Slutty Heart's Fleeting Mind

In 2012, I had the pleasure of taking part in a European collective film-making project called Batesian. In scope of this project, 6 short films about a world where skills transfers were available by a scientific procedure were going to be made. My short story was up for final round. I had totally forgotten about it till yesterday.

Why am I wearing a dress? She muttered, pulling the ruffles, examining it carefully. She reached to her throat, expecting to feel the sword upon.

“Am I dead?” Have I gone to…heaven?” She wondered but Thanatos was not there to answer her questions. The sun shone brightly, illuminating the surroundings, refraining from warming them up too much. She brought her hand over her forehead, creating a shadow for eyes to perform with reduced squinting. A beautiful green garden it was, that went on and on as if there was no end.

“You should be but no, you are not dead.” A man’s voice was heard. Sophie did not need to turn and face the man to know who he was.

His tall figure was sitting on one of the white chairs next to the long table, full of fruit plates and cups of tea. It was the mad hatter’s party. His voice was silky and yet held power. Sophie hissed like a cat. An involuntary habit she picked up at times of danger. The man unraveled his legs and stood up, approaching the disheveled woman. “Stand up”. He ordered in a gentle fashion. She noticed the diamond cuffclips as he extended his hand for her comfort. 

“I assume I need no introduction.” He said. Sophie stared at the man with silver hair; no, he really didn’t.

“Hades.” She uttered, acknowledging him. “Honestly, I expected more of a dark and gloomy place, not this piece of heaven.” She said regarding the garden. Heaven, she thought once again. After all the things she had done in her long vampiric life, it was an excruciating absolute that she wouldn’t even sniff the air of heaven. It was rather an alternative option, waiting for her. An exotic place with lots of different people who had a liking for /barbecue/.

“You needn’t worry, it is only an illusion. But even the God of the Underworld prefers something more aesthetic.” He said, eyes darted towards her, scrutinizing her figure inch by inch.

“You have something of mine.” He lowered his voice and patted her chest with his index finger.”So I have heard.”

She watched the tip of his finger from underneath her lashes. Any second now, she expected him to dig his finger inside her ribcage and rip it open.

“And you have something of mine.” She responded with a similar fervor.

“Do I now?” His faint brows raised in surprise. A slight grin settled over his lips. He seemed amused, for now.

“Yes.” She said, her eyes settled over his lips. Something burned inside of her. Every second she spent, eyes focused on the man she felt her skin warm up. It was as if every molecule in her body died to be next to him, as if she was moon bound to Earth with an unmistakable force of gravitation.

Shook her head. What did these emotions come from? “Your boy Thanatos took my son’s mind away. I’ll need it back.” She said, trying to take her mind off these meaningless trivias.

She wanted to feel them upon hers, to feel his muscles outlined with the fine suit. She wanted to feel his arms wrap around her and crush her into nothingness.

“He took the heart. I see it is more than just fair.”

“His mind has no value to you.

“I don’t know that but I am curious, what will I get in return?”

“I already know you want the heart.”

“Yes and I /am/ going to retrieve it from your petty fragile instrument you humans call a body. But I also know if you give the heart, you die. Is his well being so precious to you that you sacrifice your own life?”

“I am well aware but that’s not the agreement I want to make. I want to live my second life…”

“But you don’t want to be a human."

“No, I am well past my human phase. But know this…” She covered the little distance between them. He was wearing a heavenly scent. Involuntarily, she leaned in to his neck and sniffed him, thinking how delicious his blood must taste.

“If you make any attempt to take your precious heart, I will find some idiot turn me into a vampire, deeming the heart useless. You don’t want that now, do you?”

“Do you think it is absolutely smart to threaten a god?”

“You do not leave me many options.”

The god smirked, amused by her forwardness. He walked around the young woman. An arm folded around his chest, the other elbow standing upon the arm as he places a hand beneath his jaw; considering her offer. “I may find some use for you before comes the time that I no longer do.”

It was enough for now. It was enough to buy her time to secure her existence on this earth.

“What do you want me to do?” She asked, letting out it in unconscious moan. It was hard and painful to stay away from him.

Literally painful.

"Sire, do not be mad, please." One of them crawled out from its corner, its genderless skin was grey, recently came back from a visit to the pits of hell. "We located it."

"Where?"

The minion took half a step back, obviously afraid of the reaction he was about to recieve, "It is in the world of the living.", he finally uttered.

"World of the Living!" The man roared once more, "Who has such courage and idiocy to take Persephone's heart from my house?! That heart belongs to me and only me. /I/ am the one to command it alone." Each word he spoke was a wind of fire for the minions. Earthquakes shook the land, screams were heard from the suspecting souls.

"It was.. we do not know who took the heart but suspect is that an enthereal body named Aisha wanting to buy more lifetime on Earth." The minion tried to explain, his bony fingers intertwined as he waited for his master's mercy.

Everytime he took a step, clouds fell off the heaven, flames hightened in the depths of hell. He walked to his proverbial throne and sat on it, one arm dangling, palm of the other became a fist underneath his sharp chin.

"What do you want to do Master?" the same minion dared to come closer to the giant man. 

