We melted out of the shadows at the edge of the Fields of Asphodel. They were grey and barren, with the exception of a few clumps of gnarled poplar trees dotting the dry yellow grass. Looking at it gave me a bad feeling. Like, somehow even worse than the Fields of Punishment. My stomach knotted and my throat felt dry. I pulled at the hem of my t-shirt. Spirits wandered around, occasionally bumping into one another and chattering with scratchy voices, sounding like dry leaves skittering across pavement on a windy day. The fields felt ominous and sinister.
"Guys… I can't- I don't think that we should go in here, so I'll just be going…" I start to walk away, heading in the direction of my dad's palace. I was suddenly pulled back as Will grabbed the back of my shirt.
"Hey! Where are you going? We need you here." He said worriedly.
"Oh, nothing. It's just… the fields seem kind of…" My voice trailed off.
"Depressing?" Will supplied.
"Well… basically, yeah."
"I'll be with you. It's gonna be okay. We're all gonna shadow travel to different parts so we can cover more ground, okay?" Will reassured me. I nod, chewing on my bottom lip. I know Nico is capable of taking care of himself but still…
Nico shadow traveled each of us to a different side of the fields. When I enter, spirits immediately begin to gravitate towards me, clinging to my clothes and pleading with me to save them. I try to brush them off, but my hand goes straight through their wispy bodies. I immediately pulled my hand away from them, gasping.
"Wha-what?" I glanced down at the spirits. Their black pit-like eyes stare into mine. More join them, pooling around me.
"Back. Off." I say, forcefully pushing them away. It works this time, but I still shiver when I make contact with them. I elbow my way farther into the crowd. A spirit hisses angrily as I accidentally elbow it in the eye socket.
"Sorry." I muttered. I'm not exactly sure why I was apologizing, since I'm not even sure if they can understand me, but it seemed polite, I guess. The mob of black-cloaked figures was getting thicker, therefore harder to navigate. Why wouldn't they just move?
I took a deep breath before announcing in a loud voice, "Excuse me! Hey! Make way for me. I am Raven Nerezza, daughter of Hades. And I control you, you do what I say. Now move." The ghosts split, leaving a path through the middle of the horde. "Thank you."
I stride through the aisle they have made for me, my chin up high. I'm trying to look confident, because I feel that even though I'm respectful to the dead, I should make it clear who's in charge. Me. Anyway, when I passed, the ghosts frantic chattering seemed to get subdued.
I was maybe a couple hundred yards into the fields, without a single sign of the ancient monster my father was having us scout for. Now, maybe it was just me, but I wish he hadn't told us not to fight the thing once we'd found it. We were perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves during battle. I had been training for months to fight monsters, and now I just wanted to see if I was good enough.
I was deep in thought, so of course, I wasn't paying attention. That is, until I bumped into someone. I jumped back, startled. The woman was beautiful. She wore perfectly applied makeup and black high heels poked out from the bottom hem of her floor-length red dress. Her hair was in an elaborate up-do and jewels decorated her ears and throat. At first, I thought it might be Aphrodite, but the woman's eyes were filled with hate and malice. Too much to be the goddess of love.
"Wh-who are you?" I stammered. The woman snarled at me, sounding feral. Her face contorted in anger.
"Who am I? Who am I?" She repeated, clearly baffled that I didn't already know. "I am Erida, goddess of hate."
"Oh. Um, okay." I said stupidly. "You sound like the evil thing my dad wanted me to find."
Erida laughed, high and cold. "I have known your father was looking for me for quite some time now, young one. But I have business here. I am part of something much bigger than you. I am looking for... someone. So, half-blood, I will give you two choices. The first, you will help me find who I want, and join my- his cause. Or second, you can try to tell Hades, and suffer the consequences. You do not want to cross me, young one. For if you do, you will be shown no mercy."
I thought for a moment, all the while glaring at Erida. I could just walk away and drop this… but that felt like betraying my father. Not that he didn't really deserve it. I could also attack Erida. But my sword, borrowed from the weaponry shed back at camp, was unbalanced in my hand. I wasn't a bad fighter though…
I unsheathed my sword and had it laid against Erida's throat before she even knew what was happening. I admit, it was kind of a rush, having all this power over a goddess. Her life ( I know I can't really kill her but still ) was in my hands. She bared her teeth, snarling at me. Reaching up, she grabbed my sword hand and wrenched it away, twisting out of my grip. A sword of her own appeared in her hands and we battled. She lunged at me, aiming for my head, but I swept the attack away with a slash of my sword. I was glad that Hazel had pulled my hair back this morning, usually it was a distraction during fights. Erida and I parried for a short time, but I was getting tired. My muscles burned and I was sweating.
