This is what happened.

As crazy as it sounds, as unbelievable as it is-I swear that it all happened. After this, if you don't lock me up with one of those funny little white jackets with the too-long sleeves, I'll be surprised.

Let me give you a little background on me. That way you'll know the whole story, beginning to end. I'm a student at Eastern Illinois University, which is located in lovely Charleston, Illinois. If there ever was an abscess that needed to be removed from this world, Charleston is it. It doesn't matter where I'm originally from. Not to this story, anyway.

I went to enough classes a semester to keep my financial aid going, but I was in no hurry to graduate. College is the life, y'know? Only thing that makes it bad is that you kinda have to go to classes. Otherwise, I'd stay forever. Might still, after all this.

Got in a few scraps with the cops during my time at EIU. Everyone does, right? Nothing unusual, I don't think. They didn't like my method of getting a few extra bucks for the weekend. Sold a little acid, a little weed to a few close personal friends of mine. Cops didn't think that it was necessary. But I didn't get into much trouble. Got thrown out of court and all it did was make me a bit more leery-I kinda kept things a bit quieter after that.

Alright, alright. One more bit of info about me, then I'll get on with the story. I don't-or didn't-know who my father was; or is, I guess. Still don't know for sure, but someone told me . . . well, it'll get said soon enough.

It was a Friday night, one of those in the fall that almost makes you cry. Beautiful-especially after a few hits-and cool, with nothing wrong with the world. After my girl of the week left, I lay there, just looking up at the ceiling. I must have fallen asleep-I hope I fell asleep-because the weird shit started happening right about then.

You. You are the one.

No joke. That's what I heard. That's not really the voice that I heard-I can't mimic that voice. I didn't really hear it, kinda like it was in my head, y'know? There was a weird echo after the voice, kinda like bees buzzing. All in all, it sounded like something out of a B movie.

Then it got really strange.

You will find something for me, and bring it to me.

I was like, 'eh? What the hell?' but if only you could have heard it-man, the voice was there. It scared the living hell out of me. 'Who the hell are you?' Is what I said. Although, I really think that it came out all trembly, not really how I wanted it to sound.

All things will become apparent. You are chosen, and you will bring me the scepter of Hades.

I categorized what I'd done the night before. A little weed, a little beer. No acid. Nothing to explain this. 'Who's playing the joke? Hades? C'mon.' And then the voice said the weirdest thing.

Many others have tried to escape their Fate. It did not work then, it will not work now. Your blood will tell true.

It was then that I woke up-if I was asleep. What the hell, y'know? To say that I was a bit shaken, that would be the understatement of the century.

And what do you do? I know what I did, and it really wasn't all that surprising. First thing, I searched the whole damn room for speakers, tape recorders, and all that. Some of my friends are weird, and I wouldn't put something like this past 'em. There was nothing there that was abnormal, though.

After a futile search, I ran to the bathroom and vomited. I was shaken up pretty bad. What the hell did he (I had already started thinking of the voice as a he) mean, blood will tell? And how the hell was I supposed to get this scepter? Right about then, maybe a few minutes later-my time sense was and is still screwed up-there was a knock at my door.

I shuffled to the door, glancing out the window as I moved. It was still night. Peeking out through the peephole, I saw someone that I knew only vaguely.

The guy was a brute. That's what my girlfriend called him, anyway. Seems he has a penchant for using his fists on people. Got booted off of EIU's football team after he broke one of the starting running back's legs. In practice.

Well, I wasn't about to open the door to invite in 280 pounds of muscle that might have been hired by a pissed-off customer. "What do you want?"

"Man, I was told to come here. Help you find somethin'." His voice was a throwback, almost all the way back to grunting.

"Eh? Find what? What the hell you talkin' about, bro?"

"Dunno. I was told to help you."

Frowning, I opened the door. Not seeing or feeling any ham-sized fists come at me with bodily harm in mind, I stepped to the side. "Well, come on in. Want a beer? Who told you to help me?"

Well, to make a long story short, the brute had basically the same dream that I had. Except he was told to help me out in bringing back the scepter. Took me three hours to drag the story out of the guy, and I really don't feel like going over all that again. I'd much rather tell what happened next.

I fell asleep on the couch, with the brute curled up in a corner of the room. Almost immediately after I closed my eyes, it was back. The voice.

The company is assembled. You and he shall leave this night. The scepter, when you get it, shall be brought back here. I will take possession of it then. Do not delay.

"Hold on a sec, chum. I don't even have the slightest idea of where to go to get this scepter. What does it look like? Where the hell is it? It's all well and good to tell me to go get something, but I can't unless I have some more info."

The Underworld has been close to you all this time, and yet you do not realize it.

There was an uncomfortable feeling, like . . . well, I don't know how to describe it. Like someone-or thing-was shuffling through my head; like my brain was a bunch of flash cards.

St. Louis. You must leave for there this night, with nothing more than the clothes on your back. You and [Here he said something like "Hercules," but I know that he meant the brute]. If you do not leave this night, you will surely die.

"Whoa there. Die?"

[chuckle] You will die if you do not leave this night. There are those that would do you grievous harm, and they even now come closer to your hovel.

"Shit. Alright, alright. Wouldn't happen to have any gas money, would you?"

Your chariot stays. You shall walk.

"shit."

I came to, and Brute was there, ready to go. By the way, "Brute" is not his real name. It's what everybody on campus calls him, though. Easy enough to remember. Hell, I don't have the faintest clue as to what his real name is, even after all this.

