Happy Tuesday everybody! I hope you're all excited to see some more of Peter and Sabrina. If you have a minute in your day, please don't hesitate to leave a review. You can tell me anything: what you like most about the story so far, what aspects you think could use some more work, etc etc. If you're an experienced roleplayer (and over 18) and would like to see in real-time where Alex is now, shoot me a DM and we can talk about adding you to the Discord.

See ya next Tuesday,

Rally

X

"Please help me."

Alex forced his eyelids open.

Directly in front of him was a field of dead grey trees. They sat on a ground of charred grass and black dirt. Just looking at it for too long filled him with a sense of dread. He tried to move his head, but it felt glued in place. The only thing he could move was his eyes, and even that was met with resistance.

He caught sight of something moving in the distance. It was too far away for him to be able to truly tell what it was.

Then, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Something blurry passed in front of him. Then another, and another. Soon, an entire mass of the same blurry figures were passing right in front of him. As far as he could tell, they looked to be humanoid in shape.

"Wait," He tried to say. All that came out was a whimper. "Who are you?"

One of the figures stopped directly in front of him. He could tell that it was a man, but any unique features he might have had were replaced with translucent skin and sunken eyes. He had no mouth, only a thin line that sat in its place.

The man rushed into Alex, and he felt a cold chill run down his spine. He thought that he heard a faint voice saying, "help me," over and over again before his vision went black.

"Wake up."

Alex's eyes flew open. The first thing he saw was the familiar wooden roof of his cabin. That was enough to calm his racing heartbeat. It was only a dream, he thought with relief.

He sat up in his bed and glanced around his cabin like he did every morning. He was still alone. The odds of another child of Erebus joining him felt slim to none. According to Sabrina, Erebus had a job to do in the Underworld. He was the veil that souls passed through immediately after dying.

"So what happens if you die in the Underworld?" Alex asked her.

"I guess you have to pay Erebus-the-place a visit before moving onto wherever you're destined for," she responded.

Alex thought that seemed silly, but he wasn't the one in charge. It was also strange that his father could be both a being and a place.

He was quick to wash up and get out the door. His stomach ached from hunger, likely because he'd fallen asleep right after his shower. He had no idea how long he'd slept for, but the faux sun was shining brightly above the camp.

What he wasn't expecting to find at the bottom of his steps was a sandy-haired boy who looked like he hadn't slept in days. He had dark circles underneath his chestnut-colored eyes that stood proudly against his pale skin.

"Peter?" Alex stopped mid-step.

"Hi." Peter stood. "Your dream woke me up."

Alex gave him an incredulous look. "What? What dream?"

"Alex, don't play dumb with me. You and I both know what I'm talking about. You need to tell Edmund."

"First of all, you don't get to disappear for weeks then randomly show up and give me orders. I tried talking to you multiple times."

Peter frowned. "You never knocked on the door."

Alex threw his hands up in frustration. "Every time I tried your cabin tried to put me to sleep!"

They stared at each other in awkward silence. A minute passed before Peter's face began to change; his lips pulled back into a grin, his eyes lit up, and soon he was doubled over in laughter.

Alex stared at him incredulously. He couldn't tell if Peter was laughing at him or laughing with him. He wasn't going to find out anytime soon, especially not with the attention that he was attracting.

Thankfully, one of the campers that noticed them first was Sabrina. Alex saw her walk over rather briskly from the Hecate cabin.

"Is everything okay?" She asked slowly. She raised an eyebrow at Peter, who had tears streaming down his face.

Alex stepped around Peter to stand next to Sabrina. "I don't know what's happening. I told him about what his cabin was doing to me and he just started laughing like a lunatic."

"It looks like he hasn't slept in days, the poor thing," cooed Sabrina.

Alex was taken aback. She was supposed to be on his side, why was she taking pity on Peter?

Peter was starting to calm down, thank gods. He took a few heaving breaths and held up his finger to indicate that he wanted to say something.

"I have been sleeping, it's just people with dreams like his," he looked pointedly at Alex, "plague my mind."

