Walk With the Shadows [ Percy Jackson OC ]

THIRTY-EIGHT | Ophelia

THE SCREAMS SOUNDED DIFFERENT NOW. When Ophelia heard the spirits of the Dead crying out for mercy in her mind, their voices sounded as clear as the conversations she had with Kitty or Alex. Smaller, quieter perhaps. But still crisp. Still agonizingly comprehensible.

The cries she heard as she led the way over another hilltop of slate and shale echoed in her ears, not her mind. Like the ebbing rumble of a distant sea coast, the Dead cried out in many voices with many words. Ophelia didn't understand the words, but she understood the pain.

Smoky shades dissipated as she stood at the top of the last hillock. Behind her she could hear small rocks sliding and tumbling downwards as Alex and Kitty worked to join her. Ophelia looked left. She looked towards the unintelligible screams.

The darkness there transitioned from black to grey and red. She took a deep breath. Ophelia remembered flashes of raging fire and the glint of barbed wire under the hazy light of the Fields of Punishment. Her throat tightened as she felt the smoke fill her lungs.

A hand brushed her lower back. Ophelia turned, taking a deep breath as she looked at Alex. The dim ambient light of the Underworld couldn't change the ice blue of his eyes. Dried blood still smeared across his pale cheeks and if they'd had the time, she would've cleaned it off of him.

But they didn't have time.

He'd taken his last ambrosia. He'd survive.

Ophelia turned away from him. To their right, a soft golden glow settled over a distant part of the Underworld. Elysium. The artificial light must've been what passed for a sun down here.

In the pit of her stomach, knots twisted and coiled. She clenched her fists. How could Luke have ended up there, the orchestrator of the whole traitor demigod army, for reversing his fortunes in the end and yet those who hadn't had a chance, who had died with arrows of Apollo or the spears of Ares through their chests, got to burn forever?

"Come on," Alex said, gently brushing her back again. "We should get moving."

Ophelia nodded. Straight ahead, stretching another mile perhaps, the strangest garden she'd ever seen glistened and glowed in the darkness. It didn't take much descending to reach the subtle entrance of bent, ghostlike birch trees with neon orange leaves.

The air temperature dropped the moment Ophelia crossed the threshold. The Mist permeated every inch of this odd but beautiful place. The ground changed from shale to a deep, grey green moss. With silent step forward, the Underworld got quieter and quieter.

None of them spoke. It didn't seem right. Surrounded by sculpted marble trees, towering bioluminescent mushrooms, even the odd poppy, Ophelia couldn't tear her eyes away.

She couldn't tell how long they wandered through the alien garden before coming up on a sculpted slate path inlaid with rubies and topaz. Not far, they heard the babbling of a brook, the first sound in what felt like eternity beside their pounding hearts and quiet breaths.