We don't know where we are. All we can see is a small room. The room is all white. By we I mean, Henry, Rachel, Hayley, Temperance, Lance, Bliss, Jeremy and I. We enter the room together. Me grabbing Jays arm. Henry grabbing Rachel's and the brothers and sisters in the group grabbing each other. Inside the room, the walls are no longer walls but screens. Huge screens that cover every inch of wall. There is another door opposite us. It has Henrys name on it. We stand there for about five minutes just looking at it. We eventually come to the conclusion that Henry has to go through the door. As soon as he does, we can see him on the huge screens that surround us. Suddenly the all white room that he walked into changes. It becomes a dark room slowly filling with moths. Lining the roof are bells. Two large bells hover just above the glass ceiling, surrounded by smaller bells. The noises of the bells melt together and create a cacophony worthy of deafening a God. As Henry begins to panic and hit the moths away, people start to surround him. You can see from the way his face blushes that he is embarrassed. Finally, he lets the moths cover his body after screaming for the bells to shut up and that everyone surrounding him is pathetic for judging him. After that, a door appears on the opposite side of the room, he runs to it viciously turns the handle and falls out of the door. It seems this room is accessing your worst fears and putting you through them. Henry gains control of the situation and calms himself down, that is how he got out.
Rachel did it differently though. Her room was filled with pigeons flying and occasionally landing near Rachel, when they did this Rachel panicked and kicked them away. Then a mix of various screams, high and low, long and short. All sound like the screams of those who have been in that room combined and released in one mighty blow. This makes her anxious and I can see Rachel constantly twitching her long, slim body. Then, something appears that make her dark yet vibrant eyes widen with fear. I can't make it out at first. Suddenly Rachel is running alongside Myles, Bianca, Nico and I. It is in the same place that Myles died. I then notice us dropping like flies, all with a single arrow armed with a black rose piercing out hearts. Then, Myles, Nico, Bianca and I are all lay motionless on the floor. That's what Rachel is scared off. Losing her loved ones. Rachel throws her body down next to all of ours. Her pale hand stroking all our dark hair. Then, she stands up, backs off and whispers, "This isn't real." she then shouts at the top of her lungs, "This isn't real!" Then, just like it did for Henry, the door appears and she stumbles through it, shaking. It is then I realise there is several different ways to exit the room of hell.
Hayley went in next. Her worst fears turned out to be small spaces, cotton wool and by far the strangest, spoons. She got out by grabbing the cotton wool and the spoons and by squashing her body up even smaller than the shrinking room. She went a step beyond her fears. It was Temperance next, she was terrified to go in the room alone. She faced heights, clowns and Lego. What is it with Children of Hestia being scared of everyday objects? Temperance got out by being friendly and bubbly. Something she excelled at. She went up and hugged the clown and played with the Lego. Lance is up next. Being a son of Aphrodite, I would expect him to freak out but he doesn't. He goes in there and faced with looking awful but beyond awful, I'm guessing it was intended to look like a prank, being laughed at, he is really self conscious surprisingly. The room he is in is filled with flies. He just closes his eyes, let the flies land on him and let the laughing grow louder. He just blanked it out and like the others, the glowing door appeared. He ever so slowly and calmly walked through it. It was now Bliss' turn. She already had tears rolling down her face from watching her brother go through that. She expeditiously wiped them from her face leaving a blur on salty tears on her face but she didn't realise I had seen her. Bliss was being held still by a dozen pairs of hands, all over her, meaning she couldn't speak and the only movement she could make was blinking her eyelids. That combined her two worst fears in one. Being touched and not being able to move. Also one of the hands is covering her mouth and the other is holding her nose. She is taking the longest so far. Suddenly she stops fighting against them. In a sudden outburst, she manages to bight the hand covering her mouth and somehow get herself out of that situation and races towards the glowing door. Penultimately, Jeremy's (or Jay as he prefers, you probably guessed that by now) name appears on the door. He squeezes my hand as he leaves me face his fears. He is a total control freak. His fears are losing control, falling apart- no, not the literal kind- and failing something. He manages to take control. To pick himself back up again and correcting whatever he failed. Then the glowing door appears.