With the clanging of metal on metal, Erida disarmed me, my sword flying into the spirits who had made a circle around us. She smiled triumphantly and my face paled. Erida circled me like a shark, removing a Celestial bronze dagger from a woven golden belt at her waist.
"Now… I could just kill you. Right now." She purred, placing her dagger on my throat. "But, I don't think you're going to get off that easy. There will be consequences, as I told you."
I swallowed hard. "Or, you know, you could just let me go."
Erida looked into my eyes, making me feel like she was reading my memories. She nodded quickly.
"I think I have some people for you to meet." Erida smiled wickedly. "I'm sure you will have a great time… reconnecting with them." She pushed the dagger harder, causing beads of blood to appear on my neck, before pushing me to the ground. My elbows scraped the ground when I hit it, causing me to wince.
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. All around me, the temperature dropped. Frost began forming on the grass and I could see my breath. A cold feeling spread through my chest. Erida smiled at me, like she knew something I didn't. The feeling in my chest was freezing, getting colder every second, growing painful. I managed to stand up, trying not to look weak.
"Stop!" I wheezed.
Suddenly, two figures separated from the crowd of spirits. The ice in my chest intensified, and my vision went black for a few seconds.
"Surprise." Erida hissed menacingly.
The first spirit stepped out from the thick blanket of fog surrounding it. I gasped, almost falling down again in shock.
It was my brother. I nearly passed out.
"Hello, Raven," he whispered. He looked like his old self again, but more serious.
I stuttered incoherently before managing to speak normally. "Zach." I said. It sounded strangled. I staggered towards him, tears streaming down my face. "H-how?"
Zach ignored my question and asked one of his own. "Why didn't you save me?"
"What? Zach you- you… what do you mean?"
His face, usually so happy, twisted in anger. "You could have saved me, Raven. But you stood and watched me die."
I was so confused. Zach had died from pneumonia last winter. We had fallen through the ice on the lake when we were playing ice hockey. He saved me, but he got stuck under the ice for too long and fell sick that night. He died three days later. What could I have done? He seemed to read my mind.
"It was your idea to play on the ice. It's your fault I died." my brother snarled. This wasn't like him. He never got mad at me. Except that one time when I was four and flushed his baseball cards down the toilet.
"I-I'm so sorry, Zach. I thought the ice would hold."I looked at the ground. Maybe his death was my fault.
"Sorry doesn't cut it." Zach told me viciously. "I should have let you drown. I hate you."
I looked at my brother wide-eyed. Tears rolled off my face, dripping onto the ground. "C'mon Zach. This isn't yo-"
I didn't get to finish. At that moment, the second figure revealed itself.
"Tyler." I croaked, my voice thick with tears.
"Miss me?" He asked sarcastically, his evil grin sharp enough to cut. I narrowed my eyes slightly as he continued, Zach watching from his place next to Tyler. "If you had just been faster, I would still be alive today. Why didn't you try?"
"No, no, Tyler, I did! I did try. I tried so hard to save you…" My voice broke twice.
"I thought you loved me." Tyler said brokenly, hatred burning in his beautiful blue eyes. My knees gave out, and I collapsed onto the dead grass below me, sobs racking my body.
"Tyler. I love you so much. I still do." I told him. I could barely see through the tears, but I saw Zach there next to Tyler. "I miss you both every day." I whispered.
"We don't love you." They said together. At that, I felt something snap inside me. I buried my face in my knees and cried, a constant stream of, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" pouring from my mouth.
Zach and Tyler circled me, their malicious words echoing through my mind.
"You're not special."
"You couldn't save us."
"Nobody loves you."
Erida cackled in the background, high-pitched and evil. I had kind of forgotten about her.
"BE GONE!" Someone bellowed. It kinda sounded like my father. At this point, I couldn't care less.
I heard Erida screaming and I vaguely felt Will picking me up off the ground.
My head cleared. I was hyper aware of everything around me. I twisted out of Will's grip, and hit the ground running. I weaved in and out of the souls, who were chattering with annoyance. Tears rolled down my face and I stumbled on a tree root. I fell, scraping my hands and knees.
"Raven!" Nico called. "Come back!" I panicked. They were getting closer. Scrambling onto my feet, I began to run again.
The voices faded far behind me. I flew past a clump of poplar trees, their figures blurred by my speed. It continued to get darker as I ran, the sky above me turning from grey to black. In the back of my mind, I felt sort of stupid, blundering through the woods crying, not knowing where I was going. But at the same time, I couldn't find it in myself to care much.
