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Sisyphus
The man who captured Death
Story By StormDancer
Sis- he had judged his full name too unwieldy while still in diapers, and the alst person to try to call him Sisy had been sent to the hospital after a plague of bad luck ended with him breaking both legs falling down a flight of stairs- rubbed his hands together excitedly, innocently huge dark eyes following the freshman wandering towards the rigged water fountain. One push of the button, and the whole thing would collapse on him, pouring water and ceramics onto the unsuspecting kid, and- oh, that was much more intriguing.
His mouth quirked into a thoughtful smirk as he flattened himself against the wall of the often unused hallway, his dark complexion blending into the shadows of the nook where he lurked, between the extra lockers and the corner of the walls. Giggle, giggle, a deep shushing- and there went Mr. Zeus. And, beside him- really, Aegina? He hadn’t thought she would have that much of an eye for the right choice. She always seemed so… foolishly moral. But there she was, scampering through a dark hallway with the principal. Good for her. The principal’s ‘favorites’- no one ever commented on what the whole school knew, what those girls were doing to earn that status- had a pretty cushy time for a while. Until they had the misfortune of being found out by the Zeus’s scheming wife, of course- personally, Sisyphus thought that Zeus was being an idiot about it. He could have come up with a dozen schemes off the top of his head to keep his wife from noticing an affair, from getting her her own playboy to not being so blatantly obvious about it.
Still, what Zeus did was his affair- for now. Sisyphus didn’t like to rule out any possibilities, and Zeus had stopped a few really awesome pranks from going off. So he stayed put until the couple turned off the hallway- really, a janitor’s closet? So unimaginative- and then straightened out of his hiding place, and set off in the opposite direction, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, whistling merrily to the rhythm of his sneakers clicking against the linoleum floor.
He had almost made it to the front door and the freedom of the late spring sun when a massive figure cut off all the light coming through the glass doors. He froze- a weedy, short kid, he had learned long ago that large irate people were best run from or flattered, until a better situation presented itself for revenge- but then relaxed the slightest bit when the figure moved the slightest bit to the right and out of the sun. Mr. Aesopus he could deal with- the man didn’t even know his name. No reason for the local country club owner to stop him.
“You there- boy!” or, maybe there was. Sis turned around slowly, fixing his most charming smile on his triangular face, mind whirling behind blank eyes. For once, he hadn’t done anything; why was he being stopped? Unless- had Aesopus found out who dyed the pool purple last summer? He had thought everyone had forgotten about that, even Sis’s own parents had stopped nagging him…
“Yes sir?” Always best to be overly respectful, when you didn’t have a trap rigged.
“Have you seen my daughter?” The man loomed over Sis, his eyes blazing like coals at the heart of a forge- but now the boy’s smile turned into a gleeful grin. Of course. Aegina- Aegina Aesopus. Oh, this was good, this was lovely, this was better than anything Sis could have set up- Zeus was so going to take a hit for this one. Try catching the new wiring of the PA system again.
“Well, sir, I think I might have- my memory’s a little faulty.” Revenge was never the only motive, though- it didn’t pay, and all his supplies had to come from somewhere. Pranks didn’t pay for themselves, and neither did the date he had been promising Merope for the last two weeks. Maybe, if he finally took her out somewhere, she would stop bitching and help him plan. He still thought it was her fault the triple fire alarm scan hadn’t come off right; he couldn’t be in two places at once and she refused to help. Spoil sport.
Aesopus got what he wanted, and was evidently worried enough about his daughter not to care. Money, Sis decided with an inwards roll of his eyes, was not the issue with this family, but apparently a daughter gone an extra hour after school was. Overprotective idiot. Girl would never learn to grow up this way- and she was learning the ways of the world already, and how to survive high school.
The man dug in his pocket, pulled out a black leather wallet, and shoed some of the bills from there into Sis’s outstretched palm.
Sis’s teeth flashed in a smile that nearly overwhelmed his face, broad and bright and as innocent as if he hadn’t just been bribed. “She went that way, sir,” he pointed down the hallway he had just exited (really, Zeus, using a closet that close to the entrance? Are you trying to get caught?) , then added helpfully, “I’d try looking in the last door on the left!”
