Athena perused

Match.com and sighed

Viewed eHarmony

Died a bit inside

"What's become of love?"

It's computerized

Well, the beautiful red-head thought, staring at her laptop, this facebook thing has been going on for quite a while, now. I guess it's high time I got an account, so I can see what all the raving is about. Into the browser, she typed 'facebook.com' and after what seemed a lifetime, but was really only a couple of seconds, she was greeted with the social site's home page.

"Create An Account", the screen said, so she typed in her information. Under 'first name', she dutifully typed, "Hera" and then paused a moment, wondering what to type in under 'last name'. After a moment of thought, she typed in "Famila". Where the screen requested her 'mobile number or email', she put in "GoddessofallH@Olympus.org" and where her password should go, she filled in "no1shal1defy.M3", then paused again at the next box.

"Birthdate?" she asked herself. Of course she knew it, but she didn't want to reveal her real age and what did they know, anyway? She pursed her ruby red lips, then selected "Jan 1, 1990". It's not like they'd actually check the information and if they did, so what? It wasn't like they could really do anything. Next, she selected, "Female" - as if there was any doubt! - and clicked on "Create Account". After another brief moment, the screen asked for her to verify her email address. She skipped it and found herself looking at a page that requested she 'Add Friends'. Skipping that option, as well, she found herself being asked for yet more information!

"Good Olympus", she sighed, impatiently. Skipping the first two sections - 'Search your email for friends already on Facebook' and 'Get to know your privacy settings' - she decided to respond to the third request, the one asking for a Profile picture. Of COURSE all of this facebook should know what she looks like, she smirked, then selected a lovely picture of herself in evening wear, taken from this past spring's Lightning Gala.

This time when she was greeted with 'Add people you know', she figured she should, so she could show herself off to all of her family and friends; wouldn't they all be surprised to see she'd finally gotten herself a facebook page?! Scrolling the list, she was stopped short when she saw the name 'Zeus'.

Wait! Her breathing increased. No, no. It couldn't be. Zeus couldn't have a facebook account! He hadn't told her that he had one. Of course, since when did that man know anything about openness and honesty? In their last therapy session, he'd actually tried to say that he really did want a relationship of transparency and mutual respect! She'd almost gagged then and now, her mouth threatened to overflow with vomit.

She clicked the 'Add Friend' button and was told her request had been sent. Not willing to wait, she clicked on his name - "Zeus Bolten" - and found herself looking at a page that looked like it was created by GQ. His personal page had a huge picture of himself at the top and in small print, under his name, it said, "Friend to All". Friend to all, indeed! Wasn't that just the problem? He had way too many "friends!" Scrolling down, she found more pictures of him. The uppermost one showed him in his tennis gear, holding a racket, his brown hair perfectly styled and his clear hazel eyes smiling at the camera. Then underneath the picture, she saw several symbols. She'd heard about the infamous 'Like' button from friends and it looked like several people had liked that picture. Right beside the little thumb icon, it said, "Eros and 17 others". She clicked on the line and saw a list of all those who had 'Liked' this particular picture.

Reading through, she got angrier and angrier. "Demeter?!...DEMETER likes his picture?! That BITCH!" she shrieked, spittle flying from her mouth. "As if she hasn't done enough, having that little Persephone brat! And now she's liking my husband's facebook pictures?!" Incensed, she grabbed a mug off her desk and threw it against the wall, the sound of shattering porcelain music to her ears.

Turning back to the screen, she continued looking at the list of likers. "Alcmene?...Danaë?...Dione?!" Thoroughly enraged, she stood up, knocking her chair down in the process. "What the fuck is THIS shit?!...He's got all his fuckin' babies mamas on his damn page, liking his pictures, now!" Pacing back and forth, her green eyes glared everytime they landed on the screen.

"Honey", she mimicked in a male voice, "they meant nothing to me; it just happened!" Switching back to her own voice, she answered, "How the fuck can it just happen?! What?! Did you just fall into their pussies, Z?!" Storming across the room, she grabbed their wedding picture from the bedside stand and smashed it on the floor, stomping on it until her left foot was bloody. Not caring, she continued her rant, "And I guess they just happened to 'Like' your facebook picture, too, huh?" She marched back over to her laptop and found his list of Friends. Yep, there they all were, Demeter, Alcmene, Danaë, and all the rest. ALL THE REST!

Feeling herself about to completely go off the deep end, Hera marched over to her ornate gold mirror and looked at herself. Her perfectly coiffed hair had come partially undone and she had ruby all over her mouth, not just on her lips. Her cheeks were a bright red and she could practically see the steam coming from her ears. She did as her therapist counseled and counted to 100. It didn't help. She was still livid!

Sitting back at her laptop, she saw a new post on Zeus' page. It was from Hercules and was a video of that Beyoncé woman, singing some song. She knew Zeus found the celebrity to be quite intriguing and she did NOT want any little Zeuslettes running around, singing on-stage in a few years. She had a mind to turn the star into a donkey - You like all that ass, Zeus, I'll give you ass, alright! - but that wouldn't do for these times. Pondering for a moment, she had another idea.

Heading into the bath to get cleaned up, she smiled. Zeus and the celebrity-watchers would never know what hit them.

About:

I'm Poseidon, and I guess I'm a pretty big deal. I'm the Sea God, which means I control water and stuff. I guess that's a good thing for all you thirsty girls out there.

Pay no attention to my age. I'm actually millions of years old, but this site doesn't have that option. I put 25 instead of 21 because I don't wanna attract teenagers who want weed. (All I've got is seaweed, sorry boys)

My brother Hades claims to be hotter than me because he's the God of Hell. I don't think so. He can't pull off Hawaiian shirts and mermaid tails as well as me.

I cover over about 2/3 of the land. I can also cover your bed tonite ;)

Swipe right to make some waves

Likes: Seafood, surfing and sinking large vessels (sorry Jack, I shoulda sunk Rose too because she wouldn't scoot over on that stupid piece of wood)

Dislikes: Deadbeat parents (my dad is kinda an asshole because he tried to eat me lol)

Anthem: Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple

Family: I have a lot of those. I try to kill some of them. My son Percy is ok ig

Street Name: Hoe-sideon because I get people wet. I'm also an Earth shaker ;)

"My name's Zeus-"

"Hi Zeus."

"And I'm a sex addict."

Pen clicks. "Tell us about your issues." 

"What can I say? I just like sex."

"You don't just like sex, Mr. Zeus."

"I prefer Gave You the Stars and Sky Zeus, but Mr. Zeus is the same thing."

Eye roll. "So, maybe we should talk about when you started."

"Well, fucked my sister and went from there."

Eyebrow raise. "Your sister?"

"You've met her. Hera? She comes on Tuesdays because she has Alcoholics Anonymous on Thursdays. Wait, was I not supposed to call her that out loud? You humans are so complicated."

Eye roll. "So, you slept with your sister? Why do you think that happened?"

"There was only six of us, and Hestia was a virgin and Demeter's crotch smelled like wheat. Was not going down there. And I'm not into gay shit. I mean, I kissed Poseidon once and had my first taste of what being with a woman on her period is like, am I right?"

Chuckles. Another eye roll. "So, your sister was convenient for you?"

"I guess. I mean, I eventually got Demeter pregnant too, but Hera's my one and only. Well, if you don't count the other 584 people I've been with."

"How is your dick still attached?"

Laughter. "If you have something to ask, Mr. Sheen, raise your hand."

