I write my story down because in the underworld there is no one with whom I can commiserate. The dead do not understand my grief, for I am not one of them – my pulse still beats a steady tattoo at my wrist, and there is breath still in these lungs. I can see their confusion at my state. I am not one of them, and yet I exist here, among them. Flaunting my living at them, they who are beginning to forget what the overworld was like. I can see the fear in their eyes mingled with envy.

I know that I represent everything they have lost. But I have known loss, too. My heart does not break less because it is still beating.

Whatever hatred they might feel towards me, their erstwhile queen, is blunted by fear of their king. My husband.

I can always feel his eyes on me. Watching. Waiting. Eyes that glow red like embers. I do not know what is worse, feeling his coarse hands on me, or those eyes. I shudder before his desire. It disgusts and terrifies me. I know that what he desires most is not my body but my life.