He waved as the man stormed down the corridor. The slamming of his feet would give the principal enough time to react some- Sis wondered who would win in that confrontation, and how screwed over Aegina would get. Sucked for her. He spun on his heels and burst out the doors, resisting the urge to sing in happiness at the release to outside. Merope would love to hear about this one.
“Sisyphus.” The voice had no inflection, no specific dislike for the name it was pronouncing- maybe one of the few in the school who didn’t- but Sis still cringed when he heard it, and began to think very, very fast. “Zeus has sent me. Come with me.”
The man speaking was not particularly intimidating. Tall, yes, but gaunt and pale and almost as weak-looking as Sis himself, with a face that look perpetually underfed and eyes so deep set that they looked like points of light set into the depths of a cavern, with his eyebrows as the stalagmites at the entrance. He appeared more likely to collapse beneath the weight of his body than anything else.
Sisyphus feared him more than almost anyone at that school. Because when Thanatos came for you, it meant Mr. Hades wanted you- and then you were gone, sent into the lightless caverns of the detention hall, and Sis knew he couldn’t survive there, away from the sun and closed in and thoughtless. DIS, the disciplinary information space, was Hades’ dark realm, and Sis was as terrified of the assistant principal as he disrespected Zeus. Hades meant business- you didn’t mess with him.
And now, here was Thanatos, come for him- how? He hadn’t done anything they could pin on him, he was totally clean, there was no way the water fountain thing could be traced back to him, the fire alarms hadn’t worked and they thought it was just a malfunction anyway and Merope couldn’t have sold him out for that new thing they were talking about could she have but why would she she thought it was as cool as he did and-
“Sisyphus.” The voice tolled, and Sis rose to meet it. He had to get out of this somehow, he had to, and he could, there was a way somewhere, he knew it… He followed the secretary obediently out of the classroom, trying trying trying to find a way out and how could he but he couldn’t go to detention, he just couldn’t and- of course. So simple, so elegant, so… utterly perfect.
The older man was leading the way- Sis could change that.
“Sir?” The man looked down at him, expressionless as the metal lockers that lined the hallway. “Can I get something from my locker first? It’s a note- it might get me out of this.” A believable enough excuse, and Sis knew he could lie like no one’s business- it worked. Thanatos nodded, and Sis changed direction, the man a grim hound nipping at his heels.
And then- Sis darted to the left as they turned a corner, Thanatos stepped on the tripwire, and it all worked as awesomely as ever. The ropes zipped up to the ceiling, gathered him in the net- and he was caught neatly in a rope web, hovering 3 feet above the floor.
Sis gaped. He hadn’t really believed that would work- wow, he was awesome. The best. No one was better than he was, who could trap Thanatos himself.
He gave the trapped man a blinding grin. “Nice try, dude,” he chirped, stretching out his arms with his fingers entwined so they all cracked at once. “But you didn’t know who you were messing with, did you?”
Thanatos said nothing. His face still help no expression, and his eyes were blank and lifeless, his body relaxed- he looked like this happened everyday.
Or, the thought made its way up through Sis’s mind reluctantly as he skipped to the end of the hall and propped up a yellow sign in the center of the entrance, declaring it CLOSED, maybe as if Thantatos knew how this was all going to end.
Chaos reigned in Olympus High. No one knew where Thanatos was- Hades couldn’t function without his assistant- the kids were quick to take advantage of the break down of the system. Whole classes skipped, the halls were filled with kids not doing anything, a good half of those who could drive had just gone home- Sisyphus loved it. This was his doing, his homage to the trickster gods. Chaos. Freedom. NO rules, no authority.., this was the life.
He strode down the halls, avoiding rampaging students and spitballs and thrown paper with the ease of an expert in doing all of it, unafraid of anyone for the first time in his life. This was his element, and here, he was king. He had already lifted 3 different wallets off of those foolish enough not to watch their backs, copied the answers to next weeks Bio test, and set up no less than five booby traps- yes, life was good.
Too good.
“Silence.” The herd, conditioned into obeying authority, quieted at the staticy sound of the PA system. Sis groaned inwardly. And there went all the fun. “You will all stop this. Now.”