Deep breaths. Calm. I step into the room. Water starts to fill the room. Quickly, it reached my ankles. Then the area around me alights with a flame. Then, he appears. Tall, grey and brooding. Olive skin yet light eyes. Half Italian. He is bearing his whip. As he was whenever I saw him, it is the same with Bianca and Nico. He would look at us with those cold, stoney eyes, as he is now. I know what is happening next but my brain is too panicked by the water and fire that it doesn't fully process what is coming next, causing me to yelp when the familiar pain spreads across my back. I am used to it but I was caught so off guard that for a moment, I was too stunned to move. But then it returned to how it used to be, in Italy when we were all living together in that small house. I remember being trapped in the small room and only aloud out for times like this. I begin to hyperventilate, all of these fears are stirring inside of me like a tornado until I finally let it loose. I slam my fist against the glass that is now surrounding me, the water is up to my neck. It shatters into millions of tiny pieces, shining like diamonds as they lay on the dark floor. Then I turn on him. Finally, I can be the one to cause the pain. I continue to walk up to my stepfather. He continues whipping me so I sprint towards him and tackle him to the ground. I kick him and punch him until he in completely knocked out and practically dead because that is what he is to me. As for the fire, the water that came out of the tank when I splashed is put it out. At last, the glowing door appears and I go to run for it but am so shaken I kind of fall through it and curl myself up in the corner of this room with screens for walls.
Inside the next room with screens for walls, Rachel has her arm draped across Henry trying to calm him down as he is crying. We are talking about why our fears were what they were, we all swore to be truthful, I'm guessing this was aimed at me, I have been known to soften the truth, what can I say, I hate sympathy! Henry told us that a moth ate a part of his favourite shirt one day, bells rang at the wedding of him mother, whom he hated and was always scared of embarrassment. Rachel tells the story of Myles, this is the first time any of them have heard it. That explains all of us being killed and she says the screaming reminds her of that day, it did for all of us. The pigeons, well she tells us that one day when she was a baby, she was in her pram and this pigeon landed on her head and started to peck at her. She was laughing but saw how badly her mother reacted that she has been terrified of the ever since. The stories go on like that, funny ones relating to childhood mostly. Like Temperance's fear of Lego, that came from her standing on it once in front of her class and crying, I can understand it now. When it comes to mine, they already know about the fire and the water and I try to pretend like the man wasn't my stepfather and that I was just scared of whips. I nearly got away with it until Rachel shot me a look like none other. If looks could kill. I would die instantaneously. It was equivalent to being stabbed with a sword, I would know. Then with a look of refusal that was nothing compared to the killer stare, I explain about my stepfather. He knew that the three of us weren't his children so he would make sure we know that we know he doesn't care for us. He called me and Nico, "The hell twins" yeah, very fitting. After we had all finished exchanging our stories, another glowing door appeared, this time with the word "exit" written on it. It was white text on a black background so it was obvious this was made for demigods as we are usually dyslexic and white on black is easier for us to read.
We stepped through the door and landed in a pile in Camp Half Blood. Chiron explains to us whist we are still pale-faced that it was the Gods finding out our fears for the "Final Fight". He then doesn't speak anymore of the "Final Fight" which annoys us all but he refuses and claims he will tell us when the time is right, which usually means when we are going to die.
There is a bright light and a big, muscular man appears. The whole lot of Ares campers are in awe. Apart from Rachel, she stands up and screams, "What in Tarturus are you doing here!" Rachel never liked her godly parent. Or her normal parents to be honest. They were nice to her but they were training her to be a "young lady" which is pretty much impossible as she is a daughter of Ares. Rachel now walks with perfect posture which does help her in fighting but will slip out with a very "proper" pronunciation and that mixed with her French accent creates a very strange mix.
"I am not happy about your choice of partner. He isn't strong. He isn't good for you. Break up now." As Ares demands this, I can see the anger building up behind Rachel's dark eyes.
"Je m'en fou (I don't give a f**k) what you think." Rachel says. She has only ever cussed in French. She claims it sounds better but I think it's her "lady" side coming out, it doesn't class as cussing if nobody understands it. She flips her hair and kisses Henry whilst holding up her middle finger to her father. A bright flash appears in front of our eyes and when we are finally able to see again, Ares is gone and Rachel seems pretty happy.
