The Unlucky Ones

Percy stood in the middle of a train station. It was like a grand ballroom, but grander than any he's ever seen. Except it was quiet. Lifeless. People sat on couches and chairs, staring into space. No talking, no movement.

Behind him an endless escalator brought down more people of all shapes and sizes, rolling silently. There was no escalator going up, and he couldn't see the top. He watched as they stepped out and looked around, confused and sad, before wobbling to the ticket booth on the north-west side of the station, their footsteps making no sound. Above the booth was the boarding schedule, and despite the large screen there was only one destination. The only destination. The Underworld. Currently boarding. That clued him and everyone else about their situation.

Something was inside Percy's balled fist. He loosened his grip and between his thumb and forefinger was a large bronze coin. There was only one use for it. He fell in line to the ticket booth, putting the coin in his pant pocket. He held on to it still – the ghost behind him didn't look like he had payment for the ride, and Percy didn't want to lose his.

A shrill sound broke through the stillness, almost wrecking Percy's ears. A man's shout. A figure dashed through the hall and up to the escalator, roughly pushing aside men and children, climbing the moving steps two at the time. Three security guards followed hot on his heels, grabbed his arms and yanked him down to the tiled floor. The man screamed, "No! You've got to let me back! My family needs me! LET ME GO!" The guards dragged him with ease, despite the man thrashing and kicking, moving away from Percy's line of sight.

"Sir?" The lady behind the booth caught Percy's attention. "You're next."

"Oh. Sorry." He stepped up and slid the drachma to her.

She took it and punched some buttons on her computer. Then she presented his ticket along with a receipt. "You should hurry, sir, the train is about to leave."

"Thank you." Percy grabbed the items and went through the large doors on the right side of the booth.

Cold wind whipped his cheeks . The air smelled like water. Beyond the station was a dense fog. He couldn't make anything in it. It reminded him of Stephen King's The Mist. An express train waited for the passengers, but there was only one door open with a uniformed guard. "Hurry up there, man! We're going!"

Percy jogged to him, the gale howling in his ears, and the conductor held up a hand. "Ticket first."

While he checked the ticket, Percy took in the man's appearance. Dark skin and bleached-blond hair under a cap. Strange accent when he spoke. A small brass name tag on his uniform. "Charon?"

The conductor glanced at him. "What about me?" He stared up and down at Percy, then a flicker of recognition came to his eyes. "Oh. Oh, it's you. The godling who came here when this was a studio all those years ago." He chuckled. "I thought you're his reincarnation, but it's the same you, and you're actually dead."

He pulled his puncher from his belt and started punching holes in the ticket, smiling widely. "You've lasted this long, huh. So, how old were you? Seventy? Eighty? Died of old age?"

A lump formed in Percy's throat. "No."

Charon nodded and gave his ticket back. "Not natural causes, I see." He stepped aside to let him in. Percy looked over the passengers in the car. There was a space between a teenage girl and a snoring stout man, right across the doors. He shimmied his butt to sit down, Charon's back in front of him.

A middle-aged woman approached the train. He stopped her. "Ticket, please."

She was pleading him with her eyes. "Is there any way you'll let me in for free?"

"I'm sorry, you're going to have to pay to get in. Our ticket booth is also our help center, and we have alternate payments if you have nothing with you right now."

"But I have nothing that I can give you. I gave it all away. You have to let me in. I left my life for this, for paradise."

Charon shook his head. "You will have to wait for a couple of centuries, and maybe you'll get a free ticket in."

The woman clutched her head. She sobbed in front of him for a few moments before folding her arms and walking to her left, jumping down the train station platform and disappearing into the fog.

Nobody except Percy paid attention to the commotion. Maybe they had seen this happen a hundred times before. He asked, "Where is she going?"

Charon sighed. "I don't know. To where we're going, or to the surface. It doesn't matter to me."

"What's going to happen to her?"

"That's for the mist to decide."

A chill ran down his spine. He didn't ask more questions.

A pregnant woman boarded the train. The doors closed and the train nudged to life, momentarily losing her balance. She glanced over for a place to sit. Percy stood up and offered his space. She smiled and thanked him, taking his seat and placing a hand on her belly. For one second he thought everything was normal. Then the lump from before grew bigger when he remembered that everyone in this train was dead. The pregnant woman was dead, along with her unborn kid. A kid that would never see the light of the day, never even going to see what the afterlife looked like. Just there inside their mother's womb forever.