Zeus very rarely got angry- there was a reason people didn’t pay attention to him much- but when he did, heads rolled. There were rumors that he in his first year of teaching, a kid had tried to change his records- the girl had been in jail for an unspecified amount of time.
His deep voice rolled on, crackling through the school, echoing around the halls. “Whoever has done this- and we do know who you are- release Thanatos. At once. Or else there will be severe consequences. The police will be called. Thank you.”
The static stopped. Sis stood in the middle of a pack of now docile students, caught by something that had never affected him before- indecsion. Jail- that was worse than detention. That was for real, forever, it would affect him for the rest of his life. And- he would get eaten alive in there, he just knew it, because cunning didn’t get you very far when you were the size of your antagonist’s calf, and there wouldn’t be anywhere he could run- Dammit. They had forced his hand- end game. They played the trump. Bingo. Yahtzee. They win.
Sis’s sneakers squeaked across the tiles as he dragged himself towards the hallway he had hidden Thanatos in. No one had thought to look beyond the closed sign- idiots- he paused at it. No choice. None. He hated it. He was trapped, cornered, finished. He wouldn’t be free until graduation. But- he had to.
The air itself seemed to try to hold him back as he reached the release level. Thanatos hadn’t moved in the five hours. He gazed down at the boy about to released him with the same emotion he had looked upon the boy who had trapped him: none. His dark hair and cloths cut a jagged scar across the beige ceiling.
On the count of three… one, two, three, and Sis pulled the level, dropping Thanatos to the floor. He landed with a thump that probably should have been louder, rose without showing any sign of pain or disapproval or even discomfort, and blinked at his once-captor.
“Sisyphus,” he intoned solemnly, “Come with me.”
Sis did.
The door to DIS opened smoothly on well oiled hinges. Thanatos left him at the doorway, fading into the shadows of the hall as Sis stepped into the gloomy room. Curtains covered the two windows, a single light on the teacher’s desk illuminated a sphere around her, throwing the rest of the room and the students in it into a gloomy rainbow of greys. It couldn’t have been bigger than fifteen feet square; Sis could almost feel the walls closing in on him. The thump of his feet sounded loud in the absolute quiet of the room.
He set his detention slip down on the table, eying the teacher in charge- she looked like a soft touch, with auburn waves gathered up in a jaunty ponytail and eyes the color of the grass outside. Ms… Persephone, the plaque on the desk read. She didn’t look like she could be more than a few years older than him. Maybe hope wasn’t completely lost.
She skimmed it, and gave him a cheerful smile. Sis shivered. The warmth of that smile only made the rest of the room seem colder. “Welcome to DIS,” she trilled, her voice as musical as a spring stream burbling over rocks. “I’m sure you’ll realize what you’ve done wrong by the time you’ve left us.”
And, plan D- take advantage o his cow-large eyes and childlike size to look totally blameless- was a go.
“Oh, I’m sure I will, ma’am,” Sis agreed earnestly, nodding so that his curls bounced, his mouth slightly open, his whole face set into a pathetic semblance of fear and repentance. “But-” He paused. Make her come to you, you’re too bashful too ask it yourself…
“But what…” she checked his named on the list, “Sisyphus?” When she said it, his voice sounded like a breath of wind through just-grown leaves.
“I- I-I-” he stammered, watching her melt a little bit with each stumble, “I wasn’t the only one to do this. See, my girlfriend- she- she- she helped me.” The best lie had a bit of truth in it’ it wasn’t selling Merope out if he didn’t say her name. “And I’d like her to have a chance to get better too- can I go get her? So she can come with me, and we can learn to be better people to-to-together?”
Gotcha. Persephone only barely managed to keep herself from cooing at devotion of the repentant boyfriend for the girlfriend who let him take the fall. “Of course.” She nodded, and scribbled something on the back of the note, than handed it back to him.
‘Sisyphus has permission to be in the halls for the next half hour’- did she really dot her I’s with hearts?
“thank you!” Sis exclaimed, grasping the note in both hands like he couldn’t have asked for anything more. A pencil squeaked in the background- he was going to be free!
Persephone nodded, beaming. “Just be sure you come right back, okay?”
