Hello all. Hope you had a nice weekend!

Thanks to the Followers and Favoriters from last chapter. MoonLightShadowNight123 and Dogbiscuit1967; thank you for taking the extra time to leave a comment. And don't worry, I will be seeing this story to the end. =)

Grover's POV

The dead aren't scary. They are just... sad.

I shared a look with Penelope and I was almost positive that she had the same thought that I did. She looked depressed, which was a startling difference from her determined expression that she had had before while taking on that OCD waterbed salesman and the snotty ferryman.

We walked through the Fields of Asphodel silently. I glanced at the pavilion that housed the lines for the Fields of Punishment and Elysium. It was difficult to watch the different forms of torture that the Underworld used on their damned guests. There were hell hounds, barbed wire and lots of flames there… I thought I even heard some 'Queen of Night' by Mozart… it was extremely off key and the singer was half a beat behind the piano...

… Yea, I know a bit about music. But at least I know enough to stick with more simple tunes for myself. This lady… oh man. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the spirits were suffering from bleeding ears.

And looking at Elysium didn't exactly make me feel better either.

It was so small… there were so few spirits there.

"That's what it's all about, isn't it," Alexander mumbled as he, PJ and Will gazed at the lush little paradise in the middle of the Underworld, "The place of heroes."

I swallowed with some difficulty, I was still trembling a little. I may not be the bravest of Keepers, but I will always try my very best to hide that fact, "Come… come on guys. We have to keep moving."

We began walking deeper into the Fields of Asphodel. A chill went up my spin and I began to shiver.; I'm pretty sure the others could tell, but they were nice enough not to comment. It suddenly got darker, like the light was just sucked out of the air around us. The colors of our clothes faded and the thick crowd of chattering spirits began to thin out.

But we had to keep moving forward even though we weren't entirely sure which direction we were going.

After a few miles of walking in the dull darkness, I could just make out a glittering black building on the edge of the horizon. It looked beautiful to tell the truth, but my stomach clenched since I knew what the pretty building was… and even worse, it looked like the three Kindly Ones were guarding Hades's palace. They let out ear slitting screeches as they flew in circles over the building.

I tried to chuckle, "Too late to turn back now, huh?"

"We'll be okay. Just stick together and make sure you have your pearl with you," PJ's smile didn't reach her eyes, but I appreciated her attempt.

I tripped as we started walking again, "...geez…" I adjusted the shoes and made sure that they were tight so they would stay on. Ever since one of them popped off on the train, I'd been totally paranoid about people seeing my hooves… though I'm pretty sure spirits wouldn't really be interested in what kind of feet I have.

Alec leaned down and offered a hand, "Come on, goat boy."

I reached up, and just as I was about to grab Alexander's hand… the wings on my shoes sprouted and bumped me backwards about two feet.

"Um… ok. I guess I can get up myself," I chuckled a little and rocked myself forward so that I could stand up again.

I landed flat on my back in the grass.

"Grover?" Alec gave me a look like he was trying to figure out if I was being funny or losing my mind, "Come on, we have a lot of stuff to do and not a lot of time left."

"I know that," I tried to get up again, but this time the sneakers decided to take matters into their own hands… soles?

"Maia!" I yelled as the winged shoes threw me up into the air and spun me around so that I got dizzy. I lost track of which way was up and which was down, "Maia, already! Call the cops; call the fire department. Goat boy stuck in the air! Help!"

I felt someone grab my hand and another person grab the bag on my back. But neither person were able to keep a grip on me and my wildly thrashing body.

"Untie them, Grover. Get those stupid things off!"

I think it was Alexander who screamed at me, but I really couldn't tell with my head being knocked around as I spun.

I tried to pull myself so that I was kind of sitting up, but then the shoes dove down and shot straight up again like they were doing stunts for the Blue Angels or something. I got lightheaded and held my head tightly in an attempt to stop my brain from rattling around.

I could hear Will, Alec and PJ yelling things to me, but I really couldn't make anything out.

The shoes tested out another evasive aerial dive when I got dangerously close to one of the laces. I thought I saw some shiny black gates, they forced me to take a very sharp turn though, and the gate disappeared from view.

"Grover, hold on to something!"

It had gotten darker, if that was even possible. There were damp looking walls closing in around me and there was no more black grass or weird looking trees anymore. And there was nothing to hold on to…

I tried scraping at the ground, but found my fingers sliding through sharp bits of black gravel, "Hold onto what?!"

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and goose pimples covered my arms as I reached for the sting holding me into the crazy self-flying shoes.

"Can't you shoot him with something?"

"You want me to shoot Grover?"

"Well, don't you have like a grappling hook or something?"

"I'm a demigod; not Batman."

"He's moving too erratically anyway."

"Yea, there's no clean shot."

"We can't just watch him go over the edge into the chasm!"

Chasm?!

I looked ahead of me and caught a quick view of a creepy, jagged edge, black-hole looking thing that the shoes appeared to be dragging me directly to. I yelped and tried making my arm longer to reach my hooves. It was probably the weirdest looking thing… a kid, being dragged through the air by winged sneakers, flopping around as he tried desperately to get the shoes off.

I came face to face with the graveled ground again and clawed helplessly trying to find something solid to hold on to.

A hopeless feeling was beginning to creep through my body.

I needed to get out of these damned shoes… or I was going over the edge into the deep, dark, black abyss.

