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Chapter sixty-four: The Judges of the Dead
~Penelope's POV~

"Step forward, Penelope Rider."
Her heart beating fast, Pen did as the cold voice said and stepped into the dim light of the chamber beyond the door.
It took a while for her to take in her surroundings, and once she did, she wished she could shut her
eyes and run back the way she'd come.
Smooth stone walls formed the room into an octagonal shape, and there were dim blueish lights
floating near the ceiling, casting a cold and pale glow.
At the far end, Pen could see a raised platform, where three men sat behind a mahogany desk, which looked a little out of place.
The one sitting on the left spoke. His voice was deep and melancholic, and his faded brown hair
seemed to float in a non-existent breeze.
"A little closer, dear." He sounded nice enough, and Penelope walked further into the room until
she came to a stop a few feet in front of the platform.
"No need to be so nice to her" sneered the man in the middle, who had greasy black hair and an
evil face. "She shouldn't be here at all."
Penelope's heart sped up as the creepy guy regarded her. She knew it, she was absolutely sure that
he would send her to the fields of punishment without blinking an eye.
"There, there, Minos. No need to frighten her." The man on the right now spoke up, his
voice the cold one that had called her forward, but still he was less scary than Minos. His hair was
wispy and a blondish white, and his eyes seemed to pierce right through her, as if reading her deepest thoughts and secrets. Which he was, Pen supposed.
Silently, she waited, her heart pumping fast. Not punishment, please not punishment.
"She is already frightened, Aiakos." Minos sneered again, but it was directed at his colleague. After
eyeing Penelope again for a second, Aiakos said "Get the book out then, Minos." and the middle guy held out his hand, as if asking for some change.
Instead, a black book appeared in his hand, so thick Penelope was amazed it didn't squash the guy's

fingers.
"Now, let's see..." Minos said, and opened the book, apparently on the right page for he started reading right away.
Penelope wondered for a second what it said, but Minos started talking again.
"So, you are...a couple months old?" His voice was a cruel laugh, and Pen could feel her face getting red.
"Yes." she said tightly, trying hard not to snap. Being impolite wouldn't help her here, she knew.
"You know her story, Minos." scolded the man on the left, the nice one. He smiled kindly at Pen, and she felt a little better. His eyes twinkled like little stars.
"I know you would send her straight to Elysium, Rhadamanthy." Minos muttered, and Rhadamanthy laughed lightly. "Let's see what the book says, first."
Minos continued reading, and after only a few minutes, he stopped.
"Well, there isn't a lot to know about you, is there" he smiled evily. Penelope really felt like hitting him in his smug face.
"Oh, there's plenty" she said off-handedly, and immediately wished she hadn't.
"Really? What?" Minos wanted to know, shooting a can you believe this girl look at his two companions, though they didn't pay him any attention but kept their gaze fixed on Penelope.
"Well" she said, a little hesitantly. "I know I haven't lived long, but that doesn't mean I have any less
of a personality than other demigods do. I have the same hopes and...feelings." she trailed off. Talking about the short life she'd had was actually pretty painful.
Suddenly, Aiakos threw his hands into the air. "Really, Minos, just have a look at the book. It says here she accepted her role in the prophecy without complaint right away, without even knowing
what it might mean, then she helped her friends sail to Rome, where she gave up her own life to
save the Poseidon child. And shortly after the boy who was in here before saved her, she gave up
her life again to stop that annoying earth goddess from rising. Why, by Zeus, wouldn't you send her straight to Elysium?"
Minos seemed taken aback. Maybe Aiakos normally didn't have outbursts like this.
His voice sounded little smaller when he said "Her fashion sense?"
This made Aiakos sigh in exasperation.
Penelope's mouth twitched. Perhaps she would be let into Elysium after all.
Minos had gathered himself again.
"And anyway, Aiakos, we have to remember that firstly, she isn't even a real soul, so why should
we accept her into the underworld at all? Let Hecate take her, she created her."
But here Rhadamanthy spoke up, and his voice was authoritative. "No, Minos. I will not send this
child away, no matter how strange her birth was. She has proven herself worthy, in my opinion. So unless you have anything else to say-"
"I do, as a matter of fact" Minos interrupted, and Pen couldn't believe the guy. Why was he so intent on making her afterlife miserable?
"Like I said with the boy, the two basically committed suicide. Don't we normally punish that?"
"And as we told you before, Minos, there is a very big difference between suicide and sacrifice!" Aiakos was obviously fed up with the discussion, and gestured to Penelope, who realised that the time to make a decision was drawing nearer. A shiver of fear ran up her spine. She didn't know what to do.
"I will file your application form now" Aiakos was telling her. "No more of this pointless talk. The girl is going to Elysium, and that's it." He directed his piercing eyes at Minos, who nodded reluctantly.
Rhadamanthy smiled at Penelope. "I am the guardian of Elysium, child. You will like it there, I am sure."
"Stop!" Minos suddenly cried, ducking out of the way as Aiakos rounded on him.
"What now?!"
"The girl still has a choice" Minos said, his voice steely. His cold black eyes looked at Penelope.
"You may chose Elysium" Here he glared at his colleagues. "Or you may also chose rebirth."
"Ah, yes, I forgot about that." Aiakos mumbled, stopping his writing.
All three of the judges were looking at Penelope now, waiting for her decision.
Pen's mind was a mess. Elysium? Rebirth? Or the other thing...?
As she tried to think of all the pros and cons of the respective options, an image suddenly floated
into her head, and drove away every argument she tried to make.
There really was only one choice for her, presenting itself in complete clarity.
Penelope raised her eyes and looked at Rhadamanthy, opening her mouth to announce her decision.

