Where The Dead Ones Go Book 2 -Republic-

Chapter 5

"Don't say I didn't warn you..."

We looked back at Kairos who jumped at the hood of our car and lied there in his back.

"You are not coming?"

He shook his head in my question before removing his shades and showing his mesmerising eyes, "Nope. I have enough of nonsense from this place to last a lifetime. Go. I will wait for you but don't take too long."

The son of Khronos then closed his eyes and started sleeping underneath the blue skies as we the presidential guards bowed respectfully at us when we asked them to take it easy as well.

"What a little ray of sunshine he is, huh, Vivet?"

"You could say that again, Morris. But really, I am expecting a temple, yes but not "this" kind of temple."

We looked at the building above the hill in front of us and gazed upon the temple made of pure gold and silver as if it is shining the light of the sun itself.

"This is way past gaudy, Vivet. It is already impossibility. I mean you can't get more extravagant than this."

"Indeed and just look at the people and what they are doing, Morris."

I pointed at several visitors clinging on the foot of Apollo's statues and crying as if they are begging for intervention or answer.

Some are even leaving expensive things like pieces of jewellery, priceless gemstones and gold bars. Maybe in hopes that it may somehow change their futures.

"Do you think your future can change if you offer things up to the god of truth?" my cousin asked loudly that made me look at him in surprise, "Seriously, do you think if I gave up my belongings back then to this temple, will I not be here?"

Before I can try and answer his questions, another one did it for me.

"No."

We looked around and saw a handsome blonde man in his early twenties wearing a simple pair of white sneakers, torn blue pants and white shirt with his idiotic grin.

"Lord Koalemos..."

"Lord, huh? I am just a random minor god not fitting for that title! Elpis is always the kind and humble one like Hestia. I guess it's only natural that her firstborn will retain much of her exemplary behavior, right, Vivet?"

I nodded and bowed my head as my cousin shook his hand rather cordially.

"I have always wanted to meet you personally, Lord Koalemos. Father said a lot of great things about you."

The god of stupidity laughed out loud, "Of course. Thanatos appreciates me sending few idiotic means in their early graves for his musings. Anyways, what are you two doing here? Ancients who travelled to the future asking for the help of the Sibyls here? Weird."

"Sibyls?"

Koalemos gave me a nod as he looked at the temple above the hills, "Yes, Vivet. We call the priestesses and attendants of this temple of Apollo Sibyls. Those who look beyond the veil of mortality and immortality to glimpse the truth. Or so the brochure said."

He then indeed gave us a brochure he picked from the ground, and it did say what he just said complete with a map and things to see and proper places to offer your valuables and not just leave them at any feet of statues around the hill and temple.

"Syden told me that Syna sent you two here on the behest of Atomo and I am wondering why. I mean he didn't get an answer when he brought his child here a while ago. Why did he think that it will be different in your cases?"

Morris and I looked at each other since we don't know what to answer the god who walked between us and put his arms on our shoulders as we started walking towards the temple staircase.

"He is Syden's father all right, Vivet."

"Yep. The very same way his son moves and speaks, he is his father's son, Morris."

The god of stupidity happily walked with us as we ascended the stairways, and when we reached the middle, he stopped before pointing at the people we saw earlier still crying at the feet of Apollo's statues.

"Do you think they are crying in vain or for something worthwhile?"

I blinked and looked at them before staring at the statue of Apollo.

"He is the god of prophecy, truth and the sun but I never heard him being the god of changing future," I answered truthfully that made Syden's father laugh.

"Neither have I. He is also the god of archery with his twin sister and medicine but its Asclepius who take on that mantle for him. I have never encountered a book or a mortal nor immortal claiming that Apollo can change someone's future," Morris seconded honestly.

Koalemos nodded and sighed, "Indeed. You two are correct. My best friend is a god of many things, but it's not under his sphere of influence to change someone's future in a whim."

"Best friend?"

He looked at me and nodded while looking around us, contently, "Yes. We have been friends ever since he is born. I admit I poked fun with him now and then, but we are best buddies throughout the eons. So much that he allowed me to call his sacred place, Dodona, as my own. He even extends his protection towards my children as if they are also his own."

"Well, you do look a bit like each other," my cousin said matter of factly that made the god blush a little.

"I am honored to be compared to the most handsome god there is in the entire world," he said bashfully as he looked at the visitors once more, "Anyways, I enjoy being here. Lots of stupid and idiotic people thinking their futures can be changed just by grovelling at the feet of Apollo or giving expensive offerings at the temple."

I shook my head slowly as I sighed sadly, "No one can change the future but yourself. Suppose you want to do something right. Do it yourself. That's all there is to it. No gods or goddesses can help you change what you refuse to change yourself."

"Spoken like a truly ancient, Vivet. But tell me, now that you know how things are being run here, would you still want to continue to visit a sibyl?"

I looked up at the golden temple and steel myself for what is to come, "How can I change something myself if I don't have a clue of what there is to change at all? A little clue will help."

"And how about you, son of Thanatos?"

"The same. We all know this is only the calm before the storm. A storm that may wipe us all out from the face of the world. Any clues about what to expect will be very much appreciated."

He sighed and made us walk up the stairs once more, and finally, we reached the temple itself in all its golden glory.

"Then go inside and hear for yourself," he said seriously before letting us go and is about to turn his back on us but stopped at the last moment, "Oh, by the way. Do you have anything to offer?"

Before we can answer, he disappeared into thin air, leaving the two of us alone and panicking.

"Shoot, Vivet! We didn't have anything on us!"

"What do we do now, Morris?"

