Until Death Do Us Part, by Laila Papas

An Orpheus and Eurydice retelling

Orpheus heard her scream like a symphony of his heart shattering.

His lover trailed behind him their entire trek to the surface, stalking silently through the River Styx’s shores. She climbed up the narrow passageway of the underworld’s entrance, surrounded by rocks and coal, without a bead of sweat or sign of her presence. He only saw the tips of her fingers, reaching out to him as she fell back into the cavern, death swallowing her whole once more.

Orpheus lingered like a shade in front of the gates of the afterlife, and turned towards the darkness. He had lost her enough times to begin counting on his fingers—he would rather cut them off than add another.

With nothing but the lyre she had gifted him tied to a string around his hip, Orpheus took a breath and dove down into the throat of death.

For centuries to come, Orpheus would be known for his melodies and his melancholy. What the poets and the tales didn't carry through history was his rage. How it rose within him, hot as Apollo’s skin after he raised the sun. The way it clouded his thoughts like steam—he no longer heard his inner voice, hollering for him to turn back to the light and live without her. All he could hear was her scream.

What he refused to let flee from history’s memory was the cruel grip the King of the Underworld had on her. That Hades was as sly as the snake that had slain her. Orpheus knew how to use his hands to strum the strings of a lyre—he could use the same hands to strangle a man to death.

The afterlife didn’t burn like fire, but rather, ebbed and flowed like the waves of the River Styx. The spirits of the recently deceased moved as one before the ferryman, Charon, their payment of a single gold coin outstretched in their hands. Their feet dragged along the shores, dark as the ash of their skin, buried deep within their graves.

Orpheus’s hands moved without his mind’s permission. He charged through the crowd with the speed and pride of an eagle, wrapping his fingers around the throat of the first shade he seized. The shade shrieked, arms flailing within his grip, but he kept his hold like a lock without a key.

He ripped the coin from the shade and held it up to the ferryman.

“Please.”

Charon crossed his arms. Dark robes cloaked him, concealing his body aside from his skeletal fingers. Orpheus failed to find his eyes—he hoped a shred of empathy shined within them.

“I don’t deal with beggars.”

“Then I am not a beggar, but a killer.” He spoke with the agency of an oracle, certain as law. “I will strangle you with my bare hands and leave you waiting on the shore with the shades.”

The ferryman clenched his jaw, then helped him onto the boat. “Where to?”

“The way we just came from.”

The river’s waters were white, like the silks she wore on her wedding day. As he gazed into the open waters, he dreamed of kissing her lips, sweet as the melodies he had once sang for her.

Orpheus had always lost himself within his emotions. He never saw his footsteps in front of him, but other worlds and futures. Ones where he didn’t need to dream. A life where he couldn’t want or need more. The peaceful home of an everyman, the love of his life and the death of a legend. An existence that he didn’t allow his emotions to rule him.

But, legends lived on because they were tragic. She was dead and he could feel nothing but his bubbling, boiling rage.

He missed the way she pulled him above the surface when he drowned in a sea of his own sorrows. Her voice and the way it moved through the air like music. The way her words inspired him, how he could twist them into the songs he sang for her as she fell asleep. The way she completed him.

With her gone, he was a storm brewing too fast to navigate through. A man couldn’t live with half a heart, and he had buried it whole when he laid her down into her grave.

“Never in my life have I lost someone,” Charon said, pulling Orpheus back to reality. “I hear it does things to your head.”

Orpheus didn’t answer, but hummed her favourite tune in response.

“One can love someone so deeply, he does not die once, but twice?” Charon asked. “At which point is it worth knowing her at all? Knowing you are fated to live with the pain you feel now?”

Orpheus closed his eyes and imagined his death. No matter if he was immortalized in the stars or forgotten among the shades, he would rest content, so long as she lay next to him.

“Always.”

The boat slid onto the shore. Before Orpheus could exit, the ferryman pulled him back by his shoulder. Something cold slipped into his hand. He dragged his finger along the foreign object, its familiar shape molded to his grip.

Charon had granted him a blade made of bone, its handle carved to mimic the shape of a human skull. The ferryman tugged his hood down further, hiding a feeling Orpheus couldn’t unravel.

“Maybe one day, I will love enough to grieve like you.”

All Orpheus had to do was retrace his steps. He clutched the dagger tighter as he strode across the underworld’s rocky terrain, approaching the palace of Hades. Circling the gates, with paws so large they could cause earthquakes, lived the three heads of Cerberus, Hades’s devilish dog and guardian of his castle. Even armed, Orpheus knew its dozens of teeth would shred through his bones the moment its black eyes met his mortal body. He hid behind one of the castle’s many pillars and reached for his second weapon, the lyre fitting in his hands like an extension of his limbs.

