The black sports jeep rolled to a slow stop in the middle of a narrow alleyway, bass thundering from its speakers loud enough to rattle the windows of nearby buildings. The music was ridiculous for the hour, bold, careless, and far too proud of itself, but the blond eighteen-year-old behind the wheel didn't seem to care.
He was in his own world, head bobbing, one hand on the steering wheel, the other snapping in time with the beat. His grin stretched wide as he sang, voice smooth and startlingly in tune. "Girl, look at that body…" he crooned, eyebrows lifting at his reflection in the rearview mirror. "Girl, look at that body—ahh, I work out!"
He drummed the steering wheel, turning his head side to side with the kind of exaggerated flair only someone who truly believed in their own performance could pull off.
"When I walk in the spot, this is what I see, everybody stops and they starin' at me!" He continued, gesturing toward himself like he was on stage. He pointed a finger to his chest, lowering his tone for the last line, savouring every word. "I'm sexy and I know it!"
The song hit its final beat, and he leaned back in his seat, snapping his fingers once more before switching the music off. The silence that followed felt almost dramatic, like even the city had paused to catch its breath.
He exhaled slowly, nodding in satisfaction, a slight shiver running through his body as he shook his hands. "Chills," he said. "Literal chills."
A moment later, he stretched his arms until his back popped, letting out a quiet groan that turned into a laugh halfway through. Everything about him radiated a casual self-assurance that was equal parts arrogance and charm. Then, as he relaxed, his eyes flicked to the clock glowing faintly on the dashboard.
The number hit him like a slap.
"Oh, come on!" He blurted, sitting upright so fast he nearly hit his head on the roof. "No, no, no, why didn't anyone tell me I was late?!" There was no one else in the car, but that didn't stop him. He reached for his phone, glanced at it, groaned again, and raked a hand through his golden hair. "Uncle Bones issogonna kill me. That's it, I'm done. Dead. Gone. Goodbye, world."
He froze mid-rant.
Then, slowly, a thought seemed to dawn on him. "Wait… Uncle Bones?" He said aloud, voice dripping with disbelief. He slouched back against the seat, staring at the roof. "The man who wears slippers to formal dinners? Who once forgot his own birthday?" A beat passed. Then he scoffed and shook his head, the panic already fading into amusement. "Why do I even care? A dashing rogue is never early. A dashing rogue is fashionably late. The hero always shows up last, that's what makes an entrance."
He shut off the engine and swung open the door, stepping out into the cold night air. The alley stretched around him, narrow, cracked pavement underfoot, walls lined with flaking posters and faded graffiti. It wasn't the safest part of New York, but he moved through it like it belonged to him. His outfit matched the attitude perfectly. A black hoodie hung loose around his frame, the shadow of the hood brushing the edge of his face. Dark cargo pants clung to his legs, clipped straps brushing lightly with each step. His sneakers were worn but sturdy, the kind that had seen a few too many nights like this one. The look was simple, but it fit him, effortless, confident, and just a little too perfect to be unintentional.
He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck, and gave himself one final approving nod. "Late," he said with a smirk, "but looking great."
Then he turned, tapping the bonnet of the jeep seven times in a steady rhythm. Each thud echoed faintly through the alley. He didn't seem to notice, or maybe he did, and that was the point.
"Don't wait up, sweetheart," he murmured to the jeep, giving it a lazy salute before slipping his hands into his pockets.
As he started walking, his whistle picked up the tail end ofI'm Sexy and I Know It.The notes bounced softly between the buildings before fading beneath the distant hum of the city. His steps matched the beat, lazy but perfectly timed, as if the world itself should move to his rhythm as he made his way through the entrance to Central Park.
The park was nearly empty. A few lamps glowed dimly between the trees, their light soft and pale under the blanket of mist crawling along the ground. It clung to his shoes and rose slowly, curling up the trunks like fingers reaching from below.
He didn't notice.
Or maybe he did.
Either way, he didn't stop whistling.
The deeper he went, the thicker the fog became, until even the sound of the city faded. No horns. No chatter. Just his whistle, steady and bright. Then, ahead of him, the air began to ripple, like heat on asphalt, except colder.