"Hey!" Alex "Those are private. And they're none of your business."

Sabrina looked between the two with a frown. "Dreams? What dreams? Alex, you haven't told me you've been having bad dreams."

Before Alex could reply, Peter did it for him. "Yeah, he's been dreaming about this dead guy almost every night. First it was his death and now it's him in the Asphodel fields. I think something's wrong, though. Otherwise he wouldn't keep getting them."

"I haven't had that dream every night." Alex argued.

"You're welcome, princess. A thank you will suffice," Peter said.

"Woah, hold on now." Sabrina held up her hands. "These sound more like visions than just dreams. Maybe we should tell Edmund?"

"No!" Alex shouted. He could feel a bubble of helplessness and rage building inside of him. The feeling wasn't quite as strong as when he was bullied at St. Bayard's. "Nobody is telling Edmund anything. It's just a dream. Besides, I don't even know what the Asphalt Fields are."

Sabrina and Peter shared a look that Alex didn't quite understand.

"Okay, that's fine, Alex. But I don't want you suffering like this. What if we looked into it ourselves? The fields of Asphodel aren't far from the camp."

"Are you crazy?" Peter hissed.

Sabrina rolled her eyes. "I'm a child of Hecate and he's the child of a literal Primordial. And you can just put the monsters to sleep, right? We'll be fine."

Alex narrowed his eyes. "I thought you said that everything outside of the border wanted to kill us?"

"Not if we're faster than them. Come on, guys. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I left it in dreamland. Count me out." Peter stood up.

"I'm not doing it if Peter doesn't go." Alex said. He rather liked the idea of Peter putting the monsters to sleep.

"Then you're both chickens. I'll go alone if I have to." With that, Sabrina stalked off in the opposite direction of Hades' palace.

Alex looked at Peter. "I don't want her to get hurt," he mumbled.

"You're asking me to risk my life over something that could easily be solved just by talking to Edmund."

"Three is safer than one, right? What's the worst that could happen?"

Peter sighed. "Alright, fine. But we're coming straight back here at the first sign of danger."

Alex couldn't help but grin. "Sabrina, wait up!" He called.

Along the way, they passed the Arena and the armory. There was a lot of noise coming from the arena and Alex could hear the sound of swords clashing. Next, they passed a climbing wall covered in flowing lava. He wondered aloud what the purpose of the lava was.

"It's part of the camp games." Peter answered.

"There are games here?" Alex frowned, having never heard of them in the entire two weeks he'd been at camp.

"Well... There used to be. Too many people died and some gods/goddesses got mad that their only children were being killed off for a stupid reason." Sabrina said.

The three of them stopped at the camp border. Alex couldn't see it personally, but he could feel the energy radiating off of it. They were farther in camp than Alex had ever gone before.

"Okay, all I have to do is disable this location long enough for us to get through and back without being noticed." Sabrina said.

"What happens if we get noticed?" Alex asked.

Sabrina's eyes widened. "Edmund gets mad. You don't want to make Edmund mad."

Sabrina held up her hands and closed her eyes. She pushed against the invisible wall in front of them. "Through this border, let us pass," she chanted over and over. A faint blue glow emanated from her palms as she did so.

Alex snuck a glance at Peter. He looked even more exhausted than before, and Alex noticed that he was noticeably smaller than the baggy clothes he was wearing. Peter caught him staring and raised his eyebrows at him.

Alex felt his cheeks flush in and cast his eyes to the ground.

"I've got it! Come on guys, we don't have much time." Sabrina waved them through her makeshift hole in the border.

The first thing Alex noticed about this side of the Underworld was that it was noticeably darker. He turned to look at the camp but saw only Hades' palace standing dark and tall, its silhouette framed by the fire that sat on the stone. He saw something shimmering, and realized it was the light from Hecate's sun in the camp. It could barely be seen through the hole Sabrina made.

"I don't know how long this spell is going to last, so let's get a move-on." Sabrina said. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a gold pocket watch. She clicked the top of it and it transformed into a large golden shield with an intricate pattern of swirls throughout. From the backside of it she produced a sword, which she handed over to Alex.