"Shut up, ass wipe. I'll kick your scrawny ass."

"I'm a god, Mr. Sheen. If I start burning, I kill me and the bitch and come back cured."

"Hardcore."

"Mr. Nicholson!"

"What? It is hardcore!"

Another eye roll. "Anything you'd like to add?"

"Oh, I'm your dad, and me and your mother are banging again. Thanks for listening."

Sororities were overrated, Diana learned, a near-growl building in the back of her throat. Arms crossed over her chest (which was branded with an Alpha Sigma Omega v-neck shirt in a particular shade of purple that made the girl feel too docile for her liking), she stood before the booming frat house of Delta Sigma Kappa. She could feel the bass of the stereos inside the party boom under her shoes. “Great,” she muttered when she caught a frat stumbling outside whom she recognized as a loser from her photography elective named Sanguine. He was giggling to himself, red Solo cup sloshing with a foreign content whose scent stuck to his clothes. His face was contorting between throwing up whatever he ate for the day on the filthy, tee-peed, streamer infested lawn or passing out.

“Oi! Aren’t chu that chick from, uh, pho-toe-graf-ee? Chiane, right?”

“Sure,” Diana responded back, not wanting to be associated with Sanguine at all. It was already bad enough that the more sober frat guys and their dates were shooting her glares-- and she wasn’t even inside the house yet.

Sanguine, clueless to Diana’s desire to end the conversation, went bug-eyed at the royal purple and gold t-shirt she desperately tried to hide under her crossed arms. “Woah, y-you’re one of those Alpha-Hoes?!” To make matters worse, he presented her and the atrocity of a t-shirt to the party-goers on the lawn and porch that weren’t paying her any attention before by pointing directly at her, some of the contents in his Solo cup spilling off the edge.

Flustered, Diana muttered, “Sanguine, can we not talk about his right here?” She was damn lucky that Sanguine was sober enough to stop and rub the back of his neck sheepishly, complemented with an obnoxiously loud laugh that made Diana’s irritation further.

“Sorry, babe,” he giggled, taking a swig from his cup. Then, “You wanna come inside? The party is fucked up! Like, the best I’ve ever planned. Totally. 110%. Completely--” Sanguine yelped painfully when he was clocked in the back of the head by an uninviting looking guy with red hair. “Fuck, Dagon, what was that for?!”

“You’re annoying the hell out of this chick, you dumbass cuntmuch,” the guy (who Diana presumed was Dagon) growled. Sanguine pouted and mumbled complaints under his breath, rubbing the back of his head. Dagon then directed his glare towards Diana, and that was when she became incredibly aware of his Delta Sig Kap varsity hoodie. “Why the fuck is one of those Alpha-Bitches at our event?”

The calamity Diana found herself in began all because she and London have tried to one-up each other since childhood and the campus of Daedra University outlawed sorority and fraternity hazing. Both freshmen despised the idea of sororities because they were pretentious and a waste of money spent in pledging. However, London challenged Diana to see how far they could go with one of the former most haze-heavy sororities in the country. Naturally, Diana wasn’t one to back down from a challenge.

The rules were simple. Each had to complete as many initiations as possible, one-upping the other in the process. At first, it was basic “non-hazing” tasks like London being forced to take Hircine shopping as if she was some kind of maid (paying for all of the bitch’s clothes, too) and Diana having to cook a full course meal for Namira to the senior’s tastes. The challenge only intensified once the sorority’s rival, Delta Sigma Kappa, became involved.

It was very uncommon for a sorority to be rivaled with a fraternity. Wren, a girl initiating with Diana and London, explained to them that the rivalry began in the 1930’s when women began attending more colleges with men and a battle of the sexes erupted. However, the feud faded once gender roles were no longer a factor in the 1980’s; after that, it turned into the Alphas purposely going out of their way to be bitchy and the Deltas responding accordingly with extra doses of testosterone.

London’s last initiation task was to seduce and make out with Delta front runner DJ Tompson. Diana actually felt bad for London; the girl had her eye on Tompson since day one of college at the club fair. Then it only worsened once they started interacting more in-and-out of class since London was on cheer squad and DJ was the starting running back on the football team. Diana already knew that the Alphas had someone record it happening with the intent to post it on Instagram and slut-shame London. If it wasn’t for Diana’s harsh threat to beat the everlasting shit out of the girl who recorded it, London’s reputation would have been in shambles.

Diana, on the other hand, was not so lucky. She bet the girl she threatened snitched to the higher ups and this was her punishment. Her task was to crash a Delta Sig Kappa party in an Alpha t-shirt, locate front-runner Molag Bal, and give him a lap dance. Easy, right?

“I genuinely feel horrible for you.” London told her at lunch earlier that day after Diana was given her assignment.

“Why?” Diana asked in between bites of the chicken burrito she bought at the campus food truck. “It’s not like I’m completely humiliating myself.” London gave her a look of disbelief. “Okay, I am. Totally.”

“You are,” London agreed with a sigh, closing up her textbook on microeconomics, one of the classes dumped on her because she was too lazy to take it in high school. She looked like she was struggling to read it, most likely due to her awful dyslexia. That was one of the few things she and Diana could bond over because they both had dyslexia with a sprinkle of ADHD on top of it. “But that’s not why I feel bad. You’ve heard the stories about Bal, right? My sister, Lucy, was the one who told me cuz she has pretty much all of her classes with him.”

“They showed me pics of him,” Diana shrugged, unlocking her phone to go to her text messages and flash the “subtle” pictures taken of Molag while in class, walking the campus with friends, at sporting events, and other things. He wasn’t a bad looking guy; the only turn-offs for Diana initially were the goat-eyes and razor sharp teeth, but she could tolerate the tattoos. Diana figured that he was one of those types of people who liked to “transform” or “augment” their bodies as experiments to see how far they could take the art of plastic surgery. She actually felt like the additions completed Molag. Of course, she wouldn’t say it out loud. “If you’re talking about the horizontal pupils and teeth, I think I can manage.”

“No. Not that. It’s just…” London looked around to make sure they weren’t being listened to. Believing they were safe, she leaned in and whispered, “they call him the ‘Lord of Domination’ here.”

“Lord of wha-- what the fuck kind of nickname is that?” Diana rolled her eyes and laughed. “What? Is he some kind of sexual freak? Does he like BDSM? Is he a rapist? God complex? Sadistic asshole?”

Instead of answering to one, London said completely serious, “Yes.” Diana’s smile fell and so did her hands which held her burrito.

“...Oh.”

And so now Diana was back here, trying to get into the party and knock out her initiation whilst bypassing an angry Dagon rumbling before her and the drunken idiot behind him, Sanguine. Without thinking much of it, Diana blurted out, “Vile invited me.”

Both Dagon and Sanguine blinked.

“Clavicus Vile?” Sanguine slurred. “You two know each other?”

“He’s in my Calc class,” she answered quickly, and it was true. “Him and Sheogorath. They suggested I come.” Both assholes were in calculus 101 with her and she always knew they were Deltas because they wore their varsity jackets, caps, and tees with dignity. Clavicus was a lil’ bitch that sat to her left, always showing her pictures of his ugly ass dog (Diana was an acute cat person), snoring in class, or trying to go through her phone when she wasn’t looking. Sheogorath sat on her right, laughing at dumbass Cow Chop or Filthy Frank videos that made absolutely no sense to her. It was the perfect half-truth because she figured neither would remember if they asked her to come or not.

