First Draft and Unedited
Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson Universe all rights go to Rick Riordan
Look, I wanted to escape Elysium.
If you're dead and thinking about it too, be warned. It's not all that great up here in the living world. It smells awful. You have to pay for everything. You feel pain and hunger and thirst.
But in the end of it all being alive is one of the most wonderful things. You get the chance to change the world. You have a meaning other than just being a spirit drifting through the underworld.
I would 95% recommend it.
My name is Penelope Jackson.
Up until five years ago, I was dead.
Was I dead a long time?
Yeah, you could say that.
Within 2 hours of being alive, I took my last breath and was shipped off to the underworld. I think I deserve an award.
I don't remember how I died or how I got to Elysium. My first memory was popping into the middle of a crowded street right on top of a man wearing a white cloth wrapped around him. He looked like a traditional Greek hero with a chiseled face, tan skin, and curly brown hair, but his eyes did not match. They were black and looked like they belonged to a madman. Looking into them, made a shiver go down my spine, even as he comically jumped fifty feet into the air.
"What the hades!" He shouted. I was unaware at the time that he was speaking Ancient Greek, and I didn't consider it weird that I understood what he said.
And in that moment I said my first words, "What the what?"
It was strange that I knew them. I guess that a few things got infused into my brain when I entered Elysium.
The man glowered. His black eyes flared. If I wasn't already dead, they would send me running for the hills.
"The vile god of the underworld," He spat on the ground, "Cursed me with my awful life."
"How so?"
"He fu-" He paused and looked me up and down- "He's my father."
"Really?" I asked. The idea of being the child of a god excited me at that time, that was until I learned more about them.
"Yes," He said. He tore his eyes from mine and looked at a group of children playing tag. "Why don't you go play?"
I nodded my head and dashed after the other children.
I found myself playing until the sun dipped low and the rest of the children scattered. I wandered around till I found the man from before sitting on the porch of a small farmhouse with a piece of wheat between his teeth. A field of wheat surrounded it and off in the distance you could hear the trickle of a river. I sat beside him and watched as the sky changed from orange and pink to dark blue with a thousand glittering constellations.
The rest of my time in Elysium followed the same pattern. I would play and then go watch the sunset with the man. I discovered that his name was Akakios and that he was a Greek hero.
He told me the stories of his life. How Demeter destroyed his crop, then the rest of the towns, just because of his father's infidelity. "I could feel the people in the town dying. Their souls lingered close to the surface, just waiting for the sickle of death. I couldn't take it anymore, so one night I took a single chiton and left."
After he told me this I jumped to my feet and cursed Demeter, shouting that she will rue the day that she starved Akakios' village.
He laughed and said, "You're dead!"
I sat back down and pouted.
Another day, he told me about how he refused Apollo's affections.
"It ended better than most. After all, I didn't turn into a plant, just got a nasty sneeze for the rest of my life. Though it did cause a bit of a problem at the Olympics. I sneezed during the chariot race and ended up crashing into the guy next to me. He got all scarred up. It would have been no big deal if he hadn't been a son of Aphrodite. She sent a dragon after me." He laughed. "After that fight, no god ever hit on me again."
"And then there was Poseidon. When I was traveling with Jason on the Argo, I killed one of his sea monsters. After that, I couldn't step anywhere near water without Triton coming after me. It got me sent off the Argo." He looked longly at the starry night sky. "I never did get to see the Golden Fleece."
I don't know how long it continued on like this, but every day I heard a new story of his life.
In the middle of his story of his epic battle with Heracles, I interrupted for the first time.
"I wish I could be alive and have stories like yours."
He laughed. He laughed at me a lot. He said it was because I knew nothing of the living world and it amused him. I shot back with that he knew nothing of the modern world. A friend that I played with wore pants, a modern clothing item, well he still wore chitons.
"Well, I suppose it does sound quite fantastic, especially because I won. But afterward, I got struck by lightning, Zeus doesn't like it when people defeat his undefeatable stone."
I kicked a stone with my sandaled foot. "The gods are jerks. I wish I could be alive so I could teach them a real lesson." I peeked at him from the corner of my eye. His bemused face looked down at me. His brown curly hair tumbled into his black eyes. I spoke cautiously, "You're a son of Hades."
"Yes. I am."
"Do you know a way out?"
He thought it over. "I suppose I could find one. But why don't you just choice rebirth?"
I blew a strand of black hair from my face, "Because I might forget you."
He stood with a pleased look. "Then tomorrow we will hunt for a way to escape Elysium. I bet that's the first time anyone ever said that."