(When the Dead Come Knocking)
"My, my… You're here a lot sooner than I expected you to be."
A man's voice causes her eyes to shoot open and her body to jerk upright, despite her not being able to feel her body. She looks around, terrified, and tries to make sense of her foreign surroundings.
Calliope is sitting in the middle of a dirt crossroad. There are no signs near the road, she thinks. In fact, there doesn't appear to be much of anything around here. Where am I? She wonders as her eyes scan the horizon. She tries to gain some sort of information or find a clue as to where she is or why she woke up here.
"Calm down, gorgeous. I don't know what you're looking for, but you're not gonna find anything around. It's pretty damn boring around here."
She jumps when she hears the man's voice again. She turns around to look at the man. The person she sees surprises her. "Baron Samedi?" She questions. She has an incredulous look on her face as if seeing him now, standing in front of her, has to be done kind of a dream. "Where… ARE we?" She asks him.
"Where the hell do you think we are? This, my dear, is the crossroads that lie in-between life and death. This is where I meet all the newly departed souls—such as yourself—and send their asses on to the land of the dead…" the Baron replies. "Although… Sometimes, if I feel like someone NEEDS to go back… If I feel like they simply aren't done with their life… Like they have more they need to do… Well, then I'll just send their ass back to the world of the living."
"So then, this is where you… Um, work? Or… Preside, rather?" She inquires, wringing her hands together and staring at the ground as she lightly kicks at the dirt with one of her sneakers.
"That's right, darlin'. It's fuckin' boring around here sometimes, but this is my domain," he replies, stretching his arms out with a sly smile. "Would you like me to show you around? Give you the whole damn grand tour?" He asks, holding one of his arms out toward her. She loops one of her arms in his as he lights a cigar with his free hand. Then he starts leading her along the road in one direction, telling her, "Now, over here is where the new souls come in from… After I dig their fuckin' graves, of course. A new soul can only come here if I've got an open grave. But hey, if I'm being honest, no one ever really fuckin' uses one, at least not for long, so I've almost always got a damn empty graveyard."
Calliope looks up at the raven-skinned man as he takes a drag from his cigar. She finds herself admiring the white paint that's decorating his mature, handsome face. He has it painted to look like a skull. "So how many souls do you deal with every day?" She questions.
"Ah, hell. I don't fuckin' know. Too damn many to keep track of, that's for DAMN sure," he replies with a slight laugh before taking another drag from his cigar.
As they get closer, she begins to notice all the empty graves around them. There's a handful that are occupied, but most sit open and appear to be undisturbed. "Do the souls just… APPEAR in the graves?" She asks. "Is that why you need the empty ones?"
"That's right," Baron Samedi answers, amused. "Though the moment a soul wakes up, they get transported to the middle of the crossroads, as you did."
"Oh," Calliope exclaims as he begins leading her in a new direction.
"Now… This," he tells her as they get closer. "Is where I stay when I'm not too busy around here…" He puffs on his cigar once more before finally flicking it to the ground and stamping it out completely. "Or when I'm not getting called up there to the damn living world. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do fuckin' love partying up there. The rum, the cigars, the women…" He laughs. "I don't really get to use… THIS… Much," he says, gesturing to the Gothic-style house in front of them.
"It's so gorgeous," she breathes with a look of awe adorning her face. She's about to ask him how often he actually gets to use it when she spots a familiar woman. The woman sitting on the porch steps has flawless ebony skin, waist-long box braids, and glowing golden eyes. "Zorya?" She calls out, waving.
"Calliope?" Zorya asks, running over to her from where she's sitting. "What are you doing here? I… I didn't cause this, did I?" She looks down with teary eyes and an expression filled with guilt.
"Nah, this isn't on you," Calliope answers. "My ex-boyfriend's brother fucking stabbed me." She rolls her eyes as she tells Zorya about her brother being the person who wanted her dead and how Menoetius had stabbed her in the chest with the bronze knife after Raiden stole her powers. "But anyway, how's your progress here coming along?"
"Well, I do seem to be healing, so hopefully I'll be good enough to go back to the living world. I really miss my friends,"
Zorya answers with a small, almost sad smile.
"I have no doubt that you'll get there in no time," Calliope says encouragingly.
Baron Samedi clears his throat and says, "I would hate to break up the lovely reunion, but we need to finish this tour before another one of those damn souls wakes up."
"Oh, right. Well, don't let me keep you," Zorya responds. She and Calliope share a quick hug before the Baron whisks Calliope off down the third dirt pathway.
This time, he leads her with one of his tattooed hands resting at the small of her back, which oddly causes her to blush and look away from him. She's still avoiding eye contact and her cheeks are still flushed when they finally come up to a new area of the crossroads, a little ways down the third path. He looks down at her with a soft, seemingly empathetic look on his face. "This path leads to the land of the dead," he whispers. "After going into the land of the dead, souls are sorted into… Whatever fuckin' afterlife they belong in."
