Meeting a Conductor

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{Tartarus, Unknown Time}

Odysseus POV

The fiery banks of the Phlegethon stretched endlessly before me, a river of liquid flame carving its way through the hellish landscape of Tartarus. I trudged along its edge, the heat searing my skin even from a distance. My eyes were fixed on my hands - or what was left of them.

Four fingers on my right hand, two on my left. I flexed them, watching the tendons move beneath my skin. It was still strange, seeing the empty spaces where fingers used to be, I wondered what would have happened if I continued to sing the incantation.

"Stop fixating," I muttered to myself, shaking my head. "You've got bigger problems right now."

As if to prove my point, I summoned my spear. It materialized in my grasp. I twirled the spear experimentally, adjusting my grip to accommodate my missing fingers.

The weapon felt off-balance, unfamiliar. Or maybe it was just me that was off-balance in this place. I started some basic drills as I walked, trying to retrain my muscle memory. Jab, parry, thrust. The movements were clumsy at first, the lack of fingers making holding the spear much weirder than usual, but gradually they became smoother.

"If I run into any monsters down here, I can't rely on my powers," I reminded myself. "Good old-fashioned stabbing might be my best bet."

As I continued my practice, a sound in the distance caught my attention, pulling me from my thoughts. It was faint at first, barely audible over the tide of the Phlegethon. But it grew louder with each passing second - a rhythmic chugging, like...

"A train?" I said incredulously, squinting into the gloom.

Sure enough, a ghostly locomotive came into view. It was a bizarre sight - half the train was inky black, as if carved from shadows, while the other half was bone-white. Steam billowed from its chimney, but instead of dissipating, it formed shapes - screaming faces and grasping hands that reached out before dissolving.

As the train drew nearer, I heard a feminine voice boom out: "All Monsters on the Haunting Train!"

My heart raced. A train full of monsters? If I could sneak aboard, it might lead me to Luke, or at least to information about his whereabouts.

Instinctively, I tried to melt into the shadows, to teleport onto the train. But my powers fizzled, leaving me frustratingly corporeal. "Come on," I growled, trying again. Nothing.

The train was picking up speed. If I was going to do this, it had to be now.

I took a deep breath, focusing on what dregs of power I had left. I felt the shadows respond, sluggishly coalescing around me. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

"Here goes nothing," I muttered, and began to run.

I grew faster, stronger. My feet barely touched the ground as I sprinted alongside the train. Up ahead, I spotted an open boxcar.

With a grunt of effort, I leaped. For a heart-stopping moment, I was airborne, the ground of Tartarus rushing by beneath me. Then my hands caught the edge of the boxcar, and I hauled myself inside.

I lay on the floor for a moment, catching my breath. When I looked up, my heart nearly stopped.

The boxcar was filled to the brim with Cyclopes. Dozens of single eyes stared at me in surprise, which was rapidly morphing into hunger.

"Oh, shit," I cursed, scrambling to my feet and gripping my spear tightly.

The largest cyclops, a bruiser with arms like tree trunks, stepped forward. "Well, well," he rumbled, his voice like gravel in a blender. "Looks like we've got ourselves a little snack, boys."

I backed up against the wall of the boxcar, my mind racing. I was outnumbered, my powers were weak, and I was trapped in a moving train car with a horde of monsters that wanted to eat me. Not my finest moment.

"Now, fellas," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "let's not do anything hasty. I'm probably not very tasty. All gristle, you know?"

The cyclopes laughed, a sound like boulders tumbling down a mountain. "Oh, we're not picky," the leader said, grinning to reveal a mouthful of jagged teeth. "Demigod meat is rare in these parts as you would imagine."

They began to close in, I raised my spear. I couldn't teleport away so I just had to fight my way out. The cyclopes continued to make their way to me, when out of nowhere, train seats appeared in the entire cart, the cyclopes fell onto the seats as black and white seatbelts kept them locked in their seats.

A voice, the same one as before, rung out in the cart of the train, "You know the rules, no fighting on the train. As for our stowaway please make your way to the conductor's room for your ticket."

The cyclopes continued to struggle against their belts but they couldn't get up. I just winked at them before making my way across the train. 

The moment I stepped into the next cart, the door slid shut behind me with an ominous thud. The interior of the train seemed to stretch on infinitely, the dim light casting eerie shadows that danced and flickered. Each cart, as I soon discovered, housed its own particular breed of nightmare. The first cart was filled with Harpies, their talons scraping against the metal floors as they shrieked and flapped their ragged wings. They were restrained, locked into their seats by chains that glowed with a faint, pulsating light. Their eyes followed me hungrily, but the restraints held firm.

I moved quickly, not wanting to linger. The next cart housed a pack of Hellhounds, their red eyes glowing like embers in the darkness. They growled low in their throats, the sound vibrating through the floor beneath my feet. Like the Harpies, they were bound to their seats by some unseen force, their jaws snapping in frustration as I passed by.

Each subsequent cart was a gallery of monsters. Empausi, Kerkopes... each trapped within their seats, restrained but restless. Their eyes burned with a mix of anger and hunger, wanting to rip me apart.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I reached the last cart. The door leading to the conductor's room loomed before me, its surface engraved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift and writhe as I approached. I readied my spear, and pushed the door open.

The air inside was thick and oppressive, filled with the soft but incessant sound of whispers. The walls of the room were lined with what appeared to be glass tubes, each one containing a writhing, ghostly figure. The souls, human souls. How the heck where there human souls in Tartarus?

At the center of it all was the conductor.

She stood with her back to me, her hands resting lightly on the controls of the train. Her outfit, as I had glimpsed earlier, was a bizarre fusion of inky black and bone-white, each color perfectly split down the middle. Her hair was similarly divided, cascading in stark contrast from her scalp—one side a void-like black, the other as pale as death.

Even her eyes, when she finally turned to face me, were mismatched: one an abyss of darkness, the other a piercing, icy white. Then I noticed something else even her skin, had this duality.

"Welcome, Odysseus," she said, her voice a blend of warm honey and cold steel. She tilted her head slightly, as if examining me with interest. "It's good to see you made my train."

I swallowed, gripping my spear a little tighter. "What is this place?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"This," she said making a scissor with her hands in front of her black eye, with a smile on her face, "is the Haunting Train. The fastest way to travel across Tartarus only available to the few who can catch it."

"And the souls?" I asked, nodding toward the tubes.

She smiled, a ghost of a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "They fuel the train, obviously."

"And you?" I asked, taking a step closer. "Who are you?"

"I am the conductor," she replied simply, as if that explained everything. "I am also the engineer, attendant, station master and ticket master."

I narrowed my eyes, my grip on the spear tightening. "That really doesn't explain much?"

She met my gaze evenly, her mismatched eyes unreadable. "What can I say, that's who I am."

I asked another question, "Then what's your name?"

She grinned before twirling and pointing at me, "I am Melinoe, the number 1 conductor in Tartarus."

"Aren't you the only train conductor in Tartarus?"

She waved her hands around as if she was dismissing my words, "Don't get hung up on the details."

I was about to ask Melinoe something else when she cut me off before I could even get a word in, "Now it's my turn, gimme your ticket or get off my train." She grinned at those words, her mouth opening slightly as it revealed that even her insides where divided into black and white straight through the middle. 

Yet, through all of that I noticed the final detail in her entire ansemble, she didn't have an aura surrounding her. Only one type of being didn't have that, gods, she was a goddess.