"I want that heart back. It needs to come home." Hades growled, it was no fun to be the god of the Underworld, sit still and do nothing. Action needed to be taken."Send Thanatos to the world of the living and retrieve the heart."

~

First time, Sophie has ever laid eyes on the death itself was when she was in Mick St. John's bed. Her heart was about to explode. "That was to screen you and your link to the heart." Thanatos spoke of that night. Sophie was alone in a jet while trying to locate André in this big world. She had been told that her beloved fledgeling had gone mad even after she was reborn. Sophie regretted the fact that she didn't have the chance to see him in her second life.

Now it was utmost important to locate him, he only had the answers to her questions explaining her condition but it was rather difficult to find an insane vampire roaming on the world.

  Thanatos was sitting on the seat opposite to hers on the jet. Her eyes lifted from the laptop before her and  settled on the half-naked man covered in two sets of tattoos. He was there alright but somehow she was sure that noone else could see him.

"You have heart." He spoke simply. Sophie gulped, he was no good news. Her hand went directly to her chest, expecting it to swell once more. 

"As many do, yes." Was it a completely smart decision to play it cool, as if she didn't know what he was talking about?

"You have Persephone's heart." The blade in his hand shone with the sunlight entering through the plane's windows. Its sharpness was obvious, noone but him could wield it. Talk about fingerprint coding.

"I do not know any Persephone, sorry." She glanced at the laptop screen for a second then shut it off immediately. 

"You lie." 

"That's such a rude thing to sa-" Before she could give voice to the last syllable, a maddening ache pierced her heart, she bent over the small table in front of her, over her laptop. Her face flushed red with the pain.

"Stop it!" She begged.

"The man leaned over till she could feel the strings of his thick hellish hair graze over her forehead. "What you have underneath thine ribcage does not belong to you." He whispered, his breath had the scent of fire and coals. His filthy fingers lift up and grabbed her hair, exposing her neck."Hades wants the heart, Hades needs the heart." He said, pulling her to the side, approaching the tip of the blade towards her chest.

And there it was, its purple hue now obtained a rather golden glow around, emitting a strange vibration giving color and warmth to the end of his fingers as he reached over. The Shaman stepped out of his shadowy stake-out and interfered André.

“If you want to your maker back, you must not touch it. Any dead being coming in contact with the heart will automatically have its power inside and I am afraid it is only for one useage.” He said, his bald head reflecting the ugly fluorescent lights inside the labroom where Sophie’s remnants rested a few feet away in a bucket.

His warning alerted the man, he retracted his hand immediately, putting the lock on the box once again.

“We must protect it well then.” André spoke in a hushed tone, his gaze never leaving the box; just like his hands, hands that gripped the both ends strongly. 

“Perhaps, timing is the answer for your problem.”

“We must act quickly.” André nodded, agreeing with the shaman. He seemed to be the only one who was not frightened by the vampire. His comfort, though, did not effect André or how he perceived him. All he could think was to get Sophie back and the very thing he was afraid of? Failure. What was he supposed to do with his maker gone? She was everything to him as he was to her. Living through the days without her, opened wounds that his vampiric healing could not perform on. It was too painful and the more pain he felt, the more he wanted to inflict on others.

That’s how he became a psychopathic vampire instead of the gentleman who has been shaped and grew into a fine taste just like a French wine.

“Now. I want to do it now.” André turned quickly, gallowing the shaman –now that took experience, really-.

“And the scientists? They are not here. I am not sure if any of us know how to prepare the –“ His eyes darted towards the bucket, “specimen. 

In less than 15 minutes, the room was full with scientists that were groggy, muttering and swearing underneath their breaths to be woken up at such an odd hour. 

André couldn’t care less or rather, he couldn’t think of anything but the heart inside the box which was now placed at the center of a glass container with all the bloody goo. He wanted this, no, wanting was a weak term to describe it. His yearning was so strong and his sanity hang on this experiment. There was no other way, he had to have her back. He had to see those fiery curls flow from her shoulders, those green eyes that were accompanied with blue hues stare at his own with meaning and lips would curve with a playful menace. Mother, maker, lover, sister… he had lost all of his family with a few damned bullets.

When she came back, he was going to show her the bone trophies he made out of soldiers who have shot her. Most of all, he wanted to destroy Bill Compton but he knew Sophie would like to do it by herself, that pleasure was hers and hers only.

“We are ready.” The lab chief spoke through the microphone, sending his voice to the supes in the next room sealed with glass walls. André couldn’t bear it much longer, “Do it now.” He ordered angrily, setting all the supes on their toes. With the heart of Persephone in their hands, it didn’t take much time… Everyone was silent for a second, they were probably wondering if they could make it out alive once the heart proves its crappiness. The answer was ‘no’, they couldn’t continue their petty lives.

But the frequencies on the monitors were better than expected. “It is working.” The chief said, hopeful that he was going to be able to see his dogs in the new day. André’s gaze went from the monitor, into the glass room. He could see that the heart’s glow had heightened and it was now warming –burning him lightly- and illuminating the surroundings but there was no Sophie. The only change he noticed was her remnants had attached themselves to the heart. 

The heart, that was beating now.