Are you still with me? Are you not too angry with me to continue? Great!
I realize I forgot something last chapter: I DO NOT OWN THE PERCY JACKSON SERIES!
Alex
The Underworld is a strange place.
I woke up with a gasp on the floor of some office building. It must have been midnight, since the outside world was incredibly dark, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece.
Music that sounded like it belonged in an elevator played softly on speakers I couldn't see. The carpet and walls were the same shade of gray as an elephant. Cactuses grew in the corner like the hands of a zombie. The furniture was dark leather, and every seat was taken. There were people standing up as well. Most of them stared out the window or waited for an elevator that looked like it was never coming. Other than that, nobody did much of anything.
In my peripheral vision, I could see all of them clear as day, but if I looked at anyone directly, they began looking transparent. I could see right through their bodies. It was like a bad horror movie.
I looked down at my own body with a start. I was wearing my normal outfit: a black hoodie with white highlights, a gray t-shirt and blue jeans, but if I looked really closely, I could see right through my own body.
I swallowed. Was I—
"Oh, here's another one," a man said. It was hard to make out his features, because he was so transparent, but if I had to guess, I would say he was elderly, and was very grumpy. He certainly didn't sound happy.
"Where am I?" I asked.
The man scoffed. "Don't you know? You're dead. This is the gate to the underworld. That guy over there'll take you...if you have the coin."
I looked around me and gulped. The last thing that I remembered...the last thing that I remembered was looking up at Liam with an arrow sticking out of my chest.
Oh my gods. I was dead.
That must mean that this was...
The security guard's desk was lifted a couple feet off the ground, so I had to crane my neck to see him.
He was tall and elegant, with russet skin and bleached-blonde hair shaved down to his scalp. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.
I read the name tag, then looked up at him in confusion. He certainly didn't look like Chiron. "Your name is Chir—" I caught myself. "Charon?"
He leaned across the desk, grinning. His sunglasses were so dark that I could only see his reflection, but his smile was cold and unforgiving. It reminded me of Phoebe, my great-grandmother, and I shivered. Still, the man seemed pleased that I had gotten his name right.
"Finally!" he exclaimed in a British accent. "Someone who knows how to read!" He sat back in his seat. "Well done. But it's Mister Charon."
I grit my teeth. What was with gods and being addressed as sir or mister? As if they didn't receive enough respect already...
"Mr. Charon," I said, trying to sound pleasant.
"Great," he said, crossing his arms. "How may I help you, little dead one?"
His question caught in my stomach like a dodgeball thrown by Clarisse. I gasped for air, and then realized that I didn't need any. Because I was dead.
"Alright, let me help you." He yawned. "How did you die? You look like an interesting sort."
"I...I think someone shot me. With an arrow."
Charon raised an eyebrow. "Haven't had one of those in a while. You a demigod, I take it? Or just exploring in the native regions?"
"Demigod."
"Who's your parent?"
He seemed to ask a lot of questions. I hesitated. People knowing who I was hardly ever turned out to be a good thing. But I guess it didn't matter anymore. "My mother is Artemis."
Charon's jaw dropped. "You're the lass that caused that giant ruckus two years ago?"
I nodded.
Charon took out a mug of coffee and took a deep sip. "I'm surprised you haven't started begging me yet."
I cocked my head, confused. "B-begging?"
"Oh, you know, 'Oh, Mr. Charon, there must be some mistake,' or 'I don't have any drachma' or—"
"I have drachma."
He raised an eyebrow. "You do? Now that's a different story, lass. How much do you have?"
I had ten, but I placed one on the counter. I always carried drachma with me, just in case I reached a situation that I had to bargain my way out of. Like this one.
Charon sighed, but I could sense his interest in the drachma. "Is that it? I suppose I can take you. Take a seat, lass. The boat to the Underworld departs in a century or two."
He reached for the coin, but I casually swept it back into my hand before he could grab it.
"I want to go now," I insisted. I may have been dead, but nobody was going to push me around like that. Normally, I would have been more careful around a god or whatever Charon was, but I was already dead. What could he possibly do to me?
I quickly reconsidered that sentiment as the shadows surrounding Charon began to lengthen, becoming darker and more sinister as his smile stiffened. He began to growl, sounding like a hellhound would. It made my hair stand on end.
I tried to muster up a casual air, like his growling didn't make my blood curdle. "You look under appreciated," I told Charon, reaching into my coat pocket and casually jingling the coins I had there. "How old is that suit? A decade old? I bet I could make a quick trip worth your while."
