Page 66 of Mortal Desires

“What do you mean by everything?”

I chuckled because she knew well what I meant. “Everything in this realm and any other. If there’s a passage, we’ll find it.”

She nodded and we descended the long staircase in silence. I barely came to this place but it served as a reminder that I, as the other gods with their own territories, were just things that started seemingly for no reason.

Although now that I knew I had a soul, things had changed. This place contained all the secrets of the before, now, and everything in between. I never particularly cared about it before, immense and impossible as it was, every territory had its secrets and mine was a room full of everything.

We finally reached the last step. Another simple, wooden door separated us from the room.

“Will it be overwhelming?” she asked before we got in.

“No. It’s simple, no one can see everything at once.”

She nodded again, and I twisted the knob. To human eyes, it probably looked like a spare room full of garbage and junk. Like an attic of an old house that no one cared to clear out before they moved. It even smelled like dust and things long forgotten.

I placed Pilar on her feet, letting her pad away and explore.

I went straight to the cabinets, knowing they had files for all my questions while Pilar was instantly drawn to the wall of TVs at the back.

“It’s like a vintage TV store,” she marveled.

Old TVs from before her time, static playing on some of them, while the others had colorful stripes on the screen.

“What do they do?”

“It shows what you want to see… or what you need to see,” I told her distractedly while I opened the first cabinet to begin my search.

Nothing was too hard to find in this room. Everything appeared on command—spoken or unspoken. Even sometimes the hard truths no one wanted to see.

I didn’t have to look hard. My fingers found the file like magic. I opened it quickly and dust flew into my face, I coughed and rolled my eyes tired of the dramatics.

Right in the middle of the page, I found the legend Pilar mentioned. Caves. The underworld caves had a passage that led to the above, but still, it didn’t make sense.

According to the legend, a man who hadn’t died came to see his loved one and the god of the underworld allowed him to escort her back as long as he never looked back.

Cassandra and Adrian were both dead. Cassandra by a snake and Adrian by his children, and I definitely wasn’t consulted about their little field trip.

“Vic…”

The legends were twisted, not every legend was completely true because there was another one on top, negating the first. The other realm was a complicated place that played by its own rules but some things couldn’t be changed.

Dead people could never come back to life.

“Vic, I need you to come here.”

I turned at the spooked sound of my wife, her eyes glued to the screens as fast images played nonstop making very little sense.

“Pilar, step away from the screens,” I warned.

“It’s us,” she said, a finger touching the machine. “It started to play on its own, but look, Vic, it’s us.”

I didn’t dare to look. I knew it would be too mesmerizing, and I didn’t want to get stuck like her.

Without looking at the screen I approached, watching her as the colors played over her beautiful face.

“It’s not possible. We’re not the first. You know how many stories of marriage of convenience there are?” She laughed but her eyes wouldn’t leave the images.

“Pilar, not everything this room shows us is good. Please, love, step away.”

---