Should I tell you of the walk that we went on? St. Louis is a fair haul from Charleston by car, facrissakes. Walking, it's a goddamn torture clinic. Weird shit happened at every turn, God, did it ever.

I mean, for example, Illinois has snakes, right? Lots of 'em. A menagerie of snakes. But I've never seen the likes of the snakes on our first night out. Well, in the movie Anaconda, maybe, but never in real life. Brute-hell, the guy's a maniac. Just grabbed 'em and throttled 'em.

And whoever heard of a lion in Illinois? There was one of those, too. Jesus, if it wasn't for Brute, I think I'd have ended up Big-Cat-Food.

There were other things that I helped through, though. Vagrants and hitchhikers aren't very well received in the enlightened state of Illinois. Smooth talking has always been a strong point of mine, though. Got us a bed or a barn to sleep in more than once.

We finally got to the Mississippi.

But it wasn't.

It was like something out of a Stephen King book, man. Fog drifting off of the river like nobody's business. I mean, this was St. Louis, right? Aren't there supposed to be, like, highways, interstates-people?

Well, there was one. Some rowboat was at the shore. Even Brute didn't like that. We knew that we were in the right place, though. I mean, when you follow those "miles-to" signs on streets and interstates, you can't really go wrong.

"Hey, Brute?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't like this much, mano."

"Yeah."

Making my way down to the shore, my eyes didn't stop working over the scenery. Salvadore Dali had nothing on this place. If this was a dream, it was time to get off of the acid. For good.

The landscape was twisted-that's the only way that I can describe it. The Mississippi is a tame river, anymore. But this river was flowing fast. The banks were damn near cliffs, and the only person in sight 'sides Brute and yours truly was this dude standing in a rowboat.

I could hear Brute making his less-than-graceful approach down the bank, when the guy moved. Well, I think he moved. All of a sudden, his hand was out. Skinny hand, like skin over bones, with no muscle 'tween 'em.

I looked at Brute. He was smiling. "I know what to do. The voice told me 'bout dis part."

And with this, Brute walked up to the rowboat and pulled a coin out of his pocket. Two, actually. In the murky light that surrounded us, the coins shone like gold. Hell, for all I know, they could have been gold.

The dude moved again-too quick for my eyes to see him, but he was at the other end of the boat like that.

Brute didn't hesitate. He clambered in the boat, leaving me with little else to do but follow.

That boat ride was strange. The mists surrounded us, like they were reaching for us-little tendrils of mist circling the boat, with hungry. . .well, to me it looked hungry. The guy wouldn't say a word, except once. I asked him his name, and he said "Karen," or something like that.

I swear that we were on that boat for an hour. The water didn't make a sound as it slipped by us. I was pretty creeped out, let me tell ya. This whole thing is just odd and odder.

We reached the other side.

And by God in his heaven, it was beautiful.

The mists were gone, the boat was gone-it was just me and Brute standing on the shore of a gently-flowing river, with Paradise in front of us. I didn't know that St. Louis was like this, not at all. (Of course, I knew that we weren't in St. Louis. This was just one hell of a screwed up dream, right?)

I could tell you of the wandering-around that we did. But this story has gone on long enough. Strange sights were seen. Guy standing in a middle of a pond, weeping about how thirsty he is. Another guy rolling this big rock up a hill, over and over again. Never, never have I seen things that I saw there.

After a while, wandering around, not knowing where the hell I was, or how I got there, Brute nudged me with his elbow. "Scepter's over there."

In that moment, I wondered about my companion. He came along on this little jaunt with no words of complaint. None. How weird is that?

Anyway, I looked over by where he was pointing, and there it was. A big chair-throne, probably-with something laying in it.

The scepter. You know, I've seen some gorgeous things in my time. Hell, my last girlfriend should be a model, you know? But this thing, the scepter, was something beyond me.

Black as black can be, with onyx (I think that's the right stone-the black one) surrounding it. I walked over, and reached for it, wanting to hold it as bad as any junkie wanted his fix.

"Wait!" That was Brute. Annoyed, I turned around.

"What?"

"Here." He handed me a pair of gloves, but they weren't really gloves. Whatchacallit, the things that were wore with armor? Gauntlets, yeah. That's it. Made out of copper, or something.

I put 'em on, and grabbed the scepter. It was light as a feather. Then something really weird happened.

Brute and I were standing directly under the Arch. You know, that thing that straddles the Mississippi, damn near? The symbol of St. Louis? Well, we were there. We weren't just a few seconds before, but we were there now.

"How the fuck do we get home?" I sounded weak, but damn-I just wanted to get back to Charleston. I had no clue as to how long we'd been gone. Hell, I'd probably flunked my classes by now.

Well, we boosted a car and drove. Wasn't that tough-it was around two in the morning, and even St. Lou slows down sometime. We ditched the car at the Coles County Airport, wiped it down, and got a taxi back to EIU.

So here I sit, the night after we got back.

Waiting for that voice to come back.

You see, I've been thinking. Doing some reading.

The voice talked old, I mean, he talked strange.

And in all the old books, when someone mentions "blood" it can mean either of two things.

Either it's the shit that flows through your veins, or it's your parents.

I'm willing to bet this scepter that the voice knows who my dad is. Brute's, too.

And I'm going to find out.

Thus endeth the tale.

© 1998, Cameron Wm. Akers