Now, with Morealis out of the way, his Keeper replacement is destroyed and the Conterent are set free by Hell’s earth-bound mercenary, who begins to plot the ruin of all Creation.
Matthew is then sent an alarming dream about a dead girl named Hannah. The dream becomes reality when Hannah shows up on a street corner, alive, only to die moments later and arrive in Matthew’s room. Listening to her journey into Hell, Matthew gets a twinge of his former life. Soon after, he’s sucked through the floorboards and dumped into the River Acheron. Pulled toward the City of Dis, Matthew is forced to remember his previous life and reclaim his place as Hell’s ruler. Without restriction, the Conterent will destroy Earth, Heaven, and Hell, but now the legendary Keeper has returned…
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Chapter Four
I landed. Head first.
Thankfully it wasn’t into a rock, just a river.
“Hey, watch it!” someone yelled.
I fully resurfaced and managed to look around. When I did, I saw a man leaning toward me out of a boat. He was older in years and wore a dark beard. A dull metal helmet rested on his head and allowed his dark hair to sneak out at the back.
“The gods must have a sense of humor now,” he said.
“Wha -.” I swallowed some water. “What do you mean?”
“Usually a visitor must enter the gates to be admitted into Hell, and then they come to me for admittance, but you came to me first,” said the man.
The river was flowing extremely fast around me; I wasn’t sure how I wasn’t getting carried away with it, but I wasn’t going anywhere – I was completely stationary. I still had to kick my legs to stay afloat. I was struggling to do so because I couldn’t touch the bottom. Then something swam past my legs. The boatman’s gaze left mine and he stared into the water below me. His face lit up in concern and his eyes grew wide.
“You ought to get in the boat, son, and quickly,” he said.
He extended his arms and pulled me into the wooden fishing boat. I lay on my stomach with my feet hanging over the side as I coughed up a small amount of water.
“Sit proper, son. It is not wise to taunt the creatures of the deep.”
I looked back at my feet dangling over the boat as it began to rock back and forth. I sat up quickly and dared to look over the edge and into the water.
“What’s down there?” I asked.
“Nothing to concern yourself about now that you are safe in my boat,” he said.
I tore my gaze away from the water and looked at the mysterious man I had fallen upon. I sat back, suddenly aware that I wasn’t in my room anymore and that Hannah, Ellie, and Bill weren’t with me.
“Where am I?” I asked, leaning into one end of the boat.
He stared at me with a hard look. “Hell.”
I looked around us and saw the river for what it truly was. The waters were almost black, but not because they were dirty. There was hardly any light and I wondered how I was able to see so well in the dark. The river stretched on as far as I could see and at the moment we were quite close to the shore, but the other side was nowhere to be seen.
“The River Acheron,” the man said. “And I am Charon, the ferryman who takes deserving souls into Hell.”
“You mean this is Hell? Like you die and end up here kind of thing?” I waited but there was no answer. “Am I dead?”
Charon chuckled darkly. “No…unfortunately.”
“Then why –“
“Matthew!”
My head jerked around to the voice on the shore behind me.
“Hannah!” I yelled back, waving my arms.
“Can we go back to the shore?” I asked Charon.
There was a very clear smile on my face. I was glad to see Hannah. I didn’t know how I was going to survive Hell without her.
Charon didn’t acknowledge my question, but simply took up his oar and Hannah grew closer as the boat moved slowly across the water. Before I knew it, the boat ran up onto the shore and I was jumping out in haste.
Throwing my arms around Hannah, she caught me and hugged me back. I stepped back and looked at her. She felt solid. Actually solid.
“Yeah, I’m different down here,” she answered my questioning gaze.
I smiled at her. “How did you find me?” I asked.
“I just followed you. I can feel your presence now, like I’m attached,” she said.
“That’s cool…” My voice trailed off as I felt a tug towards the invisible, opposite shore.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
I looked to the opposite shore and thought a moment, wondering if I had imagined the tug. Then it happened again. I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Something wanted me to go over there. I didn’t know why or how I knew that, but it was the truth.
“I’m supposed to cross,” I said.
“Why?” Hannah asked.
“I don’t know, but I have to. It’s why I’m here,” I explained.
“Okay, well I’m definitely going with you, you know that right? This is Hell and you could die here. I can’t die again, so I’m going as your body guard,” she said sternly.
I looked at her and smiled euphorically. I couldn’t help but allow the feeling of pleasure to rise in my throat at her words. The dead girl that showed up in my room, who had seen me naked and I had kissed, was going to be my body guard in Hell, the place I had been summoned for a reason unknown to me. This was all really weird, yet really exciting simply because she was here with me. Was I falling for a dead girl?
Taking her hand, I walked us back to Charon and his boat.
