Piper POV
I opened my eyes, confused and for some reason wet. It gradually began to come back to me. Jason had proposed to me with the most stunning ring. It was both the happiest and worst moments of my life. One moment, I was ready to bind my love with Jason per mantle and build a future. The next thing I knew, a huge, threatening wave was swallowing us up in as we embraced our last moments of life. The scenes still flashed vividly in front of my eyes as I struggled to sit up on the rocky ground.
Foaming water swirling around me, Jason's peaceful body wrapped around mine. Hand in hand with him, I screamed until my lungs refused to work and I was fully submerged. I had to be dead. I remembered the screams, and the way the ocean seemed to swallow me.
But if I was dead, then where was I? I took a look around. This had to be the entrance to the Underworld. It was dark, musty, and I saw silent silhouettes in the distance, walking towards a grimy riverside bank.
"The River Styx," I breathed out loud, astonished. I really was dead. I stood up and turned to my side. Frowning, I looked around me. Where was Jason? He died right next to me, so why wasn't he here? Just then, a huge three-headed labrador materialized from the murky shadows and let out a loud growl at me. I fell backward, passing out from fright and despair.
Jason's POV
I woke up on the slick tops of rocks and heard the rushing and gurgling of a river next to me. It was unlike any place I had been before. The air seemed to have a reddish tint to it and smelled horrid; the water just as putrid. As I tried to stand, my head spun and I almost threw up. I sat back down, shocked, and slowly drifted off into a sleep plagued with nightmares of swirling waves and distant screams.
When I woke up, darkness had fallen. But in the distance, on my side of the river, I saw lights. I decided to head towards it.
It took me a good 2 hours to get there. Every so often, I would have to sit down so I didn't pass out from the effort. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of Piper. I knew in my gut that she was in the same place as me, only I didn't know what "place" I was in. In fact, the only thing I knew was Piper. I had no clue how I got here, what I was doing before, or even what day it was.
As I started to contemplate it, the memories came back to me. I had proposed- it was the day I'd been planning for months. We were on the shore, it was midnight. But then something had happened. My face strained from the effort to remember. Picturing the moment in my head, I saw a large wave coming up behind Piper.
"A tsunami," I whispered. That was what had happened. I'd drowned, engulfed by the vicious waves. Piper had been in my arms. I even remembered her last words.
"Jase, I love you," she had said. Her sweet smile, the sadness and worry in her rainbow irises. Every bit of that moment. I replied, "Me too". But, if we had drowned, then why was I alive, and where was Piper?
The realization dawned on me. This wasn't Earth, this was the Underworld. I was, in fact, dead, and the river next to me was the River Styx. Yet that didn't answer the most important question- where was Piper?