“Clavicus and Sheogorath are stupid ass cocklickers,” Dagon hissed. “They would invite someone like you, huh?”

“Yes,” Diana answered, trying to keep her rising anger in check. “Are they here?” She wanted to speed up the conversation because now the bystanders watching them were muttering things about Diana sleeping with the idiots mentioned.

“They are,” Sanguine answered. “Or at least Clavicus is. Sheo’s probably fucking around cuz I haven’t seen him all day. I’ll take you to Clav though.”

“That would be good,” Diana agreed, following Sanguine who twirled around and began skipping up the porch steps and going through the door that led into the frat house. She could feel Dagon’s eyes on them as he followed closely behind her, mostly to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. She couldn’t blame him. She had heard that some Alphas, Boethiah and Meridia, were fucking with the Delta house not too long ago. Maybe a couple days before. She remembered that Molag came outside and dealt with them himself from what London and Wren told her. Then they were walking with limps like cripples then excommunicated from the sorority for “submitting” to Molag Bal, whatever that meant. Diana hoped she wouldn’t find out that night.

She was a bit nervous that she would find more backlash against her inside the frat house once more people spotted her shirt (which she found clashed greatly with the overwhelming crimson and black.) Instead, she found herself greeted with mostly stares and a couple glares. The stares, she gathered, were of frats checking her out and Diana realized that she chose the wrong day to wear shorts that only stopped at her mid-thigh.

She nearly lost Sanguine in the thick crowds of drinking, dancing college students if it wasn’t for Dagon taking her wrist tightly and dragging her through. Even though it hurt more than it needed to, Diana quietly muttered, “thanks,” which she thought would have been swallowed by the music, but Dagon’s grip on her wrist loosened somewhat.

The party itself was jumping, too much for Diana. Her best friend from home, Quinn (bless her) used to drag her to local frat parties in their senior year of high school. Diana only enjoyed herself when Quinn put a Solo cup in her hands, but they stopped going when Diana’s mom, Bella, caught them sneaking home past curfew smelling like cheap booze and then she beat the whites from their eyes. Diana never expected herself to come back to another frat party. She wished that Quinn was with her, but she went to a different college across county in the Unnamed City. From what Diana heard, she made friends with a strange group consisting of a half-blind, half-deaf Latina girl, an alcoholic, a jewish kid with PTSD, and a standoffish bookworm. Diana wished she was there with them.

Dagon and Sanguine wove her through the dance floor until they walked through the closed doors into the kitchen. Diana almost hissed at the bright lights, contrast to the lights in the rest of the frat house. In there, people were talking and drinking normally, despite the booming of the bass in the other room and the loud thumps that shook the ceiling upstairs which Diana assumed was the bedrooms. To her luck, she spotted Molag sitting on the couch that was obviously pushed into the kitchen for the comfort of its patrons. He and Clavicus were talking to each other, Clavicus with that triggering, shit-eating smirk on his face while leaning over the head of the couch. Both wore Delta varsity jackets, however Molag’s fell down his shoulders a bit, opening up his chest and revealing his tatted shoulders. He was more muscular than the pictures portrayed, but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount of flesh. Still, Diana felt as if Moag could snap her in half like a twig if he were in the mood.

Clavicus caught her staring at them before Sanguine or Dagon could alert them of her presence. “DiDi!” Clavicus beamed, waving at her with a wild arm. “I didn’t know you were into these kinds of events! Why the Alpha tee though?” Suddenly all eyes in the kitchen were on her and the talking hushed. Diana really wished she could curl up and hide. Molag’s horizontal stare made the tension in the room grow all the more thick.

“You were looking at me like you wanted something.” Molag spoke. Diana nearly double-took at the tremor in his voice. He sounded like the Devil incarnate. “So? What do you want, DiDi?” There was a purr in his voice that brought a hint of a blush to her cheeks which she corrected with a pokerface. The frats and girls, on the other hand began laughing at her, some muttering things about her being Molag’s next conquest. She still didn’t understand what that was supposed to mean.

“Firstly,” Sanguine interrupted with a cracking voice on account of his case of the hiccups, “her name is Chiane. Fuckin’ get it right fuckers!”

“Actually,” Diana countered, her irritation beginning to show, “Diana Yilmaz. Not Chiane and especially not DiDi.” She didn’t care that her name was now out in the open right before she would humiliate herself. Her mother taught her that recovery from bullshit was key if she wanted to survive in this world.

“Well then,” Clavicus muttered.

“Rude,” Sanguine pouted. Ignoring the both of them, Diana swallowed heavily.

“And on behalf of Alpha Sigma Omega, I’ve come to apologize for the earlier incident with our women along with the other issues we have started in the past.”

Molag raised an eyebrow, clearly in disbelief that the sorority would send a messenger to make so-called peace between themselves and Delta Sigma Kappa.

“Oh?” Molag smirked, leaning forward in his seat causing Diana to subconsciously want to take a step back or two.

Lessening the strain in her throat, Diana forced out in between grit teeth, “I have come to service you with a dance, courtesy of the Alpha Sigma Omega sisterhood.”

Molag snorted, uncrossing his legs and leaning back in the couch cushions. It didn’t help Diana’s growing anxiety that the room quieted so much either. “And how exactly is some inexperienced virgin supposed to satisfy me?”

Diana scowled, almost snarling at the level of offense that swarmed her. Did he honestly think she was some kind of joke? Yes, this was her irritation talking and she wasn’t supposed to take the job so seriously, but shit. At least make her feel less like a slut than this challenge was doing already. In response, Diana hissed back, “I’ll gladly take feedback once I’m done.”

“Well then,” Molag almost looked impressed. “Not a common way women throw themselves at me, but okay, I’ll take it.”

“Come on, Molag. Don’t pick on Diana. She seems so docile.” That fucking t-shirt.

“Don’t worry about her, Clavicus. She wouldn’t have come here in that stupid ass shirt if she didn’t feel like she could handle me.” Molag turned back to Diana, arms draping themselves over the head of the couch and legs spreading apart a bit more. “Let’s see it then.”

All around them, the unwanted audience cheered, sounding way too excited about this.

Diana gulped nervously and looked around, searching for some kind of moral support. But all she got was Clavicus and Sanguine looking like they were preparing themselves for a long session of masturbation and Dagon looking on with an uncaring gaze. Molag was no help. He was smirking, but there was a captivating look in his eyes that drew Diana in.

She was damn lucky for three things. One, her aunts Chelsea, Ehsan, and Ashley. Two, her friends Quinn and Alessandra. Three, she’s a dance minor and freestyling hip-hop choreography is her strong suit. The skills she took up from them were needed now more than ever to keep from making an absolute fool of herself once one of the audience members plugged their phone in the speaker sitting under one of the cabinets. Me & My Bitch by The Neighbourhood started to boom from the device. Diana was also fortunate that Quinn had an obsession with Jesse Rutherford’s voice.

Exhaling deeply and reminding herself that London’s face once Diana completed the initiation was the ultimate reward, Diana strut forward to Molag (thank her shorts) then spun around in front of him. With both hands bracing the couch, she lowered her hips before him until her ass ghosted over his crotch. Due to their close proximity only, Diana could hear Molag’s breath hitch with want-- just barely. Gyrating her hips to the lyrics “Pussy stay wet like she was mixed with Mexican,” Diana dipped down and languidly rolled her hips directly against Molag, the Delta giving her a breathy chuckle in return.

