"You certainly are a sleepy little thing, aren't you?"

A groggy Persephone slowly opened her eyes only to find that the act gained her little; there was hardly any light to let her see her surroundings. The acrid stench of decaying flesh hung heavy in the air, and as the goddess recovered her bearings, her hand reflexively shot up to cover her nose. The act elicited a round of biting laughter from a figure she could not see, and she inclined her head in the direction whence it came.

"Who's there?" she asked. "Don't come near me. I-I am the daughter of Zeus!"

"Are you, now?" said the figure. The rattling of chains offered a hint about his sad predicament. "I am here by his decree, oddly enough, but I have since found, as you will, that the name of the King of the Gods has no power here.” He let out a heavy sigh. "Oh, how I long for his noble mercy."

Persephone sat up and rested against her hand. As her eyes began to adjust, she was able to make out the faint glimmer of metal binding flesh. "Who are you?" she asked, and scooted nearer to the voice. The figure that owned it smirked in the dark.

"I am Sisyphus," he said, "a former king of men, unjustly consigned to suffer imprisonment here in the land of the evil dead."

"Evil dead?" Persephone repeated, now squinting into the darkness. She got to her feet slowly, flinching at every little sound her movements made in anticipation of some unseen predator's assault. No such attack came, however, and she crept toward the voice with great caution.

Soon, she could see the man more clearly: dressed in ostentatious garb now worn and torn by the ravages of time, his frail form hanging limp against the chains that bound him to a great stone. Though he appeared haggard and weary, there was still a brightness in his eyes that the goddess found rather disarming.

"Am I-" she began, but she faltered. "Is this-" again, her voice caught in her throat. Sisyphus chuckled and threw back his head, but it fell quickly when the motion failed, as always, to give his neck any relief.

"Tartarus, my dear," he announced. "Refusing to name the place will make the reality no less harsh. Welcome to the dwelling of those whom justice has abandoned. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but obviously, there is no pleasure here."

"There is no pleasure anywhere in the Underworld," said Persephone as she adopted a child's exaggerated frown. "I can't imagine why we allow such a vile place to exist."

"We?” Stricken by a feigned epiphany, Sisyphus expressed awe in his features. "Ah, I see now. It is no wonder you walk these lands so freely. You are of Olympus!” He bowed his head emphatically. His whole form seemed to sag. "Oh please, oh please, great goddess. Take pity on this poor and pitiful soul!"

"What do you want?"

"The same thing you want: freedom. Though my eyes are not given light to see, I can sense in your bearing the demeanor of one cruelly snatched from your rightful place. Such is a fate I share. So quickly and mercilessly was I taken that my beloved was not even given time to prepare me a grave.” Sisyphus shuddered against the stone. "Agh! Even now, I can feel my bones rotting bare in the dirt! It only compounds my anguish."

"How horrible," breathed Persephone. "Even after all the tales I’ve heard, I never imagined that Hades’ cruelty could go so far. What has he to gain from your suffering?"

"Nothing more than amusement," spat Sisyphus. "But you, sweet child of Olympus. You can be my salvation. Even in the unceasing corruption of this barren waste, the holy gods have power."

"They do?"

"You do."

Persephone gazed down at her delicate and pristine palms, which still quivered from the fear and cold. Power? For her? The notion was entirely foreign and, if her mother was to be believed, entirely absurd.

Power was for matrons and warriors and regents, she’d learned, and she was not, nor would she ever be any of those things. She was the Spring and life, the daughter of nature and the king of kings. They had power on her behalf. It was her lot in life to rejoice, to know pleasure, to shine bright in their name.

And yet, as she stared at her fragile fingers in the darkness, she found the thought of power rather sweeter than idle pleasure. Sisyphus saw that seed and seized on it, his silver tongue delivering honey to her heart.

"Prove your power," he tempted, squirming once more against his bonds. "Claim this victory over Hades’ evil will. Free this poor soul from his poor fate, that I might at least be granted leave to beseech my dear widow for a proper burial. A man has a right to a proper burial, does he not?"

"He does," spoke Persephone, her conviction increasing by the moment. "Yes. He well and truly does."

"Oh great goddess, you are truly of the seed of Justice. Bring justice to this place where evil has reigned for far too long. Bless me with freedom and strike a blow against he who would see you wilt in this all-consuming darkness."

"I will. I will!” Hesitating no longer, the goddess strode forward with her brow furrowed and her chest tight with burning indignation. Hands formed to create sought destruction for the first time, taking hold of the glimmering chains and tugging with ferocity that none above could have expected of the sweet, gentle Kore.

