Holy Water [Dean Winchester]

35: A Different Kind of Misery

Dearest Readers,

I'm back officially from my travels, so now I can keep updating! I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was a joy to write :)

XOXO Ally Layne

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Following Akhlys, the primordial goddess of Misery, on the path of poisonous plants was not exactly a walk in the park.

It was a walk in Tartarus, yes, but it wasn't even a pleasant one at that.

It made sense, in a way. Following this beastly crone into a path that led to darkness. As time went on in the pit, Persie realized that the deeper they went, the darker and more harrowing it became.

And now, they didn't have Bob... who had saved her from an eternity of being cursed to be violated in ways she couldn't even put into words.

She steeled herself and pushed away those thoughts.

She couldn't break now.

"Here we are."

It was as if they were in the big toe of Tartarus himself. The fog around them dissipated to show a pitch black void that was endless below them.

If falling into Tartarus was the worst trip ever, she didn't want to think about what that might be.

"Uh... great. Where is here?"

"The verge of final death," Akhlys explained. "Where Night meets the void below Tartarus."

She watched as Annabeth slowly peered over the edge. "I thought there was nothing below Tartarus."

"Oh, there certainly is..." the beast coughed. "Even Tartarus had to rise from somewhere. THis is the edge of the earliest darkness, which was my mother. Below lies the realm of Chaos, my father. Here, you are closer to nothingness than any mortal has ever been. Can you feel it?"

Oh, she could feel it alright.

All too well.

The void was sucking the air from her lungs and the oxygen from her blood- which looked to be true enough as she noticed that Annabeth's lips were turning blue.

"We can't stay here," Persie insisted.

"No, indeed!" Akhlys said. "Don't you feel the Death Mist? Even now, you pass between. Look!"

White smoke gathered around Persie and Annabeth's feet, but it wasn't surrounding them. Instead, she saw that it was coming from them. Their bodies were dissolving... they were becoming wraiths of the pit itself.

She looked up to Annabeth's face and yelped. "You... you look..."

She couldn't bring herself to say it.

Annabeth looked dead.

"Oh gods," Annabeth gasped as she looked at her with wide, silver-lined eyes. "Persie... the way you look..."

"I've been better." She tried to shrug, but felt a whole lot of nothingness at the movement, which kinda freaked her out. "I can't move very well... but I'm alright."

"Oh, you're definitely not alright," Akhlys spoke, eying them predatorially.

Persie frowned. "But we'll pass unseen now? We can get to the Doors of Death?"

"Well, perhaps you could," the goddess said, "if you lived that long. Which you won't."

Her gnarled fingers spread, and more poisonous plants bloomed along the edge of the pit. "The Death Mist is not simply a disguise, you see. It is a state of being. I could not bring you this gift unless death followed– true death."