Diana could hear the faint cheers and cat calls in the background, but her focus was totally drawn on the tightening of Molag’s jeans and how she could feel him. To keep herself as composed as possible, she lifted herself off of him, Molag’s face dropping into an almost pissed off frown and a groan releasing from his lips that had a deep, rough sound that made a pool of arousal drip between her legs.

Diana liked feeling in control of a man that she never imagined dominating. Or maybe she really wasn’t doing that, but thinking that she was commanding him somewhat. She knew that he was only letting her be in control for the sake of the challenge; to see if she was worth his time.

Turning around, Diana crawled in between Molag’s legs, wrapping her arms around his neck so that she wouldn’t fall and then sensually rolling her hips some more with the beat, her right knee teasing friction at the boner. Molag’s hands gripped her ass and slapped it, resulting in Diana throwing her head back with a short mewl in pleasure. The crowd went wild in reaction and Diana could particularly hear Clavicus groan, “Holy fuck!” The idea of having Molag lose his senses and just take her on the couch was controlling Diana’s mind. Yes, she was a virgin and was never savvy to sex or dating, but with the way he firmly gripped her ass and the wetness down below, she certainly wouldn’t have minded trying.

“How do you like it so far?” Diana asked with a shaky voice, leaning in to whisper in Molag’s ear.

“Like you said, I’m only giving you feedback after this, Diana.” Molag wanted to regain control and watch her fall apart because his hands travelled up her shirt, fingers sliding under the straps of her bra. Diana bit her lip when imagining Molag ripping her shirt off her body, unhooking the damn flimsy thing, then taking one of her breasts (that were pressed against his neck, just below his chin) in his mouth, but caught herself and pushed off him to compose herself yet again. She needed to calm her nerves, fast, before she did something else she’d regret in front of this crowd.

Her eyes ran through the whooping audience of frats and girls until they fell on the iconic red Solo cup in Sanguine’s hands. Bingo.

Smirking at the bug-eyed, half-mast Delta, she made her way to him, shaking her hips and running her hands through her hair to the music. Those around Sanguine “ooo”-ed like middle schoolers when she approached him. Pulling the hair tie out from her long, dark brown hair, she let her mane fly freely as she placed a hand on Sanguine’s chest, pushing him against the counter and snaking her leg around his waist. Sanguine’s unoccupied hand immediately shot to Diana’s waist, but she merely shook her head and slapped it away. While he was distracted in his flushed, horny daze, Diana took the Solo cup from his hands then swallowed a long swig of the cheap beer he intoxicated himself with before slamming it back down on the counter, making Sanguine yelp. Chuckling at him, Diana leaned into his ear and whispered, “I owe you those landscapes in photography later,” before backing away and doing a reverse cartwheel backward to Molag, purposely showing off her flexibility. Obviously the crowd went crazy and Sanguine looked like he came messily in his shorts.

The song was halfway over. Now tipsy enough to be more daring since she was a lightweight at heart, Diana peeled her slightly sweaty, hideous Alpha t-shirt off from over her head, throwing it somewhere in the crowd, said crowd scrambling into a brawl against it. Diana’s Qu’ran tattoos, scars from years of childhood martial arts and athletics, and lacey black bra were all on display for the audience (who she presumed grew even larger due to the now wide-open kitchen door) and Molag.

Molag’s eyes ran all up and down her body and Diana was definitely pleased that the Delta liked what he saw. Her skin erupted in goosebumps from his gaze as well, but it only drove her to climb on top of Molag, forcing him to lay back on the couch so that she could turn, both now in the 69 position and grinding her ass in his face.

She could hear her counterpart growl in both lust and anger at that. Pride swelled in her chest. Laughing, Diana lifted her hips carefully and rolled off of Molag without stepping on his head in the process. She couldn’t help herself. She danced and rolled around on the ground like some kind of sexual freak (or her aunt Chelsea.) Frats clapped and hollered loudly and Diana heard Molag sit up from the leather creaking under him. Turning her head a bit to him, she smirked and sat on her knees at the edge of the couch, teasing her finger against his boner.

There was probably a minute left of the song. She didn’t expect Molag to lift her so roughly off the ground and plop her in his lap with her legs on either side of him, dangling off the head of the couch to the point that she had to hold herself up with her hands barely on the seat. Wide-eyed, Diana hurried and sat up, wrapping her arms around Molag’s neck to stay balanced.

The college student threw her head back with a moan when Molag thrust his hips upwards into her clothed pussy, hands firmly grasping her ass and spanking every now and then in between bucks. Deltas shouted in delight at the sight of Molag finally corrupting Diana’s body each thrust at a time. Molag laughed at her yelps and gasps sadistically, eyes locked on her bra straps falling ever so slowly down her shoulders and then flicking back to the flushed, ecstasy-wrought face.

“Look at you,” Molag grunted with a smirk similar to the one Diana flashed at him, “weren’t you the one in ‘control’ earlier? You should see yourself. Falling apart and submitting to me so gracefully. I was just making a wild guess when I said you were an inexperienced virgin. It’ll be so entertaining burying myself inside of you for real and listen to you scream my name and mine only.”

“Y-You’re,” a gasp, “c-crazy.” She cried out even louder. She felt like she was going to combust and, judging from the size and the rock hardness of Molag’s erection, so was he.

“That I won’t deny.” Now with his hands on her hips, he rocked her body into his thrusts, staying in sync with the chill conclusion of Me & My Bitch in the process. Diana dug her nails into Molag’s neck, eventually matching his rhythm on her own, bouncing her ass up and down in his lap almost desperately.

“I-I’m gonna explode…!” She howled, eyes clenching shut. Molag merely snickered, voice husky and laced with silenced moans at the way her ass felt against him and how hot she looked.

“Submit to me, Diana,” he commanded, rutting up into her heat faster and harder than ever. Diana gasped and her back arched with a loud, unsullied cry in pleasure when she came. She caught Molag’s expression shift for a split second from composed to the opposite when he bit his lip with a low groan, Diana feeling him shoot his load through their sets of clothing.

Diana breathlessly panted and she only realized that the song hand ended when a round of applause that could probably be heard throughout the campus quaked.

“Hell yeah!”

“Yes, bitch!”

“Not to bad, babe.”

“My turn next!”

Diana slowly came back to herself, suddenly feeling exposed and bare and high on adrenaline. People walked up to her and patted her on the back, telling her that she did a great job and it was the sexiest lap dance they had ever seen. And she was only some inexperienced virgin.

“Everybody to the dancefloor!” Clavicus shouted, everyone cheering in agreeance. Clavicus turned to Diana and winked. “You, too, DiDi. Calculus is gonna be way more fun now.” Clavicus laughed when Diana blushed all the way to her ears, then he turned and left out with Sanguine and Dagon (apparently Sanguine was the one who caught her shirt. He could keep it.)

Diana hesitantly turned back to Molag, trying her hardest not to look as nervous as she felt. She had been in fights with weapons against guys twice Molag’s size. There was nothing for her to be afraid of--

“Now.” Diana jumped. Son of a bitch. She blamed Molag’s Satan-sounding voice.

“Yes?” She responded with her usual deadpan. Molag grinned at her and yanked her down by the shoulders until they were face to face, their breaths intermingling. Diana’s blush came back with a vengeance.

“That’s cute. I like how you try not to show how weak you are. Your flaws couldn’t have been more obvious.” She scowled at the shit-eating grin on his face.