The mist parted, and the Doors of Orpheus emerged.
They rose out of the fog with quiet grace, their towering frames carved from black stone veined with gold. Ancient symbols covered their surface, serpents, lyres, rivers, and crowns, etched deep as if the world itself had been the chisel. They looked impossibly old, impossibly out of place, and yet they fit there, standing silent under the trees as though they'd been waiting for him.
He didn't pause. Didn't stare. Didn't even blink.
"Right on cue," he murmured.
The doors creaked open with a low, deep sigh. The mist swirled around him like smoke, curling past his ankles as he strolled forward without hesitation. The instant his foot crossed the threshold, the Doors of Orpheus vanished, mist swallowing them whole until there was nothing left but silence.
Then he was somewhere else entirely.
The Underworld opened before him: vast halls of black marble stretched endlessly beneath a dull grey sky. Blue torches burned in iron sconces along the walls, their flames flickering without warmth. Great towers rose from the shadows, each one gleaming faintly with reflected firelight. Everything was still. Too still.
He stopped just beyond the threshold, his expression tightening the moment he took it all in.
"Still the same," he muttered under his breath. "Figures."
He started walking, his voice echoing faintly across the stone. "All this power, all these centuries, and not even a new coat of paint. No art. No colour. No joy." He shook his head. "Uncle Bones could learn something from the living. Maybe get a few curtains. Or, I don't know, a plant?" He tilted his head, scanning the expanse of black marble that stretched before him. "No, too much maintenance. Maybe a chandelier, though. Something with a bit of shine. This is all just…" He gestured around vaguely. "…so emo."
He grinned, though there was a trace of honest disappointment in it. "Yeah, Uncle Bones isn't beating the king of the emos allegations anytime soon. It's not even close."
He paused, head tilting with a lazy smirk. "Whoever started that rumour deserves credit," he said lightly. "A magnificent, enviable pair of balls on that one."
There was a pause.
A longer one this time.
Then his brows furrowed. "Wait," he muttered. "Was that me?"
He stood there, thinking. One second. Two. Three. His face scrunched up like he was trying to dig through weeks' worth of memories.
"I honestly can't tell," he admitted finally to no one. "Could've been me. Sounds like something I would do. I've said a lot of things and I've started so many rumours, I honestly can't keep track anymore." He let out a breath, half a laugh and a shrug. "Oh well, another mystery for the ages, I guess."
With that, he rolled his shoulders, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and kept walking toward the looming black gates of Hades' palace. His whistle picked up again, perfectly on pitch, bouncing softly through the cavernous dark. The corridors of Hades' palace stretched endlessly in every direction, their walls smooth and dark as obsidian. Faint blue fire burned in sconces at regular intervals, throwing a cold shimmer across the black marble floors. The light didn't warm anything. It only deepened the shadows.
He walked through it like a tourist who'd been here too many times before, hands buried in the pocket of his hoodie, whistle faintly echoing against the stone. The sound was the only thing alive in that place. Even the air felt tired.
"Still gloomy," he muttered to himself, glancing at the torchlight flickering across the walls. "Still cold. Still no snacks. You'd think after all these centuries someone would've invented central heating for the damned."
His footsteps echoed, sharp, steady, and lonely. Every few paces, the path would fork or bend, the symmetry of the architecture so precise that every corridor looked identical. It was like walking through a copy of a copy.
He sighed, slowing when he reached another long hallway.
His whistle faded. "Alright, throne room…" he said, squinting down both paths. "Where are you hiding this time?"
He turned in a small circle, glancing back the way he came. Every direction looked the same. The palace was a perfect maze of black marble and blue fire, no signs, no doors with names, no helpful arrows pointing "This Way to the Lord of the Dead."
"Really helpful, Uncle Bones," he said under his breath. "Real inviting."
He came to the next crossroad and stopped dead in the middle. The corridor split left and right, identical down to the pattern of the torches.
"Okay," he said, looking left first. "Left seems right."
Then he blinked. "Wait. That didn't make sense."
He looked right. Then left again. Then right.
"Left's closer to the throne room, I think. Or maybe it's right. No… It's definitely left. I've got good instincts."
