My sister was certain that I was going crazy. I was certain of the opposite. In thirty days I’d have to face a board to approve or deny me a position as one of their members. We devised a plan to prove my innocence or guilt before the month was up – visiting an oracle at Delphi, who would, through her cryptic messages, deliver a verdict. We packed nothing, left immediately, and arrived so quickly at Delphi that I couldn’t remember our voyage. As we rushed the mountain to speak to the oracle, it suddenly came to me that I only had 15 days left to clear my name. Hours passed, and we finally received an audience. Apollo may unreliably decide to speak through her at times and or choose not to at others, and we hoped that he would. Pythia – named after the Python the god had slain to obtain Delphi – sat on a tripod, eyes closed. Next to her stood a priest, hands up, interpreting her sounds and shouting out words strung together only by his own will to jam them together, irregular puzzles fitting barely into shape, and unbound by sense and logic: “water… spring… rex… flowers…” and soon the priest would speak out a single barely coherent sentence, bringing the words into relevance in a hazy prophecy. We stood still, facing the oracle. She breathed in the fumes engulfing her, and her chin lifted. As she began to speak, the priest interpreted, and my heart began to beat faster. 

What if she gave us something completely unrelated to our cause? Oedipus, tragic Greek martyr, had sought to look into his lineage, and had instead re-evoked the prophecy that he would kill his father and murder his mother – an infamous prediction that had rocked Thebes and Corinth for generations to come, setting the stage for one of the Greeks’ most shocking tragedies. The priest began to mumble incoherently, and then all sound stopped. The air left my lungs in a thin, trailing vapor, leaving my shell of a body to curl at the mercy of the oracle’s speech. Only she moved, arching her body as Apollo spoke through her. For a moment, her words refused to register in my mind, but as they did, my stupefied corpse began to crumple. 

“You will erase your sister from all existence and obtain the springtime from her home with the goddess of grain, and only then will you be cured from your innate insanity.” 

The voyage to see the oracle had been so quick to slip my mind; the moments after the oracle spoke burned into my memory completely.

The walk down the mountain was arduous and silent. I had not spoken since the oracle delivered her verdict, and didn’t plan to until I’d reached a conclusion. My sister reassured me that she wasn’t going anywhere, but I heard her only in the back of my mind. I made my way down, floating above the sharper rocks so as to not strike them. I decided to wander the Earth in agony, bringing my chariot from mountain to plain, desert to lake, river to river until – days, weeks, maybe months or years later – exhausted, I collapsed onto a pile of hay. My sister was no longer with me (had she run away from me?) and yet I spotted a figure walking in the horizon. Collecting my senses, I approached it; it was female. Before I could speak, it rushed to me, launching into conversation: “Is that your carriage?” 

I nodded, unaware of her name – I should’ve been more careful – and with no hesitation she began to ask me more questions, and speak to me as she would a friend. Before long I told her of my sister, and she spoke of her mother. By the end of our hour-long discussion I’d planned to continue to flee my prophecy with her. I barely knew her, but the extreme nature of my condemnation had changed my priorities. My sister’s voice broke through my thoughts. 

“So are we bringing her back to the Underworld?”

I slowly nodded my head. My sister paused, then persisted: “Now?”

The thought struck me like a lightning bolt – and, as an excuse, must have temporarily stunned my morality. My judgement clouded; I was thinking with my instincts; I could plead any case, use any argument against my actions, but the result was the same. With ten days left until my evaluation by the board, and the greatest professional test I was set to undergo, I’d brought Persephone, the goddess of the spring, to the Underworld. When I found out who she was, the shock was dulled by the thought that I’d only completed half of the prophecy. My sister was still with me, and she would stay that way until the end of time – 

Except that she wasn’t here now.

The prophecy haunted me: You will erase your sister from existence.

It occupied my mind to such an extent that I did not see Persephone head towards the gate to the Underworld, did not notice its guard dog, in agitation, slam against a boulder as she drew near, and didn’t see a chain reaction ensue from a stone-wrought ledge to the top of my head, rendering me unconscious. For a moment, all I saw was granite gray, then coal black.

When I awoke, I could not remember who I was.

Persephone – as Zeus condescendingly explained, was the girl I’d taken with me – lurked in the background. Zeus himself stood before me.

“Hades, are you alright?”

I could not hear my sister’s voice. She had existed in my thoughts and imagination, and my mind, now empty from memories, was for the first time quiet.