"This is Egeking. He means a lot to me, so don't lose him. Keep your eyes sharp, boys."

Alex followed closely behind Sabrina, holding Egeking with his left hand.

They may have lived in the Underworld, but their safe haven of a camp was nothing compared to what it was really like. The ground randomly opened up into fiery pits, swallowing the stone, dirt, and whatever else it could find, before collapsing in on itself. Alex could hear screams in the distance; probably the sounds of people being tortured.

He didn't see any monsters or three-headed dogs. Instead, he watched overhead as items such as necklaces, rings, and other jewelry floated in the direction of camp.

"Hades likes to collect gems. He can make them himself, but he takes them from the dead as they pass through Erebus." Peter said grimly.

In the distance, Alex saw a familiar sight. The grey trees and scorched earth from his dream were coming into focus. Along with that came those same blurry figures. He was once again filled with a sense of dread. "This is it," he whispered.

"We just need to find that guy, talk to him, and get out of here. Hopefully we're not too late," said Sabrina.

"What do you mean too late?" Alex asked.

"The longer a soul spends in the fields, the more they lose their sense of self. They forget who they are, what their lives were before they died, everything. They just wander aimlessly until their souls just disappear into nothing." Sabrina made sure to hold up her shield as they got closer. "We can't stay here for long."

"Alex, you'll be able to sense him before you see him." Peter said.

Alex didn't want to move any closer to that field than he had to. He was about to turn around and tell them to just go home when he felt something tugging him forward. It wasn't a physical sensation, more of a desire.

A desire which kept getting stronger until he was no longer able to ignore it. He stepped forward until he felt the charred grass crunch beneath his feet. Where once the figures appeared in the distance, they now completely surrounded him. He couldn't quite figure out why that should have worried him.

He looked at each figure as they passed, trying to recognize the man from his dreams. Most of them were beyond recognition; their skin was translucent, their clothes unremarkable, and their faces weirdly smooth and without expression.

He heard someone calling from the distance. They were too far away for him to clearly understand what they were saying. Axe, maybe? He looked in his left hand and found a sword. He wondered how that got there.

"Help me!" A voice reverberated through his skull. He spun around and came face-to-face with the man from his dreams. His face was unrecognizable, but Alex could feel a connection between them.

"It's you," he said.

"I don't belong here." The man's echoing voice said. "I don't belong here. You have to help me. I can't remember who I am anymore. I don't want to be like them. Please, help me!"

Alex reached out to grab the man but found himself grabbing air instead. What was he reaching for?

He noticed people all around him moving very quickly. They didn't travel forward or backward, they simply traveled. He thought that sounded like a good idea. So, he began to walk with them.

"Alex!" Another voice said in his head. This time, it was normal, and not at all echoey. "Alex, you have to get out of there. Where are you? Hold up your sword."

Alex frowned. Who was Alex? He looked down at the sword in his hand and wondered how that got there. Well, he might as well do what the disembodied voice said. He held up the sword as high as he could while walking along in the crowd.

Suddenly, he felt himself being thrown backwards with extreme force. Egeking clattered out of his hand as he landed on hard ground. He nearly smacked his head on a nearby rock.

"You're an idiot!" Peter hissed. He knelt down beside Alex and checked him over for any injuries. "We almost lost you, Alex. What the Hades were you thinking?"

Alex looked up at the boy's familiar face. He felt his sense of self beginning to return. "I'm sorry… I don't know what came over me."

"Did you find out who that guy was?" Sabrina picked up Egeking and wiped the dust from the blade on her pants.

"No," he sighed. He pushed himself up to a sitting position with the help of Peter. "He just kept saying that he didn't belong there. He said that he didn't want to be like 'them.'"

"I've never heard of anyone in the fields having any sort of sentience like that," mused Sabrina.

"We can talk about this later." Peter stood up and pulled Alex to his feet. "Right now, we need to get back to camp."