“Do you have a point or should I get off of your steadily hardening dick so I can get to my dorm and study Shakespeare?” Diana still hated the school for the fact that they stuck her dyslexic ass in a Shakespeare 101 class.

“Trust me, Alpha, believe it when I say that you don’t run your life anymore.” She blinked. So that was what it meant.

“...I did not submit to you.”

“Not your decision. You came. Quite gloriously might I add. Therefore you’re mine now.” He twirled his fingers in a long strand of her hair, smiling at the way it felt. “And I think you’ve also ranked up to my favorite toy. Do you know why?”

“I. Am. Not. Your’s.” Diana hissed with narrowed eyes, trying her hardest not to kick the shit out of him.

“And that’s exactly why.” Leaning in and whispering in her ear, he said, “because the more you fight, the more turned on I get.” Without another word, Molag lifted Diana up under her thighs, the girl squeaking and tightening her hold around his neck so that she wouldn’t lose her balance. “Now, let’s go give you that feedback, as promised.”

Needless to say, Diana had the best initiation task ever.

©SelfTitled, 2017

She screwed up her face and quickly swiped left. What were these men thinking? Did they not, at some point, take a look at the photo they were offering up and reconsider their choice? Most of these badly-taken photos would not be out of place as mugshots on America's Most Wanted. 

She went to switch off the app and suddenly stopped, a small smile playing across her face. Now, this was more like it. Ares, 27, Mount Olympus. Hobbies: spear throwing, chariot racing, and boar hunting. Without hesitation, she swiped right. She sighed with relief. It was a match.

Moments later, he messaged her. "Hey, Aphrodite, nice pic. Love to show you my skills as a swordsman. Wanna hook up?"

Aphrodite smiled again. Arrogant, beautiful man. She put the phone down. She wouldn't answer for a moment or two. She didn't want to appear too keen. She lay back on the chaise lounge, lifting her silky blonde hair in her hands and allowing it to fall and spread across the luxurious fabric of the headrest. She stretched her long, lithe legs out in front of her and arched her back sensuously, imagining the rendezvous which was sure to come. 

"Aphrodite."

She turned her head at the sound of her husband's voice. Hephaestus stood hunched over in the doorway, his plain face etched with pain. Slowly, carefully, he made his way across the room, his walking stick tap-tapping on the polished wooden floors. Aphrodite made no move to help him. Curse Zeus for trapping her in this marriage to a man she could never love.

"Aphrodite." Hephaestus stopped in front of her, his eyes bright with adoration despite the pain of his crippled leg. "I thought we could....," he hesitated, summoning his courage, ".... I thought we could order in pizza and have a quiet night together. Just the two of us." 

The hope in his voice pricked at Aphrodite's heart for just a moment. She looked at the man from under her thick, dark lashes, her wide blue eyes holding his just long enough to give him a surge of confidence. Then she turned away and picked up her phone. "I'm sorry. I've made other plans."

"Look, Don, can I call you, Don?"

"My name is Poseidon, God of the Sea, Earthq.."

"Yeah, Don, Earthquakes, horses, blah, blah,blah, do you see that table over there? I need you to take that young couples order."

"I am Poseidon, God of the Sea, I do not take orders from mere mortals."

"Then, I suggest, you make them tell you what it is that they want to eat, m'kay, Don."

Poseidon glares down on this tiny human creature with brown curly hair, and doe-like eyes, "I ..."

"Just do it, before I stick a trident up your butt." The tiny human stalked off. Arg...she didn't have time to babysit this stuck-up God, seriously, she needed to make as much in tips as possible tonight. She picked up two orders on her tray for table five, and then she heard it...."Oh, MY GOD."

"You called for me."

"Don, what the hell, did you do?"

Poseidon stood, eyes straight ahead, smirking, "What....that insufferable human said, he wanted a refill."

Dear Hades, 

I know this may come as a shock to you but it's been brewing for a long time. Despite the way it started I've put thousands of years into trying to make this marriage work. I know you're trying but even from the beginning it was obvious we were not a good match. I was willing to stick it out for the sake of the planet, after all no one wants an eternal winter. Now with what humans are doing to the environment I might be better off on the surface working to improve the situation. That is why I'm going back to my mother. You can keep the palace I don't want it, but I am taking the dog. Cerberus might have been yours first but I'm the one who feeds and takes care of him. I'll have my lawyer contact you soon.

Persephone

      The room was filled with silence, the kind of silence that crushes and cripples, stifling lungs and speeding the pulse. Victor’s grip on his wineglass tightened until spider-webbed cracks became jagged edges, and jagged edges became mirrored shards resting in a pool of wine bleeding into the white wood. His shirt was specked with cabernet sauvignon, flecks of festered red that he imagined multiplying if he accepted his apparent calling.

      “No. Absolutely not.”

      The Horsemen glanced at each other, their darting eyes debating who would explain until Jayne gave up.

      “It’s not a choice, Victor. If you’re chosen to be a Horseman, then you are one. You can’t give back your ability.” Her voice was pretty, like bells as bronze as her hair, and church choirs. It was a sound that someone could fall in love with, if it didn’t belong to a woman who caused the starvation of millions.

     “Can I control how to use it?”

      She nodded. “The only limitation is that you can’t afflict other Horsemen.”

      “Can’t or shouldn’t?”

      Jayne locked eyes with Lincoln. He had been a Horseman for around two thousand years longer than she, and had caused the end of the Roman Empire. Although she felt that her affliction of the Irish was overshadowed by that on some cosmic scale of comparison, she did not let bitterness obstruct her work, and in the second their gazes met, she trusted his unspoken advice.

      “Can’t. Our powers don’t affect each other, and we’re immortal unless we’re murdered.” Her voice quieted. “That’s what happened to the last Horseman.”

      Victor flinched. Her words reminded him of memories he wanted to burn out of the recesses of his mind. He stared at the center of the circular table, where an iron horse, rearing defiantly pawed the air. “Do you really ride horses?”

      Lincoln’s baritone rumble answered. “No. Ancient lore speculated such, but we travel like most humans.”

      “‘Humans’? Really? Do you see yourselves as gods?” His scoff stirred the man to his left, a sunken olive face on a motionless body, thin and poisonous.

      “When you have lived as long as we have, you stop feeling human.”

      The silence fell again, as if from the chandelier. Ezra had that ability. Staring into eternity with a half-mortal mind had stolen the oldest Horseman’s patience for foolish questions, pleas for mercy, and disrespect. Victor understood this implicitly, and tread with more caution.

      “Right. Sorry. So what do I do now? I’m supposed to go out and just start killing people?”

      Lincoln sighed, extending a muscled arm to refill his glass. “The Ashen Rider usually follows the actions of the other Riders to finish what they started.”

      “You create the cause of death, but I collect their souls?”

      “More or less.”

      “Great. Bloody brilliant.”

      There was no more left to clarify, so the meeting was adjourned. When the four left the hotel, they parted, seeming to be nothing more than strangers. The End Times were near, and the ranks of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse were full.