“Stop!” Charon raised his hand in protest.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“You cannot cross,” he said blandly.
“What do you mean? I was just in the boat.”
“You are not permitted.”
“Oh not this again.” Hannah sighed as her hip cocked to the side. “Just let us cross!”
I looked at Hannah and then back at the ferryman. “Why can’t we cross?”
“You must pay the toll and you cannot,” Charon answered.
“How do you know I can’t? Wait, give me a minute.” I dug into my jean pockets and felt around for some money. Eventually, I felt something down at the very bottom of my left pocket and drew it out. “Here,” I said, holding out an odd gold coin. I didn’t know what it was though; I had never seen anything like it before.
“You dare present me with an obolos?” Charon questioned.
“You said you wanted payment. What’s wrong with this? I mean, I don’t know what it is but it’s got to be good for something, right?” I questioned. Apparently, Charon knew more about this mysterious coin than I did, even though it had been in my pocket.
“This is payment for the dead to cross into Hell. If you give me this, the Umbra cannot return with you,” he explained.
“You mean Hannah?” I asked.
Charon nodded slowly, never breaking eye contact with me.
This made no sense at all. First, I disappeared out of my own bedroom and was thrown in a very deep river with something swimming around me that could have quite possibly eaten me. Then this ferryman had dragged me in his boat willingly even though I hadn’t even asked to be saved. Then he said he wanted payment to take us across, something that I had to do, but then when I offered payment he said that it would pay for Hannah’s passage, but that she couldn’t return from the other side after he took the coin. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to be here, but I had to be here. I just needed to fucking cross.
Fury leapt in my throat and a deep growl protruded from my chest. I advanced on the ferryman and bent down to his eye level as my eyes burned. “Charon, you will allow us passage and she will be able to return.”
Charon reclaimed his seat and took up his oar as fear crossed his face and consumed his voice. When he finally spoke, a weak sound was all that protruded. “Yes…yes, Keeper.”
I inhaled deeply and relaxed, remembering Hannah beside me. I took her hand in mine again and began to climb into the boat, but she didn’t move. This angered me because I needed to cross. She would not hold me back no matter my growing feelings for her. This was important and some dead girl was not going to get in my way. Looking back at her, the fury grew in me once more and my eyes burned again.
Fear crossed her face just as it had Charon’s. I looked at her intensely and pulled once more on her hand. She reluctantly stepped forward and climbed into the boat, never taking her eyes off mine. I shoved the boat off the shore and jumped in as Charon guided it through the water and to the opposite shore that I could now see easily.
The boat ride was long and silent. Neither Charon or Hannah looked at me the entire time, but I kept my view out across the surface of the water anyway. I didn’t recognize the anger boiling in me. I had never been this angry before, yet something told me I was wrong in that assertion.
I vaguely felt a pull from the back of my head, telling me that I had lived another life where anger ruled everything. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I had never given much thought to a higher power, gods and goddesses, or, least of all, reincarnation. Was that even possible?
What gave someone the right to be reincarnated? Was it a conscious decision or just a random selection and placement? And, most of all, who was in charge of making that decision in the first place? Was it more of a punishment than anything else?
I didn’t consciously know the answers to these questions and concerns, but I did know that I was missing something.
Suddenly, my head started pounding and it felt as if someone was trying to rip the back of my skull open. I grabbed at my head and cried out in pain. What was happening to me? Why was I in so much pain?
The agony forced me to double over the side of the boat so that my head hung over the water. Another stab of pain threw my eyes open and I stared at myself in the dark reflection of the water. My eyes were red. They burned. I had never known so much pain.
I thrashed about, throwing my head back, and falling to the floor of the boat.
“Matthew, Matthew, what’s wrong? What happened? What’s going on?” I could feel Hannah beside me, but she didn’t touch me. I could sense fear and worry surrounding her.
I tried to open my eyes, but they hurt too much. Finally, I managed to get them open and I saw Hannah kneeling beside me in the bottom of the boat.
Worry left the air around her and was replaced by even more fear. Fear for her life. She shuffled backwards away from me and her hand flew to cover her mouth as her eyes bulged.
“What’s-“ I started, but then the pain got worse. I fought it, fought the hurting in the back of my head. Make it stop, I told myself. Just make the pain go away and everything will be fine.
Then the pain stopped.
I slowly opened my eyes and looked at Hannah again. She was clutching the side of the boat as her body crouched away from me. Tears stained her cheeks.
“I’m okay, it’s over,” I panted, trying to reassure her. I reached toward her, wanting her close to me, but she shrank away from my touch. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”
Her eyes were wide, so wide, and when she spoke her voice was barely a whisper. “Your… your eyes. What happened to your eyes?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“They were red,” she squeaked.