Hypnotic hymns flowed from his lips. He knew what to do—he’d sung Cerberus to sleep mere hours ago, the hound unable to keep its eyes awake as it listened to his lullabies. The slobbering animal didn’t sway on its feet, but snarled in his direction. It searched behind the pillars for the sound’s source, determined to muffle Orpheus with its rows of sharp teeth.

Orpheus shut his mouth, darting between the pillars to evade the hound’s sight. He bit his tongue and squeezed his eyes shut, heart hammering in his throat. No one could resist the sugary sound of his voice or his lyre—he’d supposed Cerberus, having fallen for his hypnos before, knew to resist its melody.

If she were here, she would whisper a plan in his ear, securing their victory with her wisdom. But, she was gone, and all he had was the screaming, relenting chaos left inside his own mind.

As if she’d spoken to him beyond the grave, Orpheus’s eyes widened with inspiration. He didn’t sing again. He screamed. The storm brewing inside him poured out through his voice, his desperation and his despair so loud cracks spread through the palace’s stained windows.

Cerberus howled into the night. It raised its floppy ears, unable to pinpoint the sound’s origin. Orpheus slipped between the pillars, his broken voice bouncing along the castle walls. Only did he close his mouth when he dashed between the doors of Hades’s palace, leaving Cerberus in a daze.

Hades’s palace mimicked the temples on earth, except the marble pillars and floors were stained as black as his heart, rot and shades replacing the plants and priests. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He hadn’t a clue where he was going. He had just traversed the palace, barging through doors until he found the King of the Underworld atop his throne, but hadn’t paid attention to the details.

Orpheus struggled to breathe. If he didn’t find the king, he would decay within the castle’s confines, lost and stranded behind death’s locked door. He hummed a tune under his breath to calm his spiraling thoughts. He had been here before. Hades didn’t build the palace with madness, but a method.

Her favourite flower was the lily. She would watch them sprout by the rivers and stroke their white petals, delicate and too beautiful to describe in words. He had seen them along the walls, their petals withered and rotten from white as the clouds to black as Thanatos’s scythe. He had noticed before, and thought of her, kneeling by the river.

He followed the things he remembered. The weathered lilies. The cracks in the walls, inching upward like her smile. The shades he recognized, still loitering in the same spot, until he reached the castle’s grandest doors.

The king sat atop a throne of bones, his skin matching in color. The sight of him stopped Orpheus’s aching heart. He flinched back, as if he had stumbled over a corpse—the king looked and smelled the part.

Orpheus didn’t know why he hesitated, lurking behind the king’s grand throne, standing aimless amongst the shades. Exhaustion ached in his blood and bones, his hands shaking. If she were here, she would whisper the right words to drain his stress dry.

But, she was dead, and he refused to stop with victory in arm’s reach. If he did, he would die where he stood, his skin withering to dust with the memories of her.

When Hades closed his eyes, leaning into a scarce moment of solitude, Orpheus struck. Before the king could react, there was a blade against his neck, positioned at the perfect angle to slit his throat.

“To save your life, you’ll spare hers.”

Recognition lit up within the king’s dark eyes, like a star in a spotless night. He reached back and stroked the sharp bones of the living man’s warm cheeks.

“Orpheus,” he whispered. “She was never going to complete the journey.”

“Of course not. You made it impossible not to look back.”

“If you refused to look back, you did not love her at all.”

The king looked as mournful as a grieving widow. He took Orpheus’s hand and pushed it aside with ease. Orpheus stepped in front of the king’s throne, tears rushing down his red cheeks like rivers.

A somber smile reached the king’s lips. “You have a love that creates legacies. Your voice must be used for more than music alone. It is how legends are told, carried through time and space. You hold her memory, and you must share it with the world, and then will she never die.”

Orpheus sank to his knees, wiping his wet mouth. He bowed his head to the floor, too desperate to resent how pathetic he had become. “I don’t want her to be a story. I want her to be by my side, singing our songs as dawn takes dusk.”

“You say the grief is worth loving her. Yet, here you are, knocking on my door and demanding she defy the laws of life. Hypocrisy turns your own words into lies. You do not love her if you can not live without her. Remember her. Spread her memory like her ashes, then find yourself between them.”

Orpheus wailed into the frigid, marble floors. The king knelt down to him, pulled him in

and held him in a gentle embrace.

“Euridyce may be dead, but you are alive. Walk the world not without her, but as one. You will reunite in death, but for now, you must live.”

Orpheus closed his eyes and felt the king’s cold palm drift down his forehead. When he opened them again, sunlight melted down his skin as he wept into the earth, his tears like dewdrops among the blades of grass.

His cries waned to silence, and slowly he rose like a flower, willing to bloom again.

END

Laila Papas is a writer based in Canada, where she is currently pursuing a bachelors in arts and psychology. Her short story, “Until Death Do Us Part,,” was shortlisted by Young Writer’s Journal in December of 2024. When she isn't writing, you can find her taking long walks, researching new, niche topics and daydreaming of worlds that are different, and more magical than our reality.