Faster than I could blink, his growl transformed into a soft purr. "Really?" The shadows behind him retreated back to normal.
"Of course," I agreed, stacking drachma on the table like they were nothing but potato chips. Really, really important potato chips. "I bet Hades has forgotten you're out here. Imagine how nice a suit you could buy with this." I stacked the tenth drachma on the counter.
Charon licked his lips like he was about to eat the world's tastiest brownie. "You've got yourself a deal."
He rummaged around his desk and handed me a green card. When I read the golden inscription on the side, it said something like, ONE TRIP TO THE UNDERWORLD! in Greek. Underneath it was the image of a boat with a smily face on the side of it. It was probably meant to cheer up dead souls, but somehow it only ended up creeping me out more.
He stood and scooped the drachmas into his hand. They disappeared into his suit's pocket. "Right this way."
He pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who clutched at my jacket like I was some kind of celebrity passing through. They were whispering strange things.
"Daughter of Artemis!" one of them said.
"She killed Phoebe!" another gasped.
"This is just the beginning of your suffering," a third, raspy voice whispered.
I spun, trying to find the last speaker, but in the crowd of spirits, it was impossible to tell who had said that. Unnerved, I followed Charon to the elevator, which was crowded with other spirits, many of them a lot older than I was. Each of them had a green boarding pass like me.
"Nobody get any ideas," Charon announced to the room, pushing off two freeloaders in the same breath. "If I find out that someone spiked my coffee again, I will personally drag you to the Fields of Punishment. Understand?"
The doors shut with a cheerier ding than I expected from the entrance to the Underworld. Charon swiped a security card, and then the elevator was descending shakily. If I had still been alive, it would have been enough to give me a heart attack.
Suddenly the air became dirtier, with dust particles floating around aimlessly. For once, I was actually thankful that I wasn't breathing. Charon wrinkled his nose in disgust at whatever he was smelling. Around me, the other spirits's modern clothes changed to depressing gray robes. When I looked down at myself, I found that my own had not changed. Strange.
Charon's wardrobe had changed as well. Instead of a nice, Italian suit, he wore a dark robe that seemed to radiate death and darkness. His sunglasses were gone, and I looked away before I could see whatever evil was in his eyes. I had learned the hard way that looking into an immortal being's eyes was a good way to creep yourself out. His skin had become transparent, allowing me to see straight to his skull. I didn't even know if gods had skulls.
I suddenly got dizzy, and I realized it was because the direction had changed. In fact, everything had changed. I rubbed my eyes and blinked hard.
The elevator was no longer an elevator. It was an old-fashioned barge, with an oar that Charon was pushing back and forth over either side. We were going forward, propelled through the strangest river I had ever seen. It wasn't really a river; it was more of a flowing garbage heap. Charon's oar batted away a golden pocket watch, which shot away and bounced off a silver trophy. All around us, random things floated around.
If I needed to anymore, I would have gulped. We were floating across the River Styx—the same river that many people swore upon. An oath upon the Styx was binding, with horrible punishments for those who broke it. Unless you were a god, in which case your kid usually got punished. Or, in my case, was the punishment.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I didn't like to think about that.
"Polluted, isn't it?" Charon said, misinterpreting my head movement. "For millennia, humans have been tossing everything you can in the Styx. Hopes, dreams, etcetera. Absolutely terrible."
I stared at the distant shore, which was slowly getting closer. It glowed with a sickly green light. Overhead, stalactites dripped water down, landing in the barge with large splashes that went right through my body. Weird.
I tried not to panic as the shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Black sand and sharp-looking rocks stretched about three hundred feet inland, ending at the base of a dark stone wall. It was like the ultimate fence, and if I had to guess, I would say that it wrapped all the way around the Underworld. In the distance, a dog howled. It made a hellhound's growl seem like the voice of a singer.
Everything was happening too quickly. One minute I was alive and fending off a small army of monsters, and the next I'm cruising into the Underworld. It was so different from the world I was used to. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the couch in my house, but I knew that was no longer an option.
The boat slid onto the black sand with a hiss similar to a snake's. I climbed out with the rest of the dead, trying not to pay attention to the green light that reminded me of poison. I walked past a little girl holding a ghostly teddy bear. Beside her, a slightly older boy silently shuffled along. I followed the other spirits up a well-worn path. They seemed to know where they were going.
