Page 24 of The Stars

He stepped forward, his feet carrying him down into the middle of the theater. His footsteps echoed as he approached the center of the stage. By the time he made it there, the sun was hanging high in the sky, casting long shadows across the empty stone seats.

He stood silent for a moment, the calm seas at his back, the high mountain peak hovering ahead of him. Dante had never felt more isolated. Endless questions flooded his mind.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, a soft breeze brushing against his skin, and for a moment he could almost hear whispers. Voices from another time, or maybe another world.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for whatever was to come next.

“What are you doing here,” a deep voice boomed so loudly that the ground shook, “out-of-time cop?” The last was a hiss.

Dante opened his eyes and blinked, his heart racing as he took in the sight of a towering figure before him.

There, in front of him, blocking out the view of the mountain, stood a giant. Like, for real. The man was more than three hundred feet tall. His skin was bronzed, and chiseled as though carved from the same marble as the ancient temples around them. He held a massive trident with an odd live creature wrapped around the staff. Both man and creature looked at him, waiting for an answer.

The giant—Prometheus, he realized—loomed over him, his voice vibrating through the stones beneath Dante’s feet.

“What in the…” Dante took a few steps back.

“Epimetheus?” The giant’s eyes narrowed slightly when Dante spoke. Then Prometheus smiled and a burst of laughter shook the ground once more. “Brother, I did not recognize you.”

He shrank to human size, though the force of his presence didn’t diminish. Now the oppressive weight of his gaze felt more personal, more pointed.

“Brother?” Dante repeated, his mind spinning. He felt disconnected, caught between this ancient world and his memories. “I’m not… I’m not…” It dawned on him then that the townspeople had called him Epimetheus, who was indeed Prometheus’s brother. “Epimetheus,” he finished quietly.

Prometheus, now standing at Dante’s height, chuckled darkly. “You wear his face, and his essence clings to you like smoke. You may not be Epimetheus in mind, but in soul... you are him, whether you know it or not.”

Dante opened his mouth to protest, but Prometheus waved him off, his movements graceful for someone who had once been a hulking giant. “It matters little. Names change. Faces change. But the roles remain the same. You are here for her, are you not?” His voice softened.

Dante frowned. “Her? Pandora?”

Prometheus’s eyes darkened, his smile fading into something more dangerous. He stepped closer, his face inches from Dante’s now. “Do you know what it is you are about to do?”

Dante swallowed hard but didn’t back down. “I’m supposed to find her. To wake her.”

“To wake her?” Prometheus’s laugh was harsh, filled with something more than mere amusement. “Brother, you are playing with forces you cannot comprehend. Pandora must remain asleep. If she wakes, only ruin will follow. No one can stop what comes next.”

Dante shook his head. “But I thought⁠—”

“Thought what?” Prometheus snapped, cutting him off. “That you would find her and everything would be well? That you, together, can save the world? No, brother, it is not that simple. Pandora’s slumber is the last barrier between the world you know and utter chaos. She is more than a woman, more than a story—she is a force. And forces like her should never be unleashed.”

“But Brea, Hope, they told me I had to save her,” Dante said, his voice cracking with uncertainty.

“Hope.” Prometheus spat the name like venom. “You mean Elpis.” His eyes narrowed again. “Elpis, like so many others, believes too easily in the promise of redemption. But you, you must understand—this is not about saving Pandora. It is about keeping her locked away. She carries the weight of destruction. If she wakes, the world as you know it will burn. It will collapse under the weight of her burden. It always has.”

“What burden?” he asked, wondering if he wanted to know the answer.

“To save all.” Prometheus sighed.

Dante’s throat tightened. His mind reeled as he tried to piece together the puzzle. “But if she’s asleep, doesn’t that mean everyone dies anyway?”

Prometheus looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “There are those who still believe in redemption. They think they can control the uncontrollable. That they can fix what was broken so long ago. But I am telling you, brother—Pandora is not the solution. She is the end. The end to you. To all of us.”

Dante felt a wave of doubt wash over him. “So what do I do?”

Prometheus took a step back, his eyes flashing with warning. “You let her sleep. You turn away from the path they’ve set for you. If you wake her, you will unleash not only her curse but the fury of some of the gods. They will not forgive. They will not show mercy. In time, they will come for her and you.”

Dante clenched his fists at his sides. “But what if she’s the only way to stop this? What if I don’t have a choice?”

Prometheus’s gaze softened, but the danger in his voice remained. “There is always a choice, brother. Always. You can choose to leave her in peace, to let the world keep its fragile balance. Or you can wake her and watch everything crumble around you. The rest of the gods will not intervene. They will only watch as the chaos unfolds.”