A flower when left in darkness can not grow. It withers and grows gray, sick from its lack of love and care, till it lays its stem and petals down and turns itself over to the fungi and growth of death to take control. 

It' s been months and the Man is growing frustrated. That's what Kore knows as the smell of death, seeping into the cavern that is her room, taking root in the cracks and crevices of her only safe haven.

 A sign of his arrival. 

She has refused to lay on her bed. The plush mattress filled with cotton and petals, no doubt a hassle to acquire, remains untouched, as Kore instead takes residence in the corner of the stone room, finding comfort in the bones of the earth. She swaddles herself in something knitted, she can't quite remember what it was meant to be when her mother had first made it. 

It no longer smelled like home. 

Carefully, as if worried she would attack, the man opened the door. His eyes looked tired and watery, dark as the largest cavern, which Kore supposed belonged to him as Taturus was a part of his realm. The lines that circled his face, echoed his centuries of living, making it clear he was the eldest of his brothers, but the unkempt dark hair and beard made it clear he was the least bit interested in the thoughts of others. 

He looked dangerous. 

At his arrival, Kore is quick to pull the quilted piece over their face, to hide her from the Man. His visits are regular and chaotic. Often he brings a gift, a stunning crown made of silver and covered in crystals glimmering in the eternal night, a dress made of spider silk, dyed pink and orange with the dyes of lilies and roses, a stuffed animal made to resemble deer, and then a bat, and then a parrot when she rejected the previous ones. 

She is a child, and she yearns for the doll her mother hand weaved and sewed together for her first birthday. None of these gifts will replace her need for her mother and her love. They will surely not inspire a new love for the Man before her. 

The Man dislikes her rejection. Kore knows the gifts mean something greater, she knows he is asking for something more than her simple company. She refuses and cries when he offers his love, and so his sickly sweet voice turns cold and harsh as he locks her in the cavern to rot till the next visit. 

Kore flinches as she feels his large calloused hands pull the quilted linen from her face. Something is different this time, she can see it in the way his lips smile but his eyes remain cold and full of desire. 

She kicks and screams as he takes her arm and pulls her towards the bed. He bears no gifts in his hands, but uses his free one to unclasp the gold circlets that held his chiton up. Kore screams, but she grows hoarse and quiet as he pushes her onto the mattress, the former gentleness gone from his touch. 

Kore is too young to understand the extent of what is happening. She is too young to know men's desires, and wants, raised away from such ideals on purpose by her mother. She does not know what it is like to bleed, to become a woman. The only rose buds she knows are not of a womens growing chest but of the ones in the garden. She knows nothing of what is happening except that she doesn't want it. 

With both of the Man's arms now pinning her down, Kore feels helpless as she stares into his empty eyes. Her dress is gone, and tears stream down her cheeks, but she can' t remember when they started. Vaguely she can remember the Man's name, her mothers brother, her uncle.

The god of the dead, Aidoneus, Hades. 

Kore will not become another subject for him to rule. 

The Gods can not die. They may be incapacitated for some time. Mentally left to wander a desolate place called the mind, as their body attempts to heal its damage. It is unlikely for a god to enter that state, even more unlikely for a child to damage them so. 

But Kore is no mere child. She is the bringer of death. 

It happens fast. Kore slips out from the Man's grasp and throws herself at his chest, her nails grab and rip into his flesh. She wails as she claws into him, one after another. The Man lays paralyzed beneath her, his inky black eyes now simply voids that do not see. She does not stop until her hands are drenched in golden ichor and a hole appears in his chest. Layers of skin and pomegranate ripped out, seeds line the Man's flesh, juicy and red against the gold of his blood and the white of his ribs. 

If she tries to run she will be found. Her power over nature had no use in the world of the dead, no soil to grow from, no flowers to bloom. 

Thinking quickly, she reaches into the Man' s body and pulls out seed after seed of flesh, she eats quickly as if starved. Licking the blood of her hands, she prays that maybe she can gain some of his power. Maybe this way she can escape, living off of the power of death. 

She hardly realizes that she has changed. 

Her hands, once freckled and sunkissed have turned dark and blue, her bones shine through the places his blood has touched, her left eye has turned dark like his. 

She will run, she will find her mother, but she is now one of the underworld. 

She is trapped to her cage.

Her kingdom. 

For at that moment she was a child, Kore, no more. 

She was Peresophone. 

Bringer of Death. 

Queen of the Underworld.