When Annabeth had told me about the Underworld when she was tutoring me, I had imagined big, black gates like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Instead, the Underworld looked like the kind of security at a museum.
There were three different doorways under a huge black arch that read YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a strange metal detector with security cameras overhead. What they were hooked up to, I didn't know. Each station was manned by figures in dark robes who were just as intimidating as Charon.
I hesitated as the dead split into three lines. Two of them had ATTENDANT ON DUTY marked in big letters, but another read EZ DEATH. Comforting.
I stopped dead in my tracks as soon as I saw Cerberus. He was, essentially, a giant, three-headed dog of death. If I were alive, I would have peed my pants.
Luckily, he seemed not to have any interest in spirits of the dead. The little girl walked right underneath him without so much as blinking. Cerberus made a strange sound that almost sounded like laughter as a particularly tall spirit brushed its underbelly.
Great, I thought. I'm dead, Cerberus is a giant teddy bear, and the EZ DEATH line is moving along just fine.
It was true. I wasn't exactly sure what EZ DEATH meant, but I was sure it wasn't good. Despite how slowly the other two lines were moving, I decided to take my chances with them. Picking the fastest of the two snail-like lines, I took my place and prayed for a quick wait.
x x x
The line was not quick.
I wasn't sure how long I was down there for, but it had to of been a few days in the mortal world at least. But time was different down here, harder to read.
On the bright side, it gave me plenty of times to come to terms with being dead. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be. Because I was dead, I didn't have to worry about eating, or drinking, or breathing.
Unfortunately, it also gave me plenty of time to think about the things I regretted. I regretted that I had never shown Bobby how to use a bow and arrow properly. I regretted that I had never gotten Lawrence the Father's Day gift he deserved. I regretted that I had never taken my school studies as seriously as I should have. I regretted that I had never given Liam his anniversary present. And I regretted that I had never told my friends the secret I had been working on for months.
Suddenly, the line moved forward, and it was my turn.
One of the ghouls in the dark robe scanned me with his metal detector and nodded to himself. "Alexandra Clayton. Cause of death: a crossbow bolt to the chest. Eighteen years of age...daughter of Artemis?" His dry voice was full of surprise. "I...well, let's get you to your trial."
Trial. I had almost completely forgotten what I was standing in line for. At the mention of the trial, my stomach filled with dread, though I wasn't sure why. I had defeated a Titan, saved the gods from civil war. I knew where I wasn't going.
The Underworld has four places where souls could end up. The first was the Fields of Punishment, reserved for, well...punishment. As the line had inched closer to a large black tent, I could just barely make it out in the distance. The first thing I saw was the rivers of lava. The next was the people forced to run buck naked through cactus patches. It was a place reserved for the worst of people.
The second place a soul could end up was the Fields of Asphodel. Basically, it was a medium place, designed for people who didn't do anything in their life. Grover had described it to me once as a "giant wheat field in Kansas."
The third was Elysium—the ultimate party for all eternity, reserved for heroes. If you were smart, you tried to end up there. Of course, you could always try for it three times and wind up on the _, a place for only the best of the best.
I figured the only place I knew I wasn't going was the Fields of Punishment. I wasn't evil, so in my opinion I didn't deserve to end up there. I mean, I hadn't murdered anyone or anything.
The ghoul in black robes escorted me towards the large black tent, where a large banner that read WELCOME, NEWLY DECEASED hung overhead. It was far from comforting.
The inside of the tent was even less so. Three judges dressed in robes of darkness sat on a bench that was elevated so that it hung in midair. I couldn't see their faces behind their masks of gold, but I imagined that they had been important people in life. The inside of the tent was dark, and they were the only things I could see—because they were the only things that mattered. They would decide my fate for all eternity.
I tried not to look nervous as I approached the judge's bench. All three of them stared at me from behind their golden masks. I couldn't tell if they were surprised to see me or just bored.
I expected somebody to announce who I was, but the judges already seemed to know. The ghoul that had escorted me left, and I was left alone with the judges.
No pressure.
So I have a theory: sequels don't get as much attention on this site. I'm perfectly okay with that, but it would be nice to get some reviews. This is a new Story, and I like to hear feedback: what I'm doing wrong, what's good, etc.
Dumb Joke of the Day:
I bought my friend an elephant for his room.
He said "Thanks."
i said, "Don't mention it."
