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Trinity
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"I..I..I've never met a Goddess before." He was totally awestruck. Just how I thought that he would be. "A..and you're a Goddess three times over, and a Queen. Th..th..that is amazing. B..but what are you doing here? Why are you in the underworld? And how did you even get here?"
"I was brought here by someone else. Someone that wants to steal my magic. Someone that wants to destroy me and leave the underworld so that she can wreak havoc on earth."
"S..she plans to leave? But she can't do that. There are rules, regulations, protocols, so many things that are stopping her from being able to leave." The man looked like he didn't believe me about that.
"That may be true, but she had slowly been reaching the real world for the last few centuries. She has whispered to others like she did to me. She has been trying this for a long time."
"Who is it? Who is trying to leave the underworld?" The man was fully enraptured with what I was saying now. He was hanging on my every word.
"Hekate."
I swear, the amount of shock that filled his eyes right then was beyond what I ever could have imagined. He was floored by the revelation that he just heard and was just shaking his head no.
"B..but she is in the most secure part of hell. She is in the deepest trenches of Damnation. She cannot get out of here. She cannot reach beyond her walls."
"I beg to differ. She has not only whispered to the people on earth, but she has influenced souls in Limbo and the Hall of Regrets. She has been growing in power and I fear that she will return to the world of the living and kill everyone."
"No! No! She can't do that." This man, this boy, was looking at me with fear in his eyes. This servant of hell, this guard of purgatory was afraid of what Hekate would do when she got out of her prison.
"I am here to stop her. I am here to put an end to her once and for all. But I need your help."
"My help? What can I do?" He was so boyish, so childlike at that moment, it was so sweet, but so problematic as well.
"I need to get through purgatory and find a door to Damnation. I need to find Hekate's cell. Can you help me?"
"Uh..uhm." He seemed to be thinking about it.
"What is your name?" I thought that getting him to talk might be good.
"M..m..my name is R..Rudolphus Desmodius."
"Well, Rudolphus Desmodius, will you help me? Will you show me where to find the door to damnation?"
I watched as the man looked around himself. The others hadn't even lifted their heads from their tablets. They hadn't seen us talking. They hadn't even noticed that Rudolphus Desmodius was taking a lot longer than usual on one specific case. Did they pay that little attention to their surroundings? Did they not care about anything at all? If that was the case, no wonder Hekate was getting so much closer to escaping.
I have been surprised at every turn with the way that the underworld was. I would have thought that a place that has literally been around since the dawn of time would have a better management system in place. Yes, it would make things easier on me if I was able to keep moving without finding the guards but, maybe, the underworld had the problems that it did with ghosts and whispers from Hekate because they didn't watch their 'prisoners' better than this.
I mean, shouldn't they watch the hell more than anything? Heaven or paradise or whatever it was, that could be mostly unguarded since you only got there if you were a good soul. The hell should not be this lax.
"I..I think I will help you." The man, Rudolphus Desmodius, finally looked back at me and nodded his head. "I want to stop the evil Hekate from getting out. I don't want to let her ruin the world. I have never seen the human world, but I don't want it to be destroyed either"
"You've never seen it?" I was confused now. "But aren't you a deceased soul in servitude to the underworld?"
"No, I was born here. We are demons born to serve the underworld. We live and die to be guards to hell." He hung his head in shame. "I am new to my job, but I think that it is in dire need of reform. They don't like that I have these ideas. They don't like that I want to change things." I could see that he was saddened to be saying those words.
"I agree with you, Rudy." I smiled at him.
"Rudy?" He tilted his head.
"Rudolphus Desmodius is a mouthful. Rudy will be your nickname." I did my best to make him feel more comfortable. "And as I said, Rudy, I agree with you. This place is not secure enough. So come with me and we will stop Hekate together."
At that moment, Rudy nodded and smiled at me. I saw that he was feeling better about the things that he had been saying and feeling. I watched him look around once more before he stepped out of his place in the gate.
The space that Rudy had just vacated was actually sunken into the ground. There were grooves where he was standing that showed where the men of the gate guard had been standing since the dawn of time. This actually made Rudy even taller than I thought he was. I was used to tall people though, so it didn't faze me at all.
Rudy tentatively took his first step out of that place and seemed to be acting like he hadn't walked in a long time. He probably hadn't. From what I was gathering, these people probably did their jobs from the moment of being assigned until they died. And when they died they were just replaced.
That was a sad existence. That was no way for anyone, even a demon of hell, to spend their life. They needed to be treated better. They needed to be appreciated. Who in the hell would treat people like this?
Well, I guess I could answer that. All the various leaders of hell. All the Gods and Goddesses that ruled the underworld. They were the ones that were treating Rudy and the others like this.
If I had my way, this place would be run more like a business. They needed to make sure that their guards could do their jobs if they wanted them to keep working. That was the humane and efficient way to do it.
It wasn't up to me, and I didn't have a say in it, so there was no reason for me to even be thinking like this. Still, it made me think. It made me want to do something even though I knew that I couldn't.
"Come with me, Goddess Trinity, I will guide you through Purgatory. But stay close, it can be very dangerous.." Rudy interrupted my thoughts with his outstretched hand.