                                                         *   *   *

      The barroom in the heart of Damascus was smoky, with the peculiar, rich sourness of vodka and wine swirled by every turn of the ceiling fans. Lincoln sat alone at the counter, twirling the short stem of a quarter-full glass between his fingers as he watched the silent news report on the television. His awareness of his Western appearance gave him the sense that invisible eyes were watching and disapproving of his presence, although he was closer to his original home than he had been in decades. The words scrolling across a red band on the bottom of the news channel were of more help than the babbling of reporters reciting hollow stories for the sake of a paycheck. The Middle East was an experiment in self-control for him, to test if he could afflict but not destroy, utilize his power but not overuse it, fan a flame but quench a blaze. To some, the headlines might have demonstrated that he was failing to withhold enough, that he lacked the restraint he sought to assess. More children were recently recruited to the fighting, chemical weapons were used liberally, more civilian casualties occurring, more families torn apart and stranded. This was not the worst he had done, or would need to do by the end. The evening report shifted to breaking news, according to the graphic that flashed across the screen. A battle in Aleppo, five hours away from where Lincoln sat, had yielded “miraculous outcomes”, as the clean-shaven reporter read from his tablet. Though it was a skirmish as bloody as any other, there was not a single casualty, and testimonies were flooding in of soldiers with mortal wounds that were alive and receiving treatment. Churches were full of grateful, late night worshippers, and the battle was hailed as “the day death did not touch”. The statement rang slightly too true for comfort, and Lincoln wondered where the newest Rider was.

                                                           *   *   *

      Jayne wandered down the dirt road toward the mercado, her sandals stirring the dust as she walked. Posters stapled to telephone poles proclaimed “Victory!” over a man with a triumphant fist raised, next to a woman wearing a lurid, neon pink dress and too much makeup. After the election six years ago, the image was plastered all over Granada on billboards and road sign poles alike. Despite the president’s promises of triumph for Nicaragua, the lower class had nothing of the sort in their combat against hunger. As Jayne passed the people with her eyes downcast, her gaze was drawn to shirtless children with their skin pressed against their ribs, old men with sunken cheeks, and women with eyes searching for ways to earn food for their families. In every face was evidence of desperate need, and she felt a twinge of something like guilt, but with a task like hers to carry out, she couldn’t afford to falter.

      As Jayne haggled with a vendor over the price of a garnet hand-woven bag with an unidentifiable animal stitched to the front, a rancid stench pervaded the conversation. The shop owner’s brow furrowed, but he still drove the price up to 250 Córdobas. With a store around the corner from the meat market, such smells could be expected, especially in the dead of the dry season. The stinging in Jayne’s nostrils grew as the smell did, and she gave up, counting out the bills for him and taking her new bag.

      She rounded the corner and was met with a fog of warm, rotting, raw meat. Flies droned around blackened pig heads, cow tongues, and white-veined beef cuts swinging from metal hooks. A woman scrutinized a display of decomposing fish, hoping for one remaining fresh pick.

      “Josue!” A steak seller in a blood-streaked apron yelled across a walkway to a fellow seller. “Did yours rot, too?’

      “Yes,” Josue called back. “Damn that witch.”

      The witch, Jayne knew, was the president’s wife, as she was rumored at least. Abrupt misfortune was blamed on her, and normal misfortune on the government’s indifference to the poor.

     "How would it be for me if they knew the truth?" She pondered as she left the maze of molded and discolored flesh.

     Word spread about the meat market, and shoppers stopped coming that way. When an identical case destroyed the produce section an hour later, they started on their ways home without food. Jayne knew that she condemned many of them, but she found that she had lost real remorse early on in her career. They were fighting a holy war, after all, and duty is not something to shy away from in such a position. They were told to begin crumbling the nations, so crumble the nations she would.

                                                          *   *   *

      Ezra did not believe in hesitation. He did not believe in fear.

      He believed in following orders, and he believed in angry gods.

      Ezra believed that anger was righteous, sent by those above to stir humans into action over wrongdoing. And Ezra sensed that he was being given anger towards Victor.

      “He is useless!” The White Rider paced, his eyes furiously tracing the serpentine design on the thick carpet. “He is letting them live! You both know this! None of our work is fruitful and they have noticed!”

      “Calm down.” Lincoln’s low voice did nothing to soothe him.

      “Do you want to be struck from our positions? We have been given great gifts, but he is wasting his, and without him, we are useless!” With every step, the tension hanging in the air became more electric.

      Jayne ran her hands over her travel-worn face and frazzled hair. “I don’t want to interfere; he’s going to realize I lied to him about our powers affecting each other sooner or later, and we can’t risk him lashing out. He’s the closest to immortality out of us all, and that’s dangerous.”

      “I know!” Ezra hissed. “The gods-”

      “Your gods gave Victor his position. He is the most powerful for a reason. You can only denounce his actions so far before they grow insulted.” Lincoln did not believe in the same gods as the Horseman of Pestilence, but what the former needed was quiet, an impossible thing around the hysterical muttering of an aged prophet.

      “We need to afflict someone he is close to.” Ezra’s khakis brushed against each other in the midst of his frantic steps, like a rustling metronome counting every second they lost.

      Jayne’s head jerked up, eyes wide. “No, it’s not dire enough to do something like that! He’s still adjusting; give him some time.”

      “It’s been four weeks since he was appointed.” Lincoln’s fingers tapped out a rhythm as he spoke, Ezra noticed. Restlessness was a good sign. “Three weeks ago, there were no casualties in a bloody Syrian battle. There have been no casualties since. Two weeks ago, you contacted me about the lack of results from your trip to Granada. One week ago, Ezra’s outbreaks, even the ones in underdeveloped areas with no access to medicine, stopped claiming victims. People are starting to wonder; it’s impossible to not notice dropping worldwide death rates when nothing significant has changed. Victor is forsaking his duty and this hinders us in ours. I think Ezra’s right. We must remember what our goal is: we are here to further the Kingdom.”

      Jayne nodded slowly.

      “I will afflict someone he is close to.” Ezra slowed his pace and met the eyes of the other two. “It is the only way he will understand.”

                                                           *   *   *

      Longing tastes like the ocean.

      Audra was the first one to tell him that. She said it was because the tide goes in and out, like the fickleness of desire, but no matter where the tide is, the ocean is always there. Longing is deeper and more constant than simple, quick desire. Victor always tasted the ocean when he was with her.

      The last time they were together, it was a Saturday on a boardwalk in the north. It was her idea to visit, and for the whole two hour drive there, they listened to a CD they found at Goodwill of an indie band they had never heard of. The music wasn’t much good, but they felt obligated to listen because they did spend $2.50 on it. As soon as they arrived, they went to a sunny-looking hamburger restaurant for lunch and bought pastel rolls of saltwater taffy at a stand.

      Audra liked to call him Vic, and he hated the nickname, but he would have accepted almost anything she wanted to call him short of expletives. Love is about sacrifices, he knew. This is why when she dashed to him with another little handful of shells, he was happy to put them in his pockets for safekeeping, even though he knew she would forget about them until he returned them to her when they got home, and then she would remember and love them again. Sometimes he recalled the wisps of her caramel hair whipping about, pulled free from her bun by a briny gust, and other times tracing her dancing footprints in the wet sand nearest the water, his feet so much larger than the ghosts of hers. Music drifted down from the stalls and games up the dune, and she swayed to the rhythm with a certain delicacy from her place at the edge of the surf, letting seafoam hiss across her toes. Her eyes reflected the sage green ocean as they sat on a pearl colored blanket next to crumpled, empty chip wrappers and hot dog papers stained with mustard. The setting sun glowed as it sank to its bed on the outside edge of the sea, lighting her hair and the edges of her profile with little gold light-dots, like the electric bulbs strung up along the boardwalk.

