Nico slowly opened his eyes. He did not know where he was. He felt very weird - like a ghost, but not completely. He laid a finger on his wrist - oh, good, his heart was still beating. The room was a blur, but slowly Nico started to see better. When he had a clear view of the ceiling, he tried to sit up straight. The ceiling was weird. It was clearly a roof made of solid stone, but the colours seemed to shift, like a hurricane seen from above, but saphire blue.

Actually, the entire room was sapphire blue. On the right laid a few gravestones, but they were shaped like really extravagant thrones for some reason. One on the left seemed newer than the others. Another one on the right had cracks and vines growing through it from oldness. Nico shook his head. 'It really happened now,' he muttered. 'Someone threw some hallucinating stuff through my drink.' He sighed, but stopped halfway through when he felt a creepily cold hand on his shoulder. 'Wait, you are neither a God not dead. What're you doing here?' He heard someone ask.

Will looked at the comatose body of his boyfriend. 'Come on, Neeks, wake up,' he thought. Nico had been in coma since that afternoon, when his sparring partner knocked him out. He had accidently shadow-travelled away - luckily not far, but to a small shrub at the border of the forest. Yet, he had been in a coma, from which he had not awoken yet - even though it was already 2 A.M.

Will took a small sip of water. He was sitting by Nico's bed, to make sure everything was alright. Nico had not moved yet, but Will felt somewhere in his heart that Nico would not take long to go over to normal sleep (which was impossible for humans, but demigods, at least Demigods of Hades, Hypnos and Morpheus had the ability to slip from coma into sleep).

Nico, meanwhile, turned around. He immediately looked away again. The hand on his shoulder belonged to a ghost, but his eyes were different from the eyes of any other ghost he had ever met. They were bright, like little suns, and pretty much impossible to look into. 'Who are you?' Nico asked. He could not see it, but the ghost raised his eyebrows.

'I can better ask you that. You are disturbing a god in his peace!' Nico turned around again, with a hand in front of his eyes. He heard a sigh. He felt how a pair of sunglasses were pushed into his hands.

'Thanks,' Nico muttered as he put them on. 'I have no idea where I am. I believe I was sparring with someone, but then I disappeared and woke up here,' he said. He heard a small gasp from the small graveyard. He turned his head, and saw another ghost - but then one that slightly looked like him. 'Oh, are you also a son of Hades?' Nico asked. The man/boy (his age was hard to pin down) nodded slowly. 'Ye-yeah. I-I was a G-god.' The guy with bright pupils rolled his eyes.

'Yeah, Yeah. We all were, Zagreus. That's why we are here.'

'Come on, little brother. You know how nervous he is.' Helios rolled his eyes.

'One would think you would get less nervous if you have been dead for five thousand years.' Someone else in the graveyard scoffed. 'I would appreciate it if you would not talk about my blood like that.' The godly ghost opened his mouth to say something back, but Nico was first: 'Wait, Zágreus? As in, the god of dead that managed to merge with Dionysus or something? Who is also my brother?'

For an answer, he got a deep sigh. 'Yes, genius, that one,' the person who had defended Zagreus mentioned. 'Although out souls split up again when I died as well.'

'And you got replaced by some mild lamo.'

'As if Apollo is so great, Helios.'

Nico blinked a few times. He wondered if he fully understood what was going on (probably not, but whatever). 'So...

let me get this as straight as I can. I am now in the place where the souls of... faded gods reside.'

'Exactly,' a deep feminine voice boomed. Nico turned his head. A fierce woman was standing in a corner. She was wearing full battle armour. 'I did not know Athena was reborn once,' he muttered. The woman threw her head in her neck and laughed.

'Athena? The woman would wish. No, no, I was Aphrodite - before that ditz took my place.' Nico stared at her. Aphrodite in battle armour? Well, apparently. He heard a deep sigh from the other sigh of the room. The ghost of Zagreus and the other god (who Nico assumed was a really old form of Dionysus) came closer. 'You think your powers were inherited by some ditzy person?' She sighed.

'Alright, alright, the current Dionysus is also not exactly the best.' Yet another voice came from the small graveyard.

'Come, come, it isn't so bad.'

'You have been dead for six thousand years. You probably forgot what the earth was like,' Not-Aphrodite answered. The god shook his head. 'No. I just think mine and his' - he pointed at not-Zagreus - 'sequel was better than you all might think.' His... brother or whatever, rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something back, but this time what Nico assumed was Selene was quicker.

'You three should be glad that at least your name stayed the same. Me and my brother just got thrown out of the pantheon one day, with the message that those little kids suddenly had our jobs!' She said. She sounded a little bitter.

Nico shook his head. This was a lot to take in. 'Alright, I believe I am going crazy.'

