The ground. The white marble ground is falling apart, and it's doing so all around me and nowhere else. I don't want to die. I don't. I look up, and see all the campers left either reaching out for me or running away; those trying to get to me are way too far. I'm standing on only a small shard of white marble left, and it seems like it is a column going down into darkness below me. Everything else is falling into that pit. I don't think I want to know what's at the bottom, but at the same time I'm curious. The campers are screaming my name. Well, those who know it, anyways, but it all sounds distant and muffled as the little piece clinging upright I'm standing on crumbles, and I fall.
The first thing I notice when I can manage to breathe while falling is that it's completely dark. I look up, arms flailing, and I don't see the hole I fell through. I quickly start thinking of ways to slow my fall, and considering taking my heavy sweatshirt off and making a parachute. I try to slip out of it, but the wind is pressing it against me, and I can't. I breathe out in frustration. Even though I have nobody left who loves me and who I love, dying would suck when I had just discovered a whole new future for myself along my brethren. I could have found out who was my father, and who I was, but nO. Had to fall down a deep dark pit. Had to.
I concentrate. I am not afraid of heights or falling; my nightmares took those fears away from me. I'm surprised I can think clearly, and start imagining ways to slow myself down, but something does it for me. All around me, I realize I can see. What I do see is so strange I look again. To my right, it seems there is a cliff made of solid obsidian, quickly zooming by as I am going down, but it's still there. If there is a cliff, there is a bottom of a cliff. I look down and what I spot a tiny river snaking along red dirt, the whole place underground, but fluorescent red clouds cast ghastly lights around the place, and it's huge. The cavern was as big as Ottawa, both in length and height.
The river is zooming in below my, as I am getting closer. I realize I am probably going to splat instead of splash if I don't position myself to land correctly, so I make my self as vertical as possible, straight as a pencil, and fall even faster. Probably not the best idea. I decide to spread my arms until I crash into the now fifty feet across river, when I will quickly bring them down.
One hundred feet away. Fifty. Twenty. And then I hit the water.
I scream in agony underneath the coldest water I have ever been in. My whole body is numb with pain like knives cutting me open and all I want to do is let go, it's too much. The pain is unbearable. I want to breathe in a lung full of this subzero water and stop the pain, but something inside me reminds me to float up to the top, to hold my breath until I can breathe in the air here, and to haul myself to the edge. I open my eyes underwater and see the top of the river coming closer and closer, and I can't hold my breath anymore. Something dives into the river as well and everything goes dark.
The nightmares begin as soon as I lose consciousness.
I am four in this dream. My hair is long to my butt, and I am surrounded by so many objects. I seem to be alone… until I spot my mother. She is standing in front of me, her bright red hair tied in a loose ponytail behind her. She is wearing a simple black dress with lace going down her arms. She brings one of the objects closer to me and says, "Emily. I want you to make this object disappear." I touch it, laughing, which brings a smile to my mother's usually sad face, and concentrate as much as I can, which is not very much for a toddler. I say, "bye bye," and the object seems to melt away in a pool of oil, and then that goes away, too. My mom claps my hand and says, "Now, can you make it come back?" I'm already tired and I want to nap, but I think of the object that disappeared and place my hand out in front of me, and the object appears again. I look at it for a moment and I see it's a little figurine of a fairy, but I had sharpied her dress in dark purple, and her eyes were faded away, leaving them white as marble. I loved that toy. I say to my mom, "I'm sleepy now. Go shut-eye?" She smiles warmly and takes me into her arms to my little bed next to her own. She places me down and I close my eyes.
When I open them again, I look down at myself. I look about seven. I am wearing a red tank top and a black skirt, but my feet are bare in the grass. I recognize what is going on; my mom is sitting in a chair across the small lawn, with the side of the bench free beside her. I run to the door of our apartment complex, look back at her, and she nods. I walk in, and right as I do, I sit down; I am on the bench next to my mom. She smiles big and hugs me. I feel accomplished. We go inside and have dinner, which is my favorite : Pasta with a mountain of parmesan cheese on top. She has put sauce on hers. To annoy her, I scoop a big glob of my cheese and put it on top of her elbow pasta. She then puts it right back into my bowl with a bit of sauce now on it. Meticulously, I take the sauce in my spoon and eat it, leaving all the untouched cheese behind. I make a sour face, and my mom laughs at me, and I laugh too.
Then, my mom's face goes slack. She stares straight ahead of her, and I know something's wrong. Her eyes are completely white, like my old toy's. She reaches forward and smacks my bowl off the table, having it shatter to the ground. I scream and run up the stairs, but she is on her feet and following me. She grabs the back of my skirt and it rips off, exposing my shorts underneath. I run faster than I ever thought I could, but she is chasing me with her hands searching for any bit of my skin. I scream, and start to cry as I run. I then remember the trick she taught me, and I run to a corner in my room. The next thing I know, I am standing in the middle of the mall, and I faint, exhausted.
I wake up in an ambulance. I know I had been crying in my sleep, as my face is wet with tears. The paramedic says soothing words to me as the ambulance drives away. She tells me my mother is in the hospital, waiting for me, and I start freaking out. I trash and kick all I can, but a needle goes through my arm and I can't move anymore. My eyes give one last pleading look to the paramedic, then everything goes dark.
In my dream, I remember waking up in a hospital bed, my mom crying beside me, back to normal. She kept on apologizing, kept muttering something about evil gods taking control of her, and I cry with her too, because I am scared for her, of what she could do. I now realize she had been possessed by one of the gods I now know. She was fine after that though, but that day never left my mind. For months I had terrible nightmares, and was seriously sleep deprived by age eight. I guess those things never left me.
I realize I am cold. Soaking wet, in fact, and I also realize I am coming back to consciousness. How long has it been? An hour? A day? If I am still wet, it couldn't have been too long, right? I can feel cold stone floor beneath my fingers, I am lying down on hard ground. A dim red light shines through my eyelids, but it's so faint I can barely detect it. I hear no movement around me, but it isn't silent. In the distance, I can hear faint voices, shrill and high as if they are complaining. I can hear music, too, Mozart style, and it sort of sounds like a medieval gym class. I try to raise my head, but it feels as heavy as lead, and my shoulders ache. I manage to open my eyes, and I can see shoes.
About twenty feet in front of me, black polished shoes shine with dim light, and I slowly make my way up. I see a gown made of swirling faces, all seem to be screaming. Hands clasp armrests that seem to be made of bone, and finally, a ban with long black hair with a ghostly pale face and deep, dark eyes, seem to stare at the wall behind me. I know immediately who this man is. He is Hades. He is my father.