Sabrina sighed. "We just left. Elysium is right next door, why don't we go pay them a visit? I'm sure Alex needs to have some good memories of the Underworld so he isn't traumatized for life."

"No, that wasn't part of the plan," Peter snapped.

"What's Elysium?"

Sabrina grinned. "We'll show you." She threw a pointed look at Peter. She held up her palm and threw blue sparks into the air. The sparks hung for a moment, then began flying off to their right. She gave chase after them.

"Magic attracts monsters!" Peter shouted.

"Don't be such a stick in the mud." Alex nudged him then began running after Sabrina.

They followed the sparks for a good distance. They almost lost sight of them once, but the sparks stayed in place until the group caught up to them. They finally stopped in front of the most beautiful thing Alex had ever seen in the Underworld. The sparks disappeared as the group caught their breath.

They were standing in front of a vast area with luscious green grass, bright blooming flowers, crystal clear water, and trees taller than they'd ever seen. Alex was too busy taking in its beauty to realize that there were people on the other side watching them. Not just people, gorgeous beings with huge muscles and glowing skin.

"My gods," a tall woman wearing a flowing white dress said. Her voice was ethereal. "How long has it been since we've seen a child of a primordial? Come in, child, come in."

Alex didn't realize that she was talking to him until Sabrina pushed him over the border. He was hit with a wave of cool, fresh air that smelled like fresh grass and springtime. He looked up at the woman and gave her a sheepish wave.

"Enjoy your stay, son of Erebus. Perhaps you will find it in yourself to come back someday. We would love to have you around." The woman gently touched his cheek before sauntering away.

His skin felt warm where she touched it. He felt himself grinning from ear to ear.

"I'm parched," Sabrina said. She reduced the sword and shield down to pocket watch size. She walked over to the water and took a long drink right from the source.

Peter followed behind her, and so did Alex. He could feel eyes staring at him, and could almost catch whispers about his father. He pushed it to the back of his mind and sat next to Sabrina at the water's edge.

"Here," she handed him a large leaf filled with the water. He took it and gulped it down gratefully. It was the best tasting water that he'd ever had. She handed Peter a leaf and he did the same.

A large man wearing a similar white garb to the woman who greeted them walked over carrying a basket of fruit. "You demigods look like you're hungry. Might I offer you nectarines?" His voice was deep and low. Alex thought that he could smell a faint aroma of saltwater and fish coming off of him.

His stomach growled. Without hesitation, he took two nectarines from the basket and began to devour them.

Sabrina and Peter were a little more cautious, but they took one nonetheless. "Thank you, Lycus," Sabrina said with familiarity. Alex wondered if she'd come here more than once.

The three of them sat quietly by the water's edge. Alex stared at his reflection. His hair was a disheveled mess and he had dirt caked on his face. Normally he would mind that he was surrounded by people and he didn't look his best. It didn't really matter anymore, he was relaxing in what was basically heaven.

It was Peter who broke the silence. "I can't hear anybody's dreams here."

Alex looked over at the boy's weary face. He wasn't sure what to say, so he said nothing.

"I don't know how to block it out. Every day, every night, I see images of peoples dreams, I hear their dreams. I don't remember the last time I had a dream of my own." He closed his eyes and sighed.

"I might have a potion that could help you sleep for at least one night," Sabrina offered.

"That isn't a cure. Until I can learn to control my abilities, I'll just be a burden on everyone I meet."

Alex placed his hand gently on Peter's. "You're not a burden, Peter."

Peter looked at him with an insurmountable pain in his eyes. "You don't even know me. You don't know what I've done."

"What happened in the past doesn't matter anymore. We're demigods, who live in the Underworld. Our future isn't certain, but that's what makes it worth living for." Alex offered him his best comforting smile.

"How can my life be worth living if I've taken that away from other people?" Peter sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

"Elysium wouldn't have let you in if you weren't worthy." Sabrina said quietly.

Peter said nothing. Alex said nothing. Sabrina said nothing.

They sat in each other's company, basking in the fresh air of Elysium.

For once in his life, Alex felt at peace.