“Of course!”
Sis shut the door carefully behind him- and broke into a run, away from the terrifying darkness and silence and cages. He was never going back there. Suckers. He was Sisyphus, the best of the best- they could just try to catch him.
A month later, and Sis was still complimenting himself on his near escape. He really was amazing- they couldn’t even prove he should have been in detention, because Ms. Persephone had given him the slip back! And now he was back on track, and once he finished cutting through this lock he would have set one of his best traps yet, and-
“Sisyphus, come with me.”
A hand on his arm, tight and firm and what the hell was happening how could someone as skinny as Thantaos be so strong and how had they caught me and where were we going this wasn’t DIS this was somewhere else they were in the administrative wing and oh no oh on oh no how come now this wasn’t fair this trick wouldn’t have even hurt anyone and dammit, how his arm hurt from Thanatos’s grip and he had never seen this door before, could you even make doors that looked so red what was it cherry or something and oh shit how was he going to get out of this one he didn’t have time he needed to think think of something what could it be he didn’t even know what was happening and-
“So, Sisyphus, we meet at last.” The line was cheesy- the menace in the voice, deeper even then Zeus’s, wasn’t. Sis slowly looked up from the rug with its intricate designs of red and gold and blue to see who he was confronting- and nearly screamed in terror.
He had never seen this man before, but he knew who he was. Built as strongly as Zeus was, broad shouldered and over six feet tall with a wrestler’s muscles, Hades looked as intimidating as his assistant didn’t. His eyes burned the blue of the heart of a fire, and his hair was the flame around it, a scarlet frame around a ruddy face. For all his size, though, that wasn’t the worst part- like his messenger, Hades sat calmly with his massive hands folded on a desk the same red as the door. This was a man in charge, who would not be gainsaid. Sis felt smaller than he ever had in his life. This was not a man to be caught in a trap or sweet talked. His eyes were dry ice, burning freezing cold, and he had already made up his mind about the boy in front of him. There would be no escape, not from this room with its blazing red motif and heat to match it- didn’t they have AC here?
“Nothing to say?” Hades’s chuckle made it all worse, somehow, because the fact that he could laugh meant Sis wasn’t even a threat- just a bug that he was finally ready to swat. “From what I’ve heard, this may be a first. I do believe I am proud of myself.”
Sis gulped- but not even fear could change him completely. “It has been known to happen before.” Barely more than a whisper, he as surprised Hades even heard it- but at least he wasn’t going down without any defiance.
Red eyebrows rose. “No? Well then, I must not be that special. But you- you are, Sisyphus.” He leaned forward over the desk, his head almost at a level with Sis’s. “I don’t know if we’ve ever had a prankster like you here before. Such a record- and so little evidence!” Despite himself, Sis straightened a little- he was the best, he was, and nothing they could do would ever keep him down forever, not heir cages or their walls or their- “But I think we can find a punishment suitable to your… unique talents, don’t you?” He smiled like a hyena just before it leaps upon its prey.
Sis nodded, mute again.
“So do I. Thanatos!” the assistant was suddenly there- Sis was almost certain he had left while Hades’ spoke, but couldn’t be sure- what the hell? He was supposed to be aware of people, know when they were coming so he wouldn’t get caught. Except he had been caught, and now the great were falling, falling, falling, into the pit of despair and what would he do now and how would he tell Merope and what were they going to do to him and-
“Wash.” Sis hadn’t even noticed he had left Hades’s office, but here he was, standing right in front of the main doors to the school, where the glass focused the sun and heated the room to a thousand and a half degrees, and Thanatos was handing him a mop.
“But- people are always coming in and out of here! It’ll just get dirty again!” Sis protested. Pointless job, pointless punishment… eh couldn’t be stuck ehre doing a job he could never finish.
Thanatos was not impressed. “Wash.”
“But-”
“Wash.”
Sisyphus did. So low he had fallen- he had been the best of the best of the best, the trickster king of this school, and now he was stuck mopping a floor until he didn’t know when, stuck in this cage of repetition and menial labor.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth went the mop.
Back and forth
Back and forth
Back and forth
Back and forth
Back and forth
Back and forth…