'You're not, though.'

'If Dionysus really got reborn without your soul, I wonder if you still have power over madness. Can you all just... slowly explain who you are?' He asked. Helios rolled his eyes.

'I am Helios and I used to be the sun titan, before the romans threw me out and crowned Apollo 'lord of the sun,'' he said. Selene grabbed Nico's hands and pulled him up. 'I'm Selene. I was the moon before Artemis took over.' Nico nodded slowly. The warrior woman laid her hand on Selene's shoulder. 'The name's Aphrodite Areia. I'm from Sparta, where they saw me as the war goddess that I am until one day your ditzy girl took over.'

'How did that happen? I mean, did you just fade because people did not like that you were a war goddess? Why didn't you just slam down on them?' She shrugged.

'Hades knows.'

'He probably doesn't.' Aphrodite 1.0 looked like she wanted to throw her spear through his body right then and there, but she did not move.

'We don't really work with epithets, but technically we all used to be Dionysus. He during the mycenaean times of Greece and we' - he pointed at Zagreus - 'during the glory days of Orphism. Also, me and Zagry got reborn in the same body in some ridiculous way and when we died we split up again. Don't think about for too long, please.' Selene shuddered.

'The glory days of Orphism? For you, maybe. I think it was a nightmare.' She raised her eyebrow. 'That's not completely separated from you, obviously.' Better Version Of Dionysus scoffed.

Lastly, someone jumped out from behind the oldest throne. 'I haven't shown myself before, but I am...'

'Pan,' Nico answered before he could, 'The god of the wild.' Nico smiled. 'Grover is doing his best to let the wild grow back. I do not know how calm music helps plants, but I assume it is what you would have done.' That comment was met with laughter from the Dionysus people ghost (whatever things or what).

'Cálm music?' He slapped Pan on his shoulder. 'This guys heir is cálm? Man, and I thought we had it bad!' Nico blinked. 'What?'

The Orphic ghost stared at him. 'You want to say this guy has been acting like a paragon of calmness for the centuries that we've been dead?' He asked. He sounded like he would not believe that in no way, ever.

'We'll, I do not know what you two did to him, but...'

'Not really,' Pan answered. He laughed. 'That was more to keep my energy in the last years. When the wilderness was still thriving, I acted more like these two know me.' He gestured at the Dionysus-clique.

I-will-kill-you-Aphrodite scraped her throat. 'More like we all know you, Pan.' Pan shrugged. Helios rolled his eyes and sighed. 'Say, shouldn't we try to find a way to get this kid back?' Nico sighed, too.

'I wanted to just try to shadow travel away and see what happens, or else do the cliché movie thing in which someone knocks me out and Oppa! I am back.' Not-so-ditzy-Aphrodite narrowed her eyes.

'What's a movie?'

'It's a story but with moving pictures. Like theatre, but not played in the moment,' Pan answered. The entire room did oh-like-that gasp. Nico gave looked around the room.

'Wait, Helios had sunglasses though. How come that he had those but none of you know what a movie is?' He asked. Selene shook her head, but Zagreus answered: 'some-sometimes things appear he-here. W-we d-don't know how-w.' Nico nodded slowly. The wildest madness god currently dead patted his shoulder. 'It's alright, just calm down,' he whispered in his ear. Zagreus nodded. Nico looked at it. He wondered if there was not still a little bit of their soul merged.

'Alright, I'll just leave now,' he muttered to no one in particular. He tried to find a proper shadow, but felt a very cold hand on his shoulder. He looked around, and saw his stuttering brother staring at him. His eyes seemed way to big to be real.

'P-please st-stay safe.' Nico raised an eyebrow.

'Thanks, I guess.' Zagreus shuffled away, back into his literal soulmates arms. Nico looked around the room one more time. Dead, faded away gods. He truly did not know what to think of it. They did not seem sad, or hurt, but they did not seem completely happy either. He turned his head away, and stepped into the shadows.

Will let out a sigh of relief when he saw that his boyfriend slowly wiggled his fingers. Slowly, Nico opened his eyes. 'Neeks!' Will whispered. 'You were in a coma!'

'I did not think you could wake up that quickly from a coma.'

'It's because you are a Hades kid.' Nico touched his head, which hurt.

'Ouch! What happened?'

'You got knocked out by your sparring partner and went into a coma. It was dark for a few hours.'

'It wasn't dark, Will.' Wills' eyes grew.

'What?'

'I... I saw… Ow.' he sighed. 'Can I tell it tomorrow?' He yawned. Will smiled and nodded.

'Of course, Nico,' he said while he hugged his boyfriend. 'Of course. Wh' - He yawned softly - 'Why nott?'

'Thanks, Zagreus.'