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As she pushed herself up into a standing position, Persephone felt a bolt of power rush through her. It was painful, causing her to double over and try inhale a deep breath.
“Devon is pushing himself to the brink of death to bring you back. You need to make your choice soon,” Hecate stated, grabbing Persephone’s hands.
“I thought I couldn’t die,” Persephone whispered, gritting her teeth as she pushed through the pain.
“Yet here you are. Anyway, you are not dead. All immortals seriously injured are given this option.” Hecate stated. “Your choice to return to him or return to Chaos. Only you can make this decision, but if you don’t make it soon, Devon will be joining us.”
Persephone felt the mark on her arm burn as the skeletal form of the serpent became something almost alive, writhing and curling itself tightly around her wrist.
Devon. She felt Devon through the serpent.
As she looked up into Hecate’s moonlight eyes, she whispered her choice.
She had promised Devon she would never leave, and she hated to lie.
***
West stood in the doorway of the fish market, gripping the frame with white knuckles after the first aftershock. He had hoped that was the whole of the earthquake.
The street he had just been walking on was destroyed. Cracks and fissures everywhere, buildings reduced to piles of bricks and rubble.
A sudden wave of people, panicked and terrified, ran past the door of the shop he was standing in. They attempted to avoid the cracks in the asphalt, but their fear made them mindless, causing many to stumble and be trampled by those behind them.
Running out into the street, he pushed against the tide of panicking people to see for himself what was happening. It took him a moment to realize they were running from the sea. Far longer to accept what he was seeing with his own eyes.
The water line was receding rapidly away from the docks. Fish flopped on the empty seabed, the water having moved too fast for the fish to find safety. Ships along the dock hit the ocean floor, the water gone and building up further out.
A tsunami was imminent and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Halcyon was going to be under water in a matter of minutes.
He felt his heart rate pick up from a fear he had never felt before.
“Get to a high point!” he yelled, shaking a few people frozen in shock. “Go! Get higher! Tsunami!”
He started running, banging on store doors, yelling for people to evacuate.
A woman came out of her store at his insistent knocking and looked past him right before letting out an inhuman scream of terror, causing him to turn in time to see the large wall of water heading towards them.
Debris flew as the water crushed the docks as it made its way to shore, tearing the wooden platforms apart.
A large ship had been picked up by the wave and thrown into a shopping center, the water flooding the building in its wake.
It was too late.
He was going to die.
West dropped his hands to his sides, his body in shock, but his mind screaming at him to run. This was it for him. He couldn’t escape in time. Everything he had hoped to change, do in his life, would not happen.
Before he could completely fall apart, he felt an anger rise within him at both the situation and his lack of self-preservation.
Something inside him, something he had always felt deep down trying to claw its way out but he never let come to the surface, began to tear its way through him like a wild animal.
It forced him to face this fate head on.
To not cower in fear.
To stand tall in the face of death.
Throwing up his hands and closing his eyes, he released years of pent-up rage and fear.