      On the way home, she fell asleep with her head against the window, so Victor avoided the bumpier roads so as not to wake her. Sometimes a streetlamp would cast its light on her just as he happened to look over, and her freckles stood out like stars. He escorted her up the walkway when they arrived to her house, and he held her for a moment on the porch. He let himself hold her tighter that day, and when he stepped back, he let the love show clearly on his face, but hid it again before saying goodbye, fearful that she would see and understand.

      Two weeks later, Victor received a call from Audra’s brother.

      That night, he screamed.

      He screamed until his throat was raked red, and his eyes were bloodshot with crying, and he swore, and broke a picture frame, and he felt dehydrated but didn’t want to drink, because then he would gag and retch and his insides were already inflamed from not eating. The neighbors called the police, and the officer who arrived found him sitting on the living room floor clutching a handful of shells.

      The funeral was that Saturday at a mortuary in the east. He spent the entire time either in complete numbness or drowning under the weight of emotions and thoughts. There were plenty of flower arrangements around the room, and he knew she would’ve disliked them. Wildflowers were her favorite, not these trimmed and dyed store-bought creations. The more he looked at the paper-covered pots and neon blooms, the angrier he became.

      “How was there such an oversight that they got flowers she would have hated?” He fumed to himself as the crowd dispersed. She was going to be cremated, and her ashes spread somewhere. He didn’t know where, but did not ask because if it wasn’t a place she would have wanted, he lacked the restraint in his grief that would keep him from stealing her ashes and spreading them somewhere better.

      The next day, he received a letter requesting his presence at a conference in a meeting room at the U.S. Grant Hotel. He had never heard of the organization sponsoring the event, nor had he applied for anything of the sort, but he went mostly out of curiosity.

      The room was empty except for a steel chandelier and a round spruce table at which three people were already seated. A thin-faced brunette woman wearing a crisp business suit idly sipped from a travel mug as a muscled blonde man in workout clothes to her left poured wine into two glasses and handed one to the professionally dressed figure across from him, an empty shadow of a man staring at nothing. They looked up as he entered, and he sat between the two men in the only empty chair.

      They introduced themselves by two names, their birth names and what they were called now. The woman used to be Rosamund, but went by Jayne. The athletic man used to Amphion, but was Lincoln now, and the shadow-man was Indra, now Ezra. In order for him to understand their organization, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he needed to understand the bigger picture. As they detailed the spiritual war being raged invisibly in the cities and the streets, Victor felt his worldview shifting, as if his spine was suddenly snapped into alignment after a lifetime of one vertebrae being slightly out of place. All the questions he wrote essays about in university philosophy class seemed to make sense.

      “So bad things happen because the world is falling apart, and now the end of it is coming.” He took a sort of morbid comfort in the fact that everything was in shambles because it would all soon die; at least it wasn’t entirely senseless ruin.

      Victor leaned back in his seat as Lincoln passed him a half-full glass. “It makes sense. So is this a religious organization, and you want to convert me? Why only send one person a letter, then?”

      Lincoln folded his hands. “Our job is essentially to be the embodiments of the forces that will bring the End Times, and we are given special abilities to cause the individual events leading up to it. I am the Horseman of War, Jayne is the Horseman of Famine, and Ezra is the Horseman of Pestilence. Recently, we lost the Horseman of Death. We are told who to choose as the next Horseman. We were told to choose you.”

      Victor paused, mid-sip. “What does that mean?”

      “It means you wield the power of death, and whoever you choose dies. Our powers are useless without you. We can create havoc and suffering wherever we walk, but without the Horseman of Death, it comes to nothing.”

      “So I’m like the Grim Reaper?”

      “In essence. What do you think?”

      Victor looked at each of their faces in turn. Jayne bore an expression of hopeful expectance, Lincoln was stoic and straight-faced, and Ezra did not seem to possess emotion. He did not realize how hard he was squeezing the thin glass until it shattered, and he still only stared at the Horsemen.

      “No. Absolutely not.”

                                                           *   *   *

      One month later, Victor was walking home from work with a cup of coffee in hand. It was out of his price range, but he’d bought it anyway under the reasoning that a day as bad as his constituted some caffeine. The morning was full of harried mothers with crying toddlers, and by noon, he had to call his manager because a greying middle-aged woman pushing a cart full of groceries and discount swimwear blamed the fact that her card was not working on him. His phone buzzed from his back pocket as he unlocked the battered door to his duplex, but the sound was overlapped by the yipping of Oscar, his sister’s Miniature Pinscher that she coerced him into watching for a week.

      “Shut up; it’s just me!” Victor yelled at the black beady eyes glaring out from behind the baby gate between the living room and the hallway. He collapsed on the sofa and pulled out his phone from under him, almost spilling the condensation-dripping coffee in the process. The most recent text from his mother gave him pause:

      “At the hospital. Gabe couldn’t stop throwing up, they think it might be cyclic vomiting syndrome or a brain tumor.”

      Victor drove to the city hospital an hour later to join his mother and stepsister, Coraline. The IV steadily dripped down a tube into his stepfather’s arm, like an hourglass of fluids instead of sand. The sleeping man was even paler than usual, and Victor stared at his silent form, chest slowly moving up and down with the beeping of the heart monitor.

      “They don’t know what happened.” His mother said quietly. “While you were on the way, he stopped suddenly and just collapsed. They said it could recur, or never happen again. They won’t know until they place what caused it.”

      “Where was he when it started?” Victor’s eyes never left the man’s face. Gabe wasn’t an old man, but he seemed to age as he lay in the bright room, on the strict bed with its rigid white sheets reeking of disinfectant. The harshly clean smell made his head float.

      “He was at home, watering the front garden. He was only a few minutes, but I heard this awful noise and went outside, and there he was, keeling over the gardenia bush. And it just didn’t stop.”

      “Hm.” A thought struck Victor and his stomach plummeted. “Did you see anyone go by the house?”

      “No, why?” She looked at him concernedly. “Victor, are you okay?”

      “I’ll get him water.” Coraline left, just to have something to do.

      The memory of his meeting with the Horsemen hung over the back of his mind like the shadow of a menacing figure he didn’t want to turn and face. At times over the past weeks, he wondered how the ability to reap souls worked, and tried to wish death upon a wasp as an experiment, but it remained alive. He wasn’t sure if it didn’t work because they had no souls, or if the whole meeting was just a hoax and he let it get to him.

      “Are you okay?” His mother repeated, ready to call the doctors a second time.

      “Yeah,” he finally answered. “Just shaken up, I guess.”

      Gabriel Moretti’s condition steadily worsened through the week, and so did Victor’s paranoia. He did not know how to contact the Horsemen, and he was not sure what to expect if he did. He assumed they would want him to start killing people, but that wasn’t an option.

      “It’s been all over the news that death rates are dropping, but I didn’t think I was the only one reaping souls. They haven’t dropped off completely, so I’d assume someone else is working, but the deaths related to war, hunger, and disease are completely gone, and those are all the main causes of death. Damn it, why was I chosen? Whoever decided should have known I can’t do something like this; I’m not murderous or angry or vindictive, and now some crazy heavenly ambassadors are coming for my family and there’s nothing I can do. Audra would have good advice. Or she would admit that she had no ideas and suggest that we run away instead of solving the problem. And we would do it.”

