This is my first response on here, so hopefully it meets guidelines. Thanks for the fun prompt!
It had been eighteen hours. Eighteen hours of hearing her whine, and complain about how far we had to drive to the resort for our wedding. I kept quiet knowing that if I told her one more time that if she hadn’t spent five thousand dollars over budget on her dress and flowers we wouldn’t be in this mess, but that would make things worse. So, I stayed quiet, until now.
Grabbing my phone, I hit shuffle on Spotify and out blared AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. She turned and glared at me, and as she uncrossed her arms to yell at me Glady’s my car’s AI voice blurted out “New destination found. Recalculating route”. In the second it took me to turn to my fiancé, with my brows furrowed my brand new prototype (I was a test driver to the newest competitor of Tesla) self-automated car took complete control from and sped up. I gripped tighter on the steering wheel, but it made no difference, I was no longer in control of the car, a re-branded and re-vitalized Mercury. “That’s what we get for naming a car after a dead trickster god from a failed brand, but no, Ford just had to compete with the best” I thought to myself.
“Art, what is the car doing?” my fiancé screams at me, now less upset and more afraid.
“I don’t know! Why does it say we are going to hell? It must be confused. I’ll try a few things. “Do you have cell service?” I anxiously respond. We are now speeding at 60 miles and hour through the desert of Nevada, there is no way I can gain control. Our pet owl, Athena sits in the backseat, now awake and looking around her cage. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” I think over and over to myself as the Mercury speeds up faster.
“Art! We don’t have cell service! What are we going to do?!” she starts crying again.
I push the emergency reset button underneath the steering wheel, accepting the fact that I no longer needed to hold on to it. Nothing happens. “Go figure” I think to myself and as I look up from under the dash I notice through the windshield an upcoming dirt road. “Grab Athena!” I yell, now terrified. The car is out of control, my future wife is screaming, Athena is now screeching, knowing something is wrong.
BAM
We hit a dip as the car speeds onto the dirt road, and suddenly the mountainside that once seemed distant loomed closer and closer. I turn and look her her, bright green eyes now swollen and red as tears stream down her face, now feeling upset with myself for being mad at her for complaining. We were going to die, there was no hell. “Where was it taking us?” I kept whispering over and over… Slumping into my seat I throw up my arms. “let’s see where it takes us I guess.” We all fall quiet as the car bumps and turns over the road.
The mountainside looms closer and closer, and soon we start to notice an up-coming tunnel. The car starts to slow and my heart re-accelerates. “What now” I think. Soon the tunnel’s entrance gets bigger as we get closer. 100ft… 50 feet…. 20ft… the car comes to a stop. I let out a large sigh and grab her hand. Looking at each other we seek comfort in our eyes, but it’s soon compromised.
Dark mist starts to surround us, thinking the car might be on fire we both open the now un-locked doors and rush out of the vehicle, Athena’s cage in my hand. Running towards the front of the car we re-join hands and stare at the vehicle. Which is not on fire.
“Ahh you’ve made it” a deep voice behind us says.
Turning we see a tall man, we are talking over 6.5feet tall, man with dark black hair, fair skin, and an all too lean body come out of the tunnel.
“What do you mean we made it!?” I instantly get defensive as I grow increasingly afraid him.
“It’s okay Artemis, maybe will help” my fiancé says to me.
“And help Artemis and Athena have. Thank you my dear for bringing me my wife, it has been all too long.” The deep voice seems to sink into my pores filling me with cold dread.
“The Fuck!” I exclaim “What kind of game is this?”
“Oh, dear, you and your pathetic little mind. What, did you think that it was ‘Cooool’ as you people say to have your own little Greek named family, you didn’t think that maybe it was destiny?” the figure says slightly cocking his head to one side as if to mock me.
Suddenly I start to choke and fall to my knees. Anguish hits me like a wall as I understand what he means. Athena starts to scream in her cage as she tries to bust out of the metal grates. I start to feel cold and the world around me starts to fade to black. Weak and suffocating on the ground I watch him grab her hand and pull her into the dark, his voice trailing away…
“Come here dear wife, its so nice to meet you again. Reincarnation won’t save you, so please, don’t try it again. Come. Come. Don’t be afraid. My name is Hades, and oh how I’ve missed you my sweet Persephone.”