All of You, Some of You, Now None of You

They were running, hand in hand in the blinding darkness. The tunnel seemed to stretch endlessly before them as they fought the veil between dark and light, life and death. Orpheus gripped Eurydice’s hand firmly in his, her palm terribly small and slim in his, her skin as cold as the day he found her, still and pale in the afternoon sun, viper slithering away with wicked joy. He struggled on, barely breathing as he ran, the air stolen from his lungs by the greedy spirits that flailed around them, wanting a taste of life even if it was only for a mere moment. 

Music pursued them, sweet and taunting, entertaining the spirits and raising the hairs on the back of Orpheus’s neck, his stomach turning as his music, his heart that he gave in lyrical form to his Eurydice was thrown back at him. Now twisted and warped the lyre he’d once held in his hands as Eurydice smiled up at him, light shining in her chestnut eyes filled with life and humor. It was no longer a mark of his adoration it only existed to mock his pain and loss. 

Orpheus swallowed, his eyes fixed at the end of the tunnel the sliver of light growing gradually closer, opening out in front of him like a chasm, as though he and Eurydice would fall through it and out into the sky, falling on and on until they were swallowed up by a star, burning and bright. His life no longer mattered here, the only thing that mattered was the light.

Eurydice’s voice sounded behind him, high and sweet but not reaching his ears fully. He didn’t answer, he couldn’t sense fear in her tone. His gaze remained fixed on the end of the tunnel. Staring, unblinking as the wraiths tried to cover them, singing whispered cruelty into his ears. 

Please, please, please. 

His mind said and his lips followed. 

Please, please, please. This isn’t the end. Not of us, or of life. Let there be more songs, let there be more music. Let me write again, let me write for her, let her hear it.

Please, please, please.

Eurydice’s hand twitched in his, as her voice sounded again, swallowed by the darkness, buried by Hade’s earth. Orpheus wanted to sob, his begging his pleading with the rulers of the underworld had worked, it had to have worked. He needed it too. He’d heard endless stories of the gods, hearing countless people say it was like arguing with a tempest, with the earth or the trees that bore fruit. He understood them now. Persephone while beautiful beyond comparison was as unyielding as a bad harvest, Hades as unmoving as grave dirt, as harsh as a funeral pyre. 

Orpheus squeezed her hand, holding it tightly as her spectral form glowed and flickered behind him. Squeezing his eyes shut and wishing he could cover his ears, wishing he could stop the wraiths from sounding like her, like him, like them. Stop them from repeating their vows back to them, their promises, over and over as though their marriage was a joke in the face of death and its cruel knife.

Leave, leave, leave. 

His lips formed the words on their own accord this time. 

Leave, leave, leave. Let us leave, please, please, please. 

The earth beneath him was growing soft, his feet sinking into it as he pushed on, his heart stuttering in his chest, his pace slowing. All he wanted was for Eurydice to be ok, all he wanted was to see her and prove them all wrong. That he could cheat death, that the wraiths were wrong, that nature could bend to his will. 

The more he thought it the more the desire grew. Forming shape, forming a mass in his mind until it was drumming on the inside of his skull, endless and incessant. The light at the end of the veil grew ever brighter, throbbing as though he was staring into the sun. If the sun had frozen over in his absence beneath the Earth. He reached out his free hand trying to grasp it and brushing air. 

He stumbled. 

He fell. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face toward the earth, and pressing it into the dirt. Choosing to suffocate himself rather than look at Eurydice. He choked on dirt as it filled his lungs and pressed in on all sides and he scrambled to his feet, wiping his eyes, both hands now free. 

He took a breath, quick and sharp as he realized he used both hands. The slim, ephemeral hand of his Eurydice missing from his grasp. He grasped her, catching her in the dark, using the last of his strength to hurl them both into the light. His eyes opened as he fell, looking up and back at Eurydice. 

The bright white light caught her face, her hair swirling around her, haloing as though she were a goddess, as pale and as distant as fog in the evening. She smiled at him in that instant, her hand cupping his cheek as she began to fade from view. Orpheus reached for her, but it was too late. He knew that she’d seen him and all he’d done, she knew he’d fought and that he’d never let her go willingly into the veil. She knew. The sweet curling of her lips and the light in her eyes had told him, she knew that he’d turned not in doubt of her, not in lack of confidence but in the desperation of knowing that she was okay. That she still existed as she had in his memory. 

Eurydice disappeared into the darkness and was swallowed up by the black nothingness of shadow. Orpheus stuttered, tripping into the bright land of the living, lush and green and vibrant around him. He saw it and all that he’d lost when he was within that shimmering, glistening dark and plunged back into the darkness.

There was no hope in return, he followed using the tunnel and all it held as a knife through his heart. 

There was no reason for vibrance if its source was lost forever into the veil.