she was thunderstruck.
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"thanks, brainiac"
"don't mention it, sleeping beauty"
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annabeth chase x fem!oc
percy jackson x male!oc
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the lightning thief → the last olympian
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part one of the 'skyfall' series
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IMAGINE THE LARGEST, MOST DEPRESSING CONCERT CROWD YOU'VE EVER SEEN.
Now imagine a field a million times that size, packed with people, with no electricity and no noise, light, or beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has occurred behind the scenes. Whispering crowds are milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never begin.
That's what standing in the fields of asphodel was like. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees—Grover identified them as poplars—grew in clumps here and there.
The cavern ceiling was so high above them it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. Dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass.
The four questers attempted to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. Aurora couldn't help looking for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead are hard to look at. Their faces shimmer. They all look slightly angry or confused. They will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering. Once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away.
The dead aren't scary. They're just sad.
They crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:
JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION Welcome, Newly Deceased!
Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.
To the left, spirits were marched down a rocky path flanked by security ghouls towards the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the various torture areas. You could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches, or listen to opera music from afar. Aurora could just make out a tiny hill, with Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top.
The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. You could hear laughter and barbecues cooking.