***
"I knew it!" Leo's voice was overjoyed as he rushed (drifted?) to Penelope, and gave her a huge hug. Their insubstantial forms grew a bit hazy around the edges as they embraced, but Pen hardly
noticed. Seeing the huge grin on Leo's transparent face made it all worth it.
"I knew it" he repeated again, and Penelope merely smiled. She hadn't know, not clearly at least.
Perhaps, deep down, it had been obvious which choice she would make, but for a second she'd
almost said Elysium. When she'd voiced her request of being sent to the fields of Asphodel, the judges of the dead had looked at her like she'd sprouted pink antlers or something.
"Did they try to make you drink Lethe water as well?" Leo asked, still grinning.
Penelope shook her head. "No, I asked them to let me skip that as a compensation for Elysium."
Leo nodded. "Clever. I should have thought of that. Ah well, pretending to drink it worked just as well I guess."
He held out his hand to her and she took it, shivering slightly as their fingers blended together.
Leo looked down at their hands as well, and Pen saw a flash of uncomfort pass over his elvish face.
"We'll get used to it." she tried to sound hopeful, but their surroundings were making it difficult.
The 'fields' were nothing but acres and acres of dark grey wasteland, the grass beneath their bodies
transformed to dirt by millennia of souls drifting across it. Floating along was weird at first, and Pen
hated the fact that she couldn't move her feet and instead had to lean forward a little to drift slowly, too slowly in one direction.
There were masses of other ghosts around them, but none of them paid Leo or her any attention.
They simply wandered past, whispering in mournful voices, lamenting over lives that were too far away to remember. Penelope started to understand why Minos had been so willing to let her outgo the Lethe water. Being able to recall the feeling of running, the sunlight and the outside was starting to seem almost worse than not remembering.

They didn't speak for a while, and Penelope tried to close her eyes and picture the world above, but no image came to her mind. The sad landscape was all she could see.
"You okay?" Leo asked at some point, and Pen nodded, glad he was there.
"It's just, I feel like I've already forgotten the outside, you know?"
Leo frowned. "Mhm, I think I can still remember. Maybe we should keep talking. We don't want our memories to end up like our bodies." He gestured to his formless lower half, grimacing and Pen laughed at the expression, even though the words weren't funny at all.
"You're right" she said.
But somehow keeping up a conversation was much more difficult down here. After only a short time they both fell silent again, continuing to drift who knew where.
Penelope was starting to feel empty. There was simply nothing around her, just the whispering of millions of dead souls. Horrible thoughts slunk into her mind.
What if the peri's prediction didn't come true?
What if they were trapped here, forever?