"Well, let's just tell the Sibyl that she can put it on Mr Atomo's tab."

"That will do. Let's go to the receptionist."

We walked inside the temple filled with worried and crying people and head straight to the front desk where a busy looking woman is filing papers.

"Good day. We are sent here by Her Excellency, Syna Villiers, Secretary of the Office of the Dodonan Affairs on behalf of His Excellency, Atomo Axiopisto, President of the Republic of Anoixi."

She looked up at the two of us and opened her right hand at us, "Introduction letter, please?"

"Here."

I gave her the envelope from Syden's mother, which she opened quickly and read.

"Hmm, Vivet Vivier and Morris Mortheo, demiurges of Elpis and Thanatos respectively. Now those immortal names are not one I ever imagined reading," she muttered loudly before folding it and returning the letter to me, "Verified. Head to the room at the true north of where we are standing. Sibyl Delfina will be waiting for your arrival."

We thanked her and took our leave as we head straight to the direction she mentioned. Along the way, we saw several visitors waiting on a long queue outside several doors where prophecies are being made supposedly.

Statues of Apollo on all corners of the majestic temple and everything is bright and shining, but I guess the opposite can be said about the visitors and the news they are hearing.

They all look like they are worried, sad and miserable after learning what is in store in the future.

"You are one strong woman, Vivet. You know that?"

"How come, Morris?"

"I can't feel any nervousness or worry in your mind and heart. It is like what you may hear is inconsequential in the long run."

"It will be my cousin. Because if I don't like what I will be hearing, then I will change the outcome myself."

"But are you sure that the future can be changed? What if it's set in stone already?"

"Set in stone? Now that is something impossible."

"Impossible?"

"Okay, take this for example. What if the Sibyl foresaw a hard future ahead of me full of grief, torment and pain for years and years. I got out of the room thinking there's no way I can live through that and killed myself right there and then. The vision of my long-suffering will not come to pass since I already ended my life. I changed my future, have I?"

"Well, morbidness aside, you do have a point. It can be changed all right."

"Yes, and if we don't do something to change it, then the bad things that are foretold will surely be upon us. But if it's a happy one then, by all means, I will sit still and look pretty, thank you."

Morris laughed a little when I said that and it removed the heaviness and fear he is feeling right now as we stopped in front of a large metal door.

We looked at each other and nodded before I knocked three times and letting ourselves in.

What we saw is genuinely unexpected.

For all the golden splendidness of the temple outside, it is the complete opposite of what we saw inside the room.

It is made of marbles that seemed to have been there for thousands upon thousands of years.

The room is virtually empty except for a tall stool in the center placed above an aperture in the concrete floor where fumes of unknown and dizzying smoke are coming from.

A woman partially covered in thick veil is sitting on it and looking at us with her disturbingly hazy white eyes that seemed to be unseeing and bereft of light.

"Scions of the lost age, you have come at last..."

We heard a ghostly female voice, but it didn't come from the unmoving mouth of the woman but from the room itself echoing even inside our heads.

"Witnesses of the grim fate of the past, to what future will you bring us all?"

Morris and I didn't know what to say, and suddenly, the eyes of the Sibyl glowed in bright yellow light as the voice speaks once more.

"If you want to cross the bridge that separates the falsehoods from the truth, you have to pay the toll. Offer your gifts to the embers of the sun."

A fire made of seemingly the sun itself burned suddenly on the floor in front of us.

"What now, Vivet?"

"I don't have anything with me, Morris."

I didn't know what I was thinking, but I pulled a strand of my hair and threw it to the fire as my cousin did the same.

We thought it would burn down the two of us for being cheap stakes, but to our surprise, the flames danced happily, and it changed color from the white mirroring my mother's light and then to black one representing the shadows of Morris' father.

"The payments have been made and a payment fit for the empress and her harbinger they are. Yes, only those who offer themselves to the embers of the sun can receive the true prophecy."

We waited in bated breath as the black and white fire before me, and Morris grew bigger and bigger, and the ethereal voice spoke once more.

"I have seen what lies at the edge of dawn for the two of you. The prehistoric enemy of all that is born from the deities will return in greater power. Countries will be torn asunder, and the flames of lives shall be extinguished..."

We saw a gigantic shadow ravaging cities, and we heard the faint screams of terrors and panic from the black and white visions before us.

"...all will be lost if the past is not recovered and the present must be offered to the future..."

An image of a winged boy appeared before the gigantic shadow standing defiantly with several humans standing behind him.

"Only with the combined strength of the lost age and current age will defeat the catastrophe with the help of the god fractured into three."

Then we saw three mountain like figures from the flames and the winged boy standing in the middle as if reaching out to them.

"You must offer yourselves to the gates of time so that the way to the bastion of eternity will open and restore what has been torn for eons."

Finally, we saw ourselves in our winged form, standing in front of the rising sun.

Morris and I were standing like we always did.

My beloved cousin is clinging into my arm ever closely.

"The doors that are meant to be closed will finally open. Release her soul in exchange for those that have already been gone. The key is already in your heart..."

The monochrome fire before us suddenly disappeared, and the light from the eyes of the Sibyl is slowly fading away.

"Oh, you, Serene Majesty of the days of the Empire's grand past, may the end of your reign be of light and not of darkness. You have travelled through time and space to defend what is important. Remember your faithful and loyal people inside you. Remember them, and they will heed war cry. Let your harbinger wretch open the forbidden gate and be what he can never be..."

She closed her eyes finally, and in a blink of an eye, we are already outside the temple leaving the two of us shocked and speechless.