness in her future.

She clung tighter to the wall and wondered yet again why she was even there. Her village was small; it was safe, nestled into a small valley between the wild forests and the mountains, in such a place where it should have been plagued with dangers from all sides, wild beasts and wild men alike.Yet it was safe, and it was all thanks to one particular God.

Risa began to count her steps again, not wanting to think any further about her home; tears were stinging at her eyes and now was not the time to cry. Unconsciously, she reached a hand behind her, feeling her heart settle as Ravi grasped.

“Keep moving.”

The dark, shrouded spirits that were guiding them floated around on either side, both ethereal and and solid in appearance. Their edges were, difficult to distinguish, and Risa found herself slightly ill from looking at them too long. They didn’t need to stay on the narrow stone steps either, but took to the air as though they owned it.

It was they who brought the pomegranate seeds.

Risa let go of Ravi’s hand and continued on, step by step by step. Surely they wouldn’t go all the way to the underworld like this? The dark guides hadn’t been rushing them— too much—  but walking all the way to the underworld seemed like a little too much. Especially when the route they were taking involved small slippery stairs edged into a cliff face.

Still, if she fell an died, it wouldn’t change where she was going, only why. “Are you sure I need to go?” she finally said, even though she knew the answer already and that it was completely unfair of her to make Ravi say it.

“I’m sure,” he responded, but his voice was dry. “You did agree, after all.”

He had put her through more trouble than she could imagine and saved her more times than she could count, but she could always trust Ravi to tell her the truth, even if it was bitter. She winced a bit as he said it, but couldn’t bring herself to look at him. When the spirits had come, the night before last, and told her what her choices were…

Risa was to be the next Persephone, to inherit the title and burden that would lead to her home and family’s safety. Eat the six seeds presented, and become Hades’ for six months of the year. In exchange, he would protect the valley, protect her people, until she died or Hades grew bored of her. Risa hadn’t dared to breath, hadn’t dared to do anything other than say yes. She knew what happened to people who said no.

“You agreed, too,” she whispered.

Ravi had been there when she was offered the seeds. He was there when she ate them. His face had crossed her mind as she ate the first seed; her parents came with the next, her older sister with the third, a myriad of extended family for the fourth, countless friends on the fifth.

“Well,” Ravi mumbled, with sudden embarrassment, “I wasn’t letting you go alone.”

As she reached for the last seed, fingers trembling with the dread of finality, Ravi had launched forward and taken the seed for himself, swallowing it before either she or the spirits presenting them could take action. No one dared to act against the King of the Underworld in such a manner. Risa remembered the taste of the seeds souring in as she realized what he had done. And so they were sent to the underworld together, one to be a bride and another to die by her husbands’ hands.

She began to count again. Step by step, continuously going down and down. Ravi stuck close behind her, putting a comforting hand on her elbow to remind her that she wasn’t alone. The minimal light, filtering down from above, was the only thing keeping either of them from falling, but some part of her wished it would just blow out like a candle.

The last girl who had been sent to be the Persephone had gone only three years ago, a shockingly short time; it always happened suddenly, but it wasn’t unusual for decades to pass before someone else was chosen. Three years was shockingly short, especially since the girl who had been sent— her name was Emily— had only come back for one one day.

Risa had been told that it wasn’t unusual for the girls to go home less and less as time passed; the first few years they spend every second of their alloted six months in the village, but after that they slowly stopped coming.  Risa had never heard of the Persephone before Emily coming back at all, though she would have been old at the time, and when Emily had come back for her short time the first year Risa hadn’t been able to see her. No one expected her to disappear just the following year, or for the spirits to come looking for a new bride for Hades only two years after that. It did not bode well for Risa, and she knew it.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost didn’t realize that she was no longer walking down stairs. She stopped suddenly, looking around and trying to see in the dim light just as Ravi walked into her back. “Watch where you’re going,” Risa jokingly snapped, her usual persona sliding out naturally with him even in this situation.

“Ya, I wasn’t the one who just stopped. Do you want me to fall down— down there?” He responded nervously as he looked over the edge; even after enough stairs to make her legs burn, she couldn’t see the bottom.

“But the stairs are gone…” She responded. The path seemed to turn; to the right? Into the wall?

“Please enter.”

The voice of one of the spirits caused them both to jump a little in surprise; it felt like ages since they had heard them, and in the darkness Risa had completely forgotten they were there. She looked at them once again, and then shook her head; was it her, or did they seem more solid now than they did before? “Enter what?” Ravi murmured in annoyance, running his hand across the smooth stone next to you. “If they expect me to jump—” He froze, and Risa watched in shock as the tips of his fingers disappeared into the stone.

“Oh hell,” Ravi whispered as he pulled his hand back, not seeming to realize the irony in his words. Risa looked at the wall in shock— it looked like a wall— and then back to Ravi.

“Does it hurt?” She grabbed his hand and looked it over, but there was nothing wrong with it besides the few scars that had been there since they were children. Ravi was looking at it with the same interest, though his eyes were wide with panic.

“No?” he answered slowly, as though he didn’t quite believe it. Risa let him go and turned back to the wall, aware of the spirits waiting behind them.

She moved to the left a step, then the right, but the wall still appeared unchanged. Eating the pomegranate seed had taken more courage than this would, she was sure, and so she mustered what little motivation she had left and took a step forward, right into the stone.