Instead of reaching down for the shoes, I tried pulling up on my legs and trying to tuck my knees against my chest. I guess I confused the shoes a little because one of them got caught on my pants and stopped pulling just long enough for me to push the left sneaker off of my foot.

My fingers then miraculously found some huge rock that I could finally anchor to. I quickly used my freed hoof to kick off the other possessed flying shoe and watched with relief as it shot off without me.

I collapsed onto my back, which is pretty difficult and uncomfortable while on a boulder, and took a few deep breaths before sitting up again.

Will found me first and splashed water on my palms to clean out any remaining gravel and then slathered on a layer of some healing stuff that smelled like honey and Camp.

… man I missed Camp…

Penelope and Alexander slumped onto the ground beside us as Will worked.

"I'm… I don't know how… I swear I didn't…" my breathe apparently couldn't be caught.

PJ's look of concern turned a little scared. Her eyes got very wide, "Shhh, wait… listen."

There was a whisper.

I tried to concentration on the sound, but I couldn't make any words out, just mumbling noise.

"PJ… this is the place from your dream, isn't it?" Alec sounded pretty certain even though it he had asked it as a question.

Penelope stood up, "Shh."

Will met my eyes as he finished treating my hands, "What's that noise?"

The muttering was getting louder, but not any clearer. They still sounded very far away, but now there were more of them and the volume of the mumbling just kept growing.

"It's…" Alexander looked like all the blood had drained from his face. I had never seen him that scared; even when he was younger, "Tartarus… it's the entrance to Tartarus."

Penelope uncapped Anaklusmos.

The eerie bronze glow from her sword threw strange shadows everywhere.

When I glanced at PJ's face, she reminded me a little of her mother; she looked determined even though she was clearly scared.

The voices faltered.

It actually sounded like they gasped or took a step back when Riptide was revealed, but now the weird muffled chanting was back. And now it was louder and seemed to have rounded up a few more participants.

I was just starting to make out words that they were saying when Penelope and Alexander freaked out simultaneously.

"It's… it's magic," PJ whispered urgently.

"We have to get out of here, now," Alec said harshly.

Will and Penelope helped me up while Alexander grabbed my bag.

We ran for it.

My legs still felt like jello, but I forced myself to put on hoof in front of the other as quickly as I could. Will was ahead of me, helping me along. But Penelope seemed to be having some trouble keeping up, like something was weighing her down, "Come on, PJ. You heard brainiac, we have to move."

She huffed, "Yea, yea; I know. Feels like someone put bricks in my backpack though…"

The voices began to call out and even screamed as we reached the end of the tunnel.

Penelope just stepped out of the tunnel when a huge blast of cold air began to pull at our backs. It felt like the pic was taking a big, forceful gulp of air and trying to suck us all into its depths in the process. PJ fell to her knees beside me, and my knees buckled as I tried to not take a step backwards. If we had still been inside next to the void, we would have been inhaled right into Tartarus.

Alec fell back and grabbed Penelope's arm. He and Will dragged us further away from the air until we could clearly see the Fields of Asphodel.

The wind suddenly died.

I swear I heard some screams of outrage and unhappy cursing coming from the tunnel; the voices were growing far away again. But I was still pretty sure that someone… or something was not happy that we had gotten away.

"What was that?" I asked as i gulped in as much air as I could. The four of us had collapsed into heaps on the grass as soon as the sucking wind had stopped. I looked around the field and thought about what could have possibly been trying to meet us, "Do you think it was another one of Hades's pets?"

Alexander and Penelope shared a weird look. Alec looked like he wanted to say something but instead he just shook his head. But the terrified look on his face made my stomach flip over.

Will clapped me on the shoulder, "How's your hands?"

I nodded slowly, still trying to figure out what Alec thought was down in the cavern, "A lot better, thanks."

PJ capped her sword and stashed it back in her pocket, "We need to keep moving." She looked at me and frowned, "Can you walk?"

"Yea," I swallowed with some difficulty and took her and Will's offered hands and pulled myself up, "Yea, sure… I never really liked those sneakers anyway. Never fit right."

I tried to sound casual about it… maybe even a little brave. But I felt my hands trembling as I let go of Will and Penelope's hands. Unfortunately it wasn't just me who was absolutely terrified; Alec, Will and PJ were all shaking too.

I was a little proud of myself though. My silly comment, did get a tiny side smile from Penelope before she turned and started to lead us over to the shiny black gates again.

A shiver went down my spine as I turned my back on the tunnel and followed PJ. The feeling continued over my skin and made the warning bells in my brain go off at threat level red… I realized that I was actually more scared of the unknown thing in the tunnel then the fact that we were about to meet the God of the Dead.

Whatever was down in the dark void was dangerous… powerful… for some reason I knew it was some ancient thing.

There was a small flicker of relief in my chest as we walked away from the tunnel. I was almost thankful to be walking toward the palace of Hades…

… well, ok… not really thankful. But it was definitely going to be better than whatever was down in that tunnel…

...Right?

Thoughts, comments, ideas? Let me know!

But seriously, if you want to hear the worse opera singer of all time, search Florence Jenkins on youtube. It's... interesting.

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Misha

Ps. Check out my other stories: 'The Bookworm and The Prankster,' 'Thrown Back' and 'Begin Again.'