      Victor and his stepfather had a lucky bond that few fathers and sons are given. He never knew his birth father, but he wasn’t bothered by it because Gabe was a perfectly good substitute. They had similar tastes and views, and rarely butt heads except for once, when Victor wanted to get a tattoo and his stepfather said no, but it was his eighteenth birthday so he did it anyway. Gabriel supported his son’s artistic streak and passion for theatre, and Victor was grateful to escape a trope used in most coming-of-age films involving the tenuous bond between fathers and sons. The man encouraged him to use his talents, which earned him a sizable scholarship to college, and upon moving out, he was even more tearful than Victor’s mother. To see such an important figure in his life wasting away under an unknown and untreatable disease caused pain that was too familiar. His heart grew more bloodied with every update his family sent, and his conscience was rent until he received a call from an unknown number.

      “He will suffer until he dies.”

      The call ended.

      “What?” Victor stared at the phone screen. It seemed too melodramatic to happen outside a D-list movie, but the words barely took five seconds to hear and he knew what his task was.

                                                            *   *   *

      Lincoln and Jayne walked hand in hand down a bustling park walkway. They were posing as a couple, but if pressed, Jayne would admit that she was enjoying herself. They sat nonchalantly next to Ezra’s still form on a backless bench, and stared up at the hospital across the street where his gaze was already directed.

      “They’re all up there?” Lincoln asked.

      “Yes.” Ezra did not blink.

      “Is it going to happen soon?”

      “Yes.”

      Their gazes converged at the same window. Jayne wondered if Victor could see them.

      Ezra leveled his head abruptly and looked around, blinking as if he had never seen Labradors or children on scooters before.

      “Did he do it?” Jayne asked incredulously.

      Ezra nodded. Lincoln suspected that if he could remember how to show it, he would have looked surprised.

                                                        *   *   *

      The monitor flatlined. The unwavering tone of the black and green screen echoed in Victor’s mind.

      The doctor had warned them that the end was likely to come any day. There was no foreseeable cure after exhausting all the treatment options.

      “It’s hard to fight in the dark,” one put simply.

      Gabriel was awake when his wife took his hand, and his stepson and daughter moved their chairs closer to him. Victor wondered what would happen if they waited for death to arrive and it never did.

      “I suppose he’ll be stuck dying forever, however that works. He’s in too much pain.”

      As soon as the thought came, he wished for his father’s suffering to end, and it did.

      “Death isn’t always a punishment. It can be a release.”

                                                        *   *   *

      Jayne started to cry. She didn’t mean to, but sometimes remorse returned to her, and it was always at inconvenient moments. Lincoln put his arm around her and pulled her towards him, letting her tears stain his shirt. He was posing as her comforter, but if pressed, he would admit that he did not mind. Ezra, too, seemed shaken.

      “I have done this for too long. I forgot why I was chosen. I have been working in vengeance, and not in servitude to my gods as they wished. It is time for me to go.”

      Lincoln considered stopping him, but he understood. He felt similarly before, and did not believe it to be his right to hinder the man. Millennia of life tend to wear away at one’s self.

      “Audra would be proud. She always wanted you to remember,” he called at the back of the receding figure.

      Ezra stopped at the edge of the road. “Yes, she did. She would be proud of Victor for coming to understand as she did. He will be as fine a Horseman as she was.”

      Jayne and Lincoln did not see him smile.

"Fair warning," I stopped before I opened the door, "my family is a bit...eccentric. Bohemian. Idiosyncra-"

Alex laughed before the final -tic. "Okay, okay, Miss Thesaurus. I'm sure I'll like them just fine."

I smiled. Alex and I had met just recently on campus, when I caught him reading Aleen Ginsberg's Howl. He claimed not to understand it -though looking back I think he just wanted a reason to talk- and as a lover of all things poetic, I was happy to help. Things took off quickly from there. 

Sucking in a breath, I turned the knob and pushed open the door, only to be greeted from a high C from the front hallway. 

It cam from my sister Euterpe, standing proudly before her music stand, eyes closed, like any good diva. Before any glass could be shattered, she gasped and exclaimed, "Calliope's home!" 

Thalia, the wise-cracker, dashed down the front stairs faster than any winged-footed god ever could. She wore a green t-shirt with the words "Guess What?" emblazoned upon it, along with a chicken and an arrow pointing towards the chicken's rear. (Get it?) 

"Callie, sis, you're home!" Tally bounced excitedly up and down. "Just like Euterpe announced not a second ago! And, oh boy, there's a man. Be careful, you two, I'm not ready to become an aunt!" And just like that, she blazed out of sight, cackling at her own joke. 

I sighed. "That was Thalia, and that," I pointed towards the opera star still in front of us, "is Euterpe." 

Alex waved as Euterpe said, "I've just been preparing for my next audition. Apollo is putting on a review," she said as she raised an eyebrow in my direction. 

Rolling my eyes at the mention of my ex-boyfriend, I replied, "That's great for you and Apollo. Now Alex, would you join me in the living room, please?" We walked towards the end of a hallway filled with art supplies, ballet shoes, and half-filled journals as Euterpe began another aria. 

At the desk in the far right corner of the living room was Clio, labeling a textbook with Post-It notes. Opposite her, Urania was setting up her old trusty, dusty telescope, even though it was barely noon. Clio and Nia, the historian and astrologer of the family, respectively, were usually quiet, even when all nine of us sisters were together. Them I could handle. 

"Hey guys," I greeted them, "Alex and I are just here to study." They both nodded distractedly. 

Alex and I plopped ourselves down on the couch, which had been splattered with paint throughout the years. "So," he started, "what did you want to go over first?"

Before I could answer, Erato entered, wearing one of her signature soft, floral frocks, and grinned madly. "Thalia was right! You guys are in love!" she practically squealed as she joined Alex and I on the floor. 

"We are not- but that's okay because- and we may never...." I groaned. "Erato, not now!" 

She, as usual, ignored me. "This is going to make for the loveliest, most heart-wrenching sonnet of all time! Thanks for the inspiration, Calliope and boyfriend!" And she was off. 

"Your sisters are..."Alex began to comment, before I interrupted him with, "Annoying? Absurd? Exasperating?" 

Alex chuckled. "I was just going to say energetic." 

I sensed a dark gray rain cloud begin to hover above us, and sure enough, Melpomene entered from the kitchen, her clothes and lips all black. 

"Hey, Mel," I tried my best to be polite to the family goth, "This is Alex." 

Mel shrugged. "Whatever," she mumbled as she dragged her feet further across the floor and left the room. 

I noticed that a voice as loud as Euterpe's was starting from upstairs, only while Euterpe's voice was piercing and operatic, this one was more soulful, but no less irritating. "Keep it down, Polyhymnia!" I shouted. 

"You know she has choir practice tonight," said Terpsichore as she strutted in on her long dancer's legs. "She has to practice- and so do I," she added as she stretched more than a little too close to Alex. 

"Cori, could you please do that literally anywhere else in the house?" I said through gritted teeth. 

"Suit yourself, but remember," she turned before heading upstairs, "the neighborhood potluck dinner is tomorrow. You know Mom never forgets it." She twirled- actually twirled- into the hallway. 

"Aw man, I am so sorry," I said turning to Alex, "my family is just...awful. Horrendous. The worst."

Alex smirked. "I was thinking more along the lines of...special. Unique. Individualistic."

I smiled back. Maybe Erato's prediction would be right in the long run. "Anyway," I opened my textbook finally, "where were we?"