Page 26 of Thanatos' Craving

My stomach churned. I had such a bad feeling about this.

“Thanatos saved you,” Athena whispered and held both of my hands.

My heart raced. Does this mean I’m not supposed to be alive? That I should be dead? Will this Fate try to end me now?

“So now, you must pray, and thank the Fates.” She patted my hands.

Huh?

“Come now, say it,” Athena urged me. “Thank you, Fates, for letting me live another day,” she chastised.

Now I really wished the tea was poisoned.

“I heard that. Do you have an underlying problem you need resolved? Do you not know you sometimes speak out loud when you believe you are just thinking? I am also a therapist, you know?”

“Oh my god!” I screamed. “Thank you, Fates for letting me live another day!” I raised my hands in praise.

“And itsgods, thank thegods. There are more than one.” She raised a finger.

I took the pillow again and screamed into it.

“There, there,” she patted my back. “It is a lot, but you will get used to it. Most mortals do. You and Thanatos will learn fromeach other as well. You both have plenty of time. And Atropos will be very grateful for your thankfulness and leave you alone.”

I raised my head and sniffed. “What do you mean, I have plenty of time? He saved me. I’m getting better. Doesn’t that mean I can leave, I can go back home?

Or what's left of my home. I had an apartment; it's been almost four years. I'm not even sure if my apartment or my things are still there. Am I even still a missing person, or have they called off the search and pronounced me dead?

With little to no family, I’m sure they wrote me off as a lost cause.

Not that they cared anyway.

Athena frowned, her hand coming away from my shoulder. “You won’t be able to go home yet. You are still healing. Help Thanatos with his emotions while you are at it.” She chuckled nervously. “Thanatos will finish up your treatment as well.”

“Why him? Aren’t you the doctor?” I put my hands on my hips.

She rubbed the back of her neck. “Yes, well, there are rules and regulations in the Underworld. This is not my domain. Besides, don’t you want to explore? A human rarely gets to come to one of the realms. Think of all the things you can see.”

“After seeing a lake of fire on the wall, I think I might want to pass on that,” I mumbled.

Athena chuckled. “Oh no, this is just the dark corner of the Underworld. Other places are quite beautiful. Hades’ Palace, for example. He has a fire garden, not to mention a garden for his queen. Ember is lovely.”

Who the heck is Ember?

“I thought it was Persephone?”

Athena shook her head. “No, no. That is all lore. You will find out a lot of things about the gods that are not actually true, such as we are not just ‘Greek,’ we are from many nationalities. It's just that the Greeks adopted us more quickly than others. Thereare also more gods than just the typical ‘Greek Gods,’ many more legends and such.”

My ears perked up at that. It was interesting. I guess humans weren’t alone out there in the universe.

“Thanatos can explain much more of it.” Athena walked to the curtain and cracked it with her finger.

“Or you could tell me?” I slid off the enormous bed and closer to her.

Thanatos, as awkward as he was, made me feel things I shouldn’t. But he did save me. I owed him my life, but he was—different.

I didn't feel scared of him, although I should have. And part of me wanted to know more, be in his presence, and I found it unsettling. Who wants to hang out with death?

But he saved me.

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