His chest clenched. Bile rose from his stomach. He moved to another car, not looking back to the woman. The passengers glanced at his entrance, then went back to staring into nowhere. He grabbed a handle and took deep breaths, calming himself. He could still feel even if he was dead.

Charon followed him to the car. "Got any friends expecting you?"

Percy bit his lip. "I have friends, but I don't think they're expecting me. At least, they won't expect my cause of death."

"They're going to be quite shocked to see you then." Charon shook his head, clicking his tongue.

He needed to get the pregnant woman out of his mind. "You've upgraded," he started, referring to the train and the station.

"We've been getting a lot of dead people as of late. Lord Hades and Lord Thanatos agreed that we needed an overhaul. Trains are unoriginal, but they're definitely economical given the volume of people we receive every day."

Percy thought of the surface, of the living world. His family was still up there, fighting. They probably were done cremating his body, having already supplied him with a drachma to get into the Underworld. God, he didn't want to think about the heartbreak. It would have been better if he died peacefully in his death bed. So much better. He would have been prepared, his family would be ready to let him go. But he recalled the sensation of his knees failing him while something went through his heart.

That hurt a lot.

He left Charon's side and walked down the train slowly. His dyslexia left him, but his ADHD stayed. Even his soul buzzed to make him move all the time. He glanced at the faces of dead, hoping that his living friends weren't among them. He thought of them and knew they were lucky. They found workarounds, they were given a chance to live once more without their memories wiped out, they cheated on death. Other than an offer to immortality which he turned down, Percy was one of the unlucky ones.

At the back end of the train, his heart froze. Sitting at the edge of the seat, leaning on the window was a familiar looking blond man in his mid thirties. A long forgotten friend and foe he didn't expect to see. He was distressed and alone, but there was no scar across his face.

"Luke?" Percy called out, moving towards him slowly. "Luke Castellan?"

He didn't flinch or acknowledge him. When he realized he was being stared at by an old man, he almost jumped from his seat, clearly creeped out. "Pardon?"

"Are you Luke Castellan?"

"Oh. No. No, you're mistaking me for someone else, sir."

If he wasn't Luke, he looked so much like him. It was unnerving. It came to Percy that Luke wanted to be reincarnated a long, long time ago. This was him. But he wasn't him anymore.

Percy found a vacant space he could squeeze his butt on, sitting across the Luke-alike. "My bad. What's your name, kid?"

He stared at Percy incredulously, as if he was surprised that he wanted to talk to him. "Richard...Parker."

"Ah, so were you named after the Bengal tiger? Do you happen to have a son named Peter Parker?"

His right eye twitched violently. It was visible that Parker got this a lot of times when he was alive.

Percy enjoyed the entertainment value while it lasted. "Richard, then. I'm Percy Jackson. You...you look young to be here, son."

Richard's expression turned from annoyance to grief in a matter of seconds. "I...tried to save my boyfriend, but I wasn't quick enough. I wasn't strong enough."

Percy was taken back, but he leaned closer, perking his ears to make sure he caught every word that came out from the man's mouth. "It's seems like a long story. Care to share it to an old timer?"

With just a few questions, he was able to make Richard open up. He spoke of his life in the surface, his childhood, his career, the people he met and loved and hated. He was more than happy to tell the story. The sadness didn't leave his eyes, but his face was bright and hopeful as he told story after story. And Percy was interested to hear about the reincarnated Luke's new life. Regardless of the sudden death, there were no monsters, no family problems, and he didn't have the kind of bitterness a demigod has. He lived a normal life. A good life.

Percy had almost never seen him smiling.

The fog outside the train had cleared. The express ran across a dark river, littered with discarded hopes and dreams, materialized into earthly possessions that closely represented them. Up ahead was an island illuminated with sickly green light. Silhouettes of city skyscrapers towered, reaching the stalactites hanging down the cave ceilings.

Looks like there were more overhauls done from the last time I was here, Percy thought. He prayed quietly as they approached the island. He doubted that any god would hear him, but he prayed for his family and friends above, for their safety, for their blessing. He prayed for Richard Parker here, and he prayed for himself. He wondered how he was going to face the judges. If he was sent to Elysium, would he stay and wait for the people he loved so they can all be together again, or would he try aiming for Isles of the Blest, like Luke right here? He didn't know what to choose. Percy lived a good life, too, you know.

A/N: I wrote this because trains are so much better than elevators (also thank you Hazelle More for proofreading this short fic you do gods work bless you bless you).