Disclaimer- I don't own PJO and I'm glad I don't. If I wrote those books they would really suck.

The Story of the Everyday Life in the Underworld

It was my least favorite time of the year, summertime. Although I pretty much hate all of the year, summertime was even worse. It was bad enough that my only companions were dead people. But this is the time of year that my own wife leaves me! What a rip off! I get a wife for six months a year. Six months! People say I'm grumpy, but wouldn't you be if you had my job!

I hate my job. I wanted to become a doctor or astronaut, but no. Just because I lost a game of draw straws, I'm stuck here.

I sighed and got up to do my walk through my kingdom. I passed my mutated dog with three heads. Instead of growling at everything like he used to, he just whined like a sad puppy and clung to a broken, shriveled rubber ball. He had acted like this ever since that dumb nephew of mine came and asked for a lightning bolt, which, I may add in, was not taken by me! I think it was that kid Luke, but nobody tells me much of anything.

 I walked until I spotted the only bright colored thing in my entire land: a palace. It had a grand bedroom, twelve guest rooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen, a grand dining hall, and a pony stable in the back. It was the house of my little girl, Bianca. She was tended to by invisible servants, and had slumber parties every week with the rest of her dead friends. She was pretty much my year-round Persephone. I walked into the house. Bianca was baking some muffins while three souls about her age were helping her. They were giggling and talking about who the cutest soul in the underworld was… which was Paris. All of the girls were gathered around one bowl of muffin mix. One of Bianca's friends named Tiffany accidentally flicked some Muffin mix on Bianca. Bianca laughed and flicked some back, but missed Tiffany and hit Stacy. Stacy, who had been contributing the chocolate chips, smiled and threw and handful of chocolate chips at Mandy, who got a few of them in her mouth and got a face full of chocolate due to the rest. I cleared my throat as they giggled. The girls turned and noticed me for the first time. Tiffany, Stacy, and Mandy all bowed. Bianca smiled and waved. "Hi dad!" she said.

"Good day, Lord Hades," said the other three in Unison.

"Hello girls," I said. "Is it sleepover night?" I asked Bianca.

She smiled. "Yep! We were making some muffins for tonight. You wouldn't believe what they're showing on Haphaestus TV tonight. A marathon of that old Hercules TV show that got canceled. We're gonna watch it until dawn breaks."

I half smiled. My daughter was the only one who could bring joy into my life. And she stayed year-round, unlike a certain goddess of spring I could mention. "Well, you girls have fun with that. Save me a muffin."

"Okay, dad."

"Yes, lord Hades."

I left the little palace and sighed. Now that the only enjoyable part of my day was over, I would have to go check on the other stuff. I went into the torture chambers. I walked over to a card table where one of my least favorite souls was sitting. Gabe Ugliano. One of the reasons I hated this guy was because, hey let's be honest, this dude reeked! He smelled like moldy pizza and cigarettes and beer and dead rat and, to top it off, dead people. His curse was that he was strapped into a chair that was really a cactus, play poker with a bunch of my skeleton minions while listening to opera, and no matter how many times he would play he would never win. I told him that the wager was that if he won, he could go back to the living world, and I would even strike up a deal with Aphrodite that would drive Sally Jackson back into his arms, but if he lost, his eyelashes would be plucked out one by one, only to grow back during the next game. He took the wager and said that he could already smell sally's bean dip. Now he was trapped in a never-ending world of pain.

"Hades," growled Gabe, "you just wait and see, I've got this game in the bag. He smiled and drew a card, but then looked at it and frowned. "No!" he shouted. His cactus chair was wheeled away behind a curtain. Then I began hearing his yelps of pain and torment. I walked away, very sad. So far my day had gotten me nowhere.