❛❜Wanna see a magic trick?❛❜
❛❜Don't scare the kid, Shei!❛❜
°∘❉∘°
- in which, a girl who attracts danger
tries to understand her dangerous power,
but the answer finds itself to be
a boy with eyes coloured just like the sea
°∘❉∘°
amazing co...
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☆ ☼ ☆
The Fields of Asphodel reminded Sheila of Mystic Falls during Halloween. It was so crowded you could barely move. Underneath her feet, the grass was black and had been trampled by aeons of dead feet. The blowing wind was warm and moist, like the illegal van they took to get to Las Vegas a few days ago. Black trees — Grover explained they were poplars — grew in clumps just about everywhere, yet they weren't as threatening as the glowing stalactites above their heads. They could fall and impale themselves in the black grass. Unlike the demigods, the dead were lucky they didn't have to worry about those.
As the quartet walked, the tension in the air rose. Sheila had fallen into step with Percy, her hands twitching. Charon's warning grew harder to follow. She relied on her magic in every situation and now had to avoid it for an unknown reason. Gripping her wrist, she prayed no one amongst the dead would spot her. The security ghouls hadn't since they weren't even around them anymore, not that Sheila was complaining.
Beside her, Percy had a distant look in his eyes. Sheila wondered the thoughts going through his head as he stared at the spirits of Asphodel. She figured he was searching for the woman who raised him. Unfortunately for him, she doubted Sally Jackson was here. Hades wouldn't make her easy to find.
When Percy also came to this conclusion, he and the others crept along with other spirits. The quartet followed the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner which read:
JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION Welcome, Newly Deceased!
Sheila snickered at what the banner said, then glanced at the two separate lines before them. A stony path led to the Fields of Punishment on the left one. The Fields appeared as if they glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast and cracked wasteland possessing rivers of lava, minefields, as well as miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Sheila couldn't even look and instead observed the right line. It led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls — a gated community, and it seemed to be the only joyful part of the Underworld.
Compared to the Fields of Punishment, laughter filled the air further away down the right line. Sheila gathered this was Elysium. It would be her definition of paradise with all the Nature blossoming. In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake with three small islands. But these were the Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times and three times achieved Elysium. Sheila thought it wasn't such a bad place to go to once she would die.
"That's what it's all about," Annabeth voiced as if hearing her best friend's thoughts. "That's the place for heroes."
Only a few people made it to Elysium. It was tiny compared to the Fields of Asphodel or the Fields of Punishments. It was depressing. It proved not many did any good during their lives, leaving Sheila to wonder whether or not she deserved a place amongst the heroes.