"So… I guess that means this is my last stop before I'm sent off to Purgatory," she replies awkwardly. "Thank you for showing me around."
"Oh, you sweet thing," he says with a smile. "This is only your last stop if you would like it to be. I am the loa of death, that is true… But I am also the loa of fuckin' resurrection, darlin'!" He laughs loudly, throwing his arms out.
"What?" She asks, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
"Did you happen to keep the card that I gave you?" He questions, his eyes narrowed at her.
"Of course I did," she answers. "But… I mean, it's not like I have it ON me." She laughs before saying, "I mean, I don't even have a physical body here."
He smiles wide and leans down to whisper in her ear, making her shiver. "Check your pocket, siren."
She looks up into his deep brown eyes as he smirks at her. She thinks,
He's always so mischievous… I wonder what he's getting at with this.
She reaches into her pocket, taking note for the first time that her 'spirit-self' is still wearing the '90s grunge band t-shirt and jeans that she had been wearing when she died. Huh, she thinks.
I guess that means you do get stuck in the same clothes you were wearing when you died. I'll have to remember that any time I wanna be lazy about my outfits from now on.
She feels something in her pocket and pulls it out. It's the 'death' tarot card that Baron Samedi had given her the first night that they met. "How-?" she starts to question, but he cuts her off.
"Ah, ah. I can't reveal all my secrets now, can I?" He laughs. "This card will allow you passage back into the land of the living whenever you need it… That is… If you would like to go back, of course."
"I…" she starts, holding the card close to her chest. "…I honestly don't know." She feels conflicted now. She can remember feeling at peace when she died, but she also knows that her friends must be hurting right now… She doesn't like the idea of her friends hurting because of her. And, she thinks,
Raiden is still out there somewhere with the powers he took from me. He's probably working on becoming stronger than Shango this very moment. He's going to be too strong for me to fight head-on.
"As I said, it's your choice," Baron Samedi says with a shrug. Then he places his hand on her chin, pulling her face up with his finger and thumb so that she'll look at him. "Just remember what I told you… It really would be a damn shame for the living world to lose such a beautiful woman."
She smiles a bit, blushing, then turns her face away ever so slightly. She takes a deep breath to give herself the confidence she needs… Well, not a real breath, but she at least mimics doing it… Then she looks into his eyes and tells him, "I think I'm ready to go back to the living world… I have some things I need to take care of up there."
"Oh, I was so hoping you'd say that," he replies, pulling away from her and laughing. "Come! Let's bring you back to life now!" He offers her his arm and she takes it once again, allowing him to lead her to the only path he hasn't given her a tour of–the path that leads to the living world.
"Oh my gods, I'm so nervous," she says, laughing. "So, um… Got any tips for how I can defeat my brother when I get back now that he's stolen my powers?"
"Just a little bit of advice, gorgeous," he replies, winking. "He might have those powers of yours… But he doesn't know that you've made your own VERY powerful friends on the other side…" He looks around the room before looking back down at her. "Which means he doesn't know that you'll be coming back. Correct?"
"…Right…" she answers, using a suspicious tone of voice, almost as if to ask him, What are you saying?
"Good," he says. "Keep it that way until the time is right. If you can surprise him, the powers he has won't matter. He IS still a mere mortal… He can still die EASILY if you can just catch him off-guard."
"Baron Samedi, you are an absolute genius," she laughs. "Thank you for everything. Seriously."
"Ah, I don't even wanna hear none of that," he replies. "You just go on and kill that son of a bitch brother of yours. Show him that you are not to be fucked with."
"Yes, sir," she says, giving him a surprised smile and a slightly sarcastic salute. She then turns toward the dirt path that's laid out in front of her. "Well… Here goes nothing." She takes a few unsure steps forward, then turns to look over her shoulder at him. He gives her an encouraging nod, and she steels herself again, squaring her shoulders. She's trying her best to be confident.
One step… two… three…
Just a few more steps to go now,
She thinks. One… two… three… four.
On that last step, she's suddenly bathed in a warm, bright light. The light seems to get brighter and brighter with her next few steps until it's eventually blinding her. She has to shut her eyes tightly for her last few steps, and it's so hot now that it's starting to hurt her, but she continues onward.
One… two… three…
One last step, then the warmth fades along with the bright light… Leaving her alone in the dark. She feels around for a moment, noticing that she seems to be stuck inside of something that's barely big enough for her to even move in. She can feel the wooden walls on every side of her and the lid above her. She pushes on the lid, but it doesn't budge, even when she pushes on it as hard as she can.
Oh, my gods, she thinks, panicking. Oh, gods, I'm stuck in a fucking coffin.
She tries to keep herself calm, but she can't. Instead, she begins punching and clawing at the lid of her coffin, screaming for help.