I ready myself to be let down, but he doesn't, and the impenetrable metal doors open wide without even a nudge.

"......"

Okay, so there is a palace within a palace?

A sandy trail runs along well groomed gardens to stop at the doors of a castle without walls, made in striking reference to the one in the Underworld and showed hints of modern architecture.

Not a soul greets us with its presence as we make way to the almost identical bedchambers and he places me down with a word on the neatly made bed.

Soon as he turns away I slither off the sides with the heart of an explorer but dread promptly grips me as my legs wobble like a newborn', but before I painfully crumble down to the floor, hands loop down my shoulder raising me even to his eyes.

"Can you not run around for a second." He scolds without a trace of annoyance but with undercurrents of rage.

The reason for his mood changes, I really wanted to know but hanging midair with my face squished between my shoulders I could only deluge in self pity.

When I was brought down to the bed I reel away from his touch. "Why would you bring me here?"

"As I said before, you are in no position to raise a question" Gold floods his warm irises, his temperament fluctuating each second.

The subtle changes from anger to perfected calm was evident throughout the day, but I couldn't grasp onto the reason. Is it really because I barged in like that the day before, or is it something I unknowingly over looked.

"Why?" I ask weakly as he turns away.

"Why can't I know why I was taken here? Why do you keep saying that I am in no position to ask you?"

"Are you really pissed at me? Because I don't know what I did wrong." The angry facade I donned slips away to the hurt and sadness it hid beneath.

"You do not know the reason for my temper?" He asks and I remain quiet and so he simply states. "Lying to me will be the first.

"I never lied to you." I immediately refuse.

"Keeping secrets Elia, can be considered equivalent to lying, letting loopholes mix through truth."

"I have nev......"

"Every day you race to my kingdom the pools under your eyes darken. You never thought I would notice you flinch upon asked to rest, how you childishly pretend to not fear the dark." Eyes of hellfire bore down with their scorching flames as he inch closer. "But you never asked for help always believing you can get through it by yourself or is it that you are scared?"

"Why care?" I ask with my emotions all over the place resisting to accept any of his words and in a turbulent mind continue. "Why when you can always find yourself a new doctor more talented that me." And then it was too late.

Emotions flash in his amber eyes like a fleeting dream, abruptly vanishing without a trace to set in eerie coldness.

A smile slowly creeps up his lips betraying nothing, expressing nothing and suddenly my heart feels like being gnawed on by a thousand ants.

In one swift motion he turns leaving through the open door while my words of outburst slowly hits me, weighing a million tons.

My legs hit the floor and I run without stop but as I reach the front door I am thunderstruck by labouring breaths.

And each further stride shoots strings of pain up my spine but I manage to keep myself going to the door leading to the palace hallways.

I stumble down the steps from the metal doors and catch his silhouette disappearing around a corner seemingly unaware.

Gnashing my teeth while weighed down in pain I take off after him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I was being too stupid then.

And after what seemed like a lifetime, I turn the same corner pausing a second to catch my breath to call out feebly. "Hades." And in the silence of emptiness it echoes across the walls but he never slows.

To my growing frustration, he walked in his usual pace but the distance separating us still widens with his every step and my every stride.

It was only as I chased behind his back that I realised that he always been the same, moving forward in this steady pace, never slowing down, never once turning back, but I was never left behind because each time I fall back almost unnoticed to my eyes he would stop.

Tears blur my path as I plead. "Hades please...."

But there reached a point when my weak limbs no longer voluntarily moved and I fall heavily to my knees panting and sobbing with skin burning hot like in fever.

Such fatigue I knew, wasn't normal and since in the past few hours never having to strain myself with work even with the simplest task of walking it went unnoticed, but Hades always knew.

Now looking at my bare feet I smile in self mockery and in the moment's impulse fall back hard receiving only numbness as I fruitlessly try to the grab onto the black smoke escaping to nothingness from under.

I wish he rather yelled or shouted than show me kindness even now for I do not deserve it.

Time flew by without mercy but then suddenly footsteps resounded in the halls and I shut my eyes as the steps draws closer.

A soft hand falls on my shoulder as a tender voice speaks. "Are you alright?"

Disappointment clutch my heart with the unfamiliarity of the hand that gently shakes me, but as I raise my gaze to thank her for her concern, my eyes widen meeting the green-eyes I love.

"Mom?"

Here's to you readers, a cliffhanger.