He nodded once, satisfied, but still frowned. Slowly, he raised both hands in front of him, shaping his thumbs and forefingers into Ls. He stared at them in deep, exaggerated concentration.
"L is for left. Which makes that…" He turned his head toward the other hand. "…not left."
He dropped both hands with a sigh. "Yeah, definitely left. I've never been wrong before."
He started walking.
The torches hummed faintly as he passed, their blue light flickering across his face. The silence stretched on, broken only by the soft squeak of his trainers and the low hum of the Underworld's unseen machinery—the distant rush of rivers, the faint rumble of shifting stone.
After several minutes of walking, he slowed again. "Been a while since I came down here," he said to no one. "You'd think they'd put up a map or something. A sign, a ghostly receptionist, maybe a friendly skeleton with a clipboard."
He stopped at a large pair of doors at the end of the hall.
They were enormous, twice his height, carved with interlocking skulls and laurel wreaths, framed by thick pillars. The metal handles gleamed faintly under the blue light.
He grinned, rubbing his hands together. "See? Left never fails. Big, dramatic door. Definitely throne room."
He grabbed the handle and pulled. The door opened with a heavy groan that echoed through the corridor.
Inside, dozens, no, hundreds, of skeletons turned to look at him.
They were arranged in neat rows, each one frozen mid-task. Some stood guard, spears raised. Others sat at long tables piled high with parchment and old armour. The smell of dust and iron hung heavy in the air. Their hollow sockets fixed on him, silent and patient.
He froze in the doorway.
The silence dragged on.
One of the skeletons tilted its skull slightly, as if in confusion. Another shifted its bony fingers with a faintclack-clack.
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Definitely the wrong room. Don't mind me, gentlemen..." he paused unsurely, "ladies? This is the problem with skeletons: I can't tell what gender you are. But that would be one very strange skeleton if they were anatomically correct. How would that even work? Anyway, ignore me, just carry on as you were, I'll see myself out."
He stepped back and shut the door carefully, making sure it didn't slam. Then he turned, exhaling through his nose.
"It's never left," he muttered. "Why do I keep trusting left? It's always right. It's always right. You'd think I'd learn after, what, the fourth time? Fifth?"
He started walking again, muttering under his breath. "Left's a liar. Left's a trap. Left's—"
He stopped.
The corridor behind him looked identical to the one ahead. The torches flickered in the same places, the floor patterns mirrored perfectly. He frowned and turned around twice, trying to find some sign of difference. Nothing.
"Great," he said. "Now I don't even know which left I started from." He rubbed his temples. "Uncle Bones could at least number the corridors. Corridor of Eternal Despair, Corridor of Mild Inconvenience, something. Anything. Not just… corridors."
He sighed, looking both ways again. Each direction stretched on forever, blue light disappearing into black.
"Well," he said finally. "When in doubt—"
He pointed left. "—go left."
And he did.
As he walked, the blue light rippled faintly along the walls, following him like reflections of unseen movement. He didn't notice. His whistle picked back up, calm, easy, completely unconcerned that he was now deeper in the Underworld's endless halls than any living being had a right to be. At one point, he passed a door slightly ajar, the sound of faint murmurs behind it. He slowed, curious, leaning in just far enough to hear whispering in an ancient tongue. It was rhythmic, like a chant. He listened for a moment, then shrugged.
"Probably a staff meeting."
He kept walking.
A few turns later, he passed a narrow archway leading into another corridor that looked exactly like the one he'd just come from. For a second, he thought about doubling back—but then decided against it.
"Nope," he said firmly. "Left hasn't failed me twice in a row before. Probably."
He turned another corner, only to realise the hallway had subtly shifted. The floor dipped downward, the torches now burning with a deeper hue. A faint, distant rumble echoed beneath his feet, like something moving far below.
He glanced up, unimpressed. "Weird acoustics in this place."
Finally, after what felt like forever, the corridor opened into another large set of doors, these carved with skulls and serpents entwined. He stopped in front of them, narrowing his eyes. "Alright," he said slowly. "Last time it was skeletons. So odds are… It's skeletons again."
He exhaled through his nose, adjusted his hoodie, and grabbed the handle anyway.
"Left's due for a win."