Persephone grunted and groaned, straining to deliver the release she had promised. She felt the unearthly steel warm against her flesh, and as her struggle intensified, the darkness of Tartarus was visited by ethereal light. The glowing chains revealed more clearly than ever the worn and weary face of Sisyphus, and as he stared at Spring’s squinting eyes, he abandoned his polite visage for the predatory stare that defined his true character.

"That’s it," he whispered. "You are so close! Justice at last!"

She gave a great heave, and the chains snapped. Persephone tumbled backwards onto the cold, slimy ground, a sharp cry escaping her on impact. Sisyphus fell onto all fours and quickly pushed himself over to roll away from the stone to which he’d long been bound.

"I’ve done it," Persephone breathed. "I’ve done it!"

"You surely have.” Sisyphus pushed himself to his feet and flashed a crooked grin. He took one extra step back for good measure while the true fruit of Persephone’s victory presented itself in the form of a cold grip around her ankle.

The goddess pushed up onto her elbows in a hurry and looked down to see a portion of the very chains she’d just broken now coiling about her leg. She gasped and whined before frantically pushing away, but she reacted too late to save herself from the advancing bonds that moved like snakes over the stone.

They took her other leg and one of her arms in short order, dragging her toward the great boulder despite her struggling. Against her heavenly flesh, they took to shining with an infernal light that burned as it constricted.

"Why!?" she cried desperately, thrashing and flailing against the persistent chains. "What is this?!"

"This is Tartarus, my dear," answered Sisyphus, all the while struggling not to break into a fit of giggles. "And, as I said, there is no pleasure here. Not even the pleasure of victory. Unless, of course, that victory is mine.” A sinister smirk settled over his features, and he stepped farther away from the struggling goddess.

"Don’t leave me!" she begged. By then, the chains had come to hold her fast against the stone as they had once held Sisyphus, sliding ceaselessly over her to tighten and tighten, to torture her with pressure and heat. Bitter tears dripped copiously from her dirtied face. Sisyphus turned to look upon her with a frown, but where she hoped to see pity, there was only disgust.

"You surely are a Goddess of Olympus," he observed, "but you are quite as surely the most pathetic goddess I have ever known. At least take solace in the knowledge that you are no less gullible than the others. I outwitted Thanatos himself with nearly the same deception. Immortality must give rise to rather dull minds. I shall have to be mindful of that."

"You snake!" cried the goddess as her terror mingled with impotent rage. "I pitied you! You cannot abandon me here! You wouldn’t dare!"

"Presuming to know what we mortals would and would not dare to do is a key factor in the gullibility of the gods. I would dare to do anything that will ensure my survival. To the cunning and the powerful, there is nothing more important."

He showed her his filthy smile once more. "You now have your eternity to think on that," he concluded. "I will spend mine acting on it."

He wasted no more time, spinning on his heel and sprinting off to seek what would be his second escape from that pit which the gods thought so secure. "Wait!” Persephone called helplessly. "Please!” Her cries fell on deaf ears. Before long, he had gone and left her there with the shadows.

He left her there, but he did not leave her alone. The light from the chains made her aware of that. They shone through the darkness to let her see what no mortal in Tartarus ever could: the suffering of others there imprisoned.

She saw the man who struggled desperately after the water at his feet and the fruit above his head, all of which receded from his grasp each time he moved to seize them.

She saw the once great overlord whose severed limbs tugged themselves relentlessly across the barren wastes, never to rejoin the battered body that rolled pitifully after them.

She saw the flaming wheel that burned an endless path through the darkness and the covetous king bound to suffer its vicious flames forever.

She saw beings large and small, sapient and savage, those that meted out evil unto the prisoners of Tartarus and those doomed to suffer that evil for eternity. The sights and sounds burned themselves into her very soul as the chains burned into her flesh, and the fragile goddess shut her eyes to block the visions out and to hold back the wellspring of tears that threatened to spill forth until her eyes were dry as the dust.

Three days.

She’d spent so long trapped in Hades’ morbid palace, where light seemed to exist only to accentuate the darkness. She’d spent months enduring his presence--his placid stare, his cold touch, the unholy rattle of his booming voice--and she’d fled him certain that she could endure no more. They would have come for her in three days and save her from that torment. Hermes had brought the message, and with all her heart, she’d hoped it true.

There in the darkness, her hopes turned to ash, for she felt certain that no one would dare to look for her here. Broken, weary, and full to bursting with grief, she unleashed one last pained cry to join the din of wails and sighs that never ceased to resonate throughout the cavernous halls of the Underworld. She drooped and withered like a winter bud to begin her eternity of weeping quiet tears in the dark.