“Why?” you inquired once again, this time your tone was accepting. It was because you knew why. You knew why you were here; though I reminded you. You needed to hear it.
“You lived an unjust life. The harm you inflicted onto others is harm you also inflict upon yourself…here. I don't teach lessons of morality. I merely assist in the deliverance of punishment.”
You fell silent as your eyes moved from my face to the cave of the Underworld. You recalled more vividly than before, the very instances that you knew I was speaking of. You felt shame and hesitated to even look in my direction out of some form of embarrassment. You weren’t used to being spoken to so candidly and knew, deep down, you could not deny what I had said.
I remained silent, my gaze transfixed on you. Before long, you spoke up and asked me.
“I can’t! No! I didn’t have a choice!”
“Yes you did. Everyone has choices.” I reminded you in a friendly manner. You were going to yell back at me that it was not true. That your presence here was because of something else but you stopped. Swallowing the words and the line of thinking was a difficult thing for you to do. You were growing angrier by the moment. I finished my thought, “People are the sum of their choices. The ones you made got you here. Though all is not quite over, just yet, for you.”
Your eyes widened and with great impatience you spoke up, “It’s not? How so? Tell me, Protector!” you insisted.
“My Sister has allowed me to give you a choice. We are just, after all.” You nodded your head with nervous haste.
“Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you! What choice?” you anxiously inquired.
“You can either go into the Underworld, subjected to unspeakable and unfathomable punishment that has a definitive end. I know you want to ask so I will answer before you do. I do not know when the end is. There is no time here.” I paused for a moment before I finished my thought. “Or I can take this away forever. You shall not know physical anguish by The Queen’s hand. The Underworld’s Kingdom shall not hear your soul’s screams. You will be left alone. For always.”
You stopped for a moment and thought. You could hear the voices of the damned scream out from the cave. Fear overcame you. You started to twitch. You were extremely afraid of what you did not know and so certain of what you thought you did. “You know what I am going to choose already don’t you?”
“Yes.” I answered. I did not want to lie to you. There was no point in doing such. You pondered some more.
“Then what is the point? Just give me what I was going to choose.” you stated unpleasantly in depressed, yet angered, resignation.
“That is not how it works. Each man is the sum…” You interrupted me with a wave of your hand and turned away from me. Your anger had returned to you. “Each man is the sum of his choices, yes I know, Protector! I get it!” I said not a thing, despite you being incorrect. You did not know, in the true sense of the word; not yet anyways.
“So I would be alone? Away from here?” You repeated the offer back to me, to be sure you heard correctly. Immediately, you continued. “What’s the catch, Protector?” You shouted as you pivoted to face me again. I answered you honestly. “The catch is that you will be alone.”
You thought about it, though you thought about it incorrectly. You thought you were able to evade your justice. You believed yourself to have been granted a great deal, and for the countless crimes against humanity that you had committed. You thought yourself an intelligent and cunning person. What it meant to be alone, in your reality, was not the same as it is here amongst the dead.
“I choose to be alone then.”
I remained unmoved and silent. You did not like that. “Did you not hear me, Protector? Was I unclear? I choose to be alone! Make it happen and rid me from this place!”
“Are you sure?” I wanted to give you one final chance before I made anything permanent.
“Of course I am sure!” You shouted at me. Without a moment wasted, you were suddenly in a void. It was a complete and true nothingness, where there existed no time and no one else for all eternity, without reprieve.
You would think on what got you to where you ended up, on my words; on your brief stay in what you thought was your hell. It would not be until later that you realized that the choice, the real choice, was between two separate hells.
The gods would have their justice.
A man is simply the sum of their choices and you would hear me say that in your head over and over again though you could not voice your discontent with that adage or with anything else. There was no one to voice it to. You were one with nothingness and, eventually, it was one with you.