One was born to destroy, one was born to build.
Melanie Mavros doesn't know how it came this far. Being thrown in a new world with her best friend Percy, was not on her bucket list. Being send on a dangerous quest with the thought that she can be ki...
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Why did he put me there?
Melanie was not really feeling the vibe in the Underworld. The were standing in the largest crowd Melanie had ever seen. She had seen the crowd at the free taco samples last summer... so it was a pretty unbelievable amount of people. Well-, death people.
It was a field a million times big than the free taco samples customers. It wasn't broad daylight, but dark. No, yelling and people talking about the taco's or their day. Just whispers echoed trough the crowd.
It was the Fields of Asphodel.
Melanie thought it looked pretty boring.
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 told them they were 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. Melanie tried not to imagine they'd fall on us at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass.
The four friends tried to bend in the crowd, looking out of those creepy security ghouls. Melanie wondered if she could spot her grandmother that had recently passed away. But she couldn't look in the faces of the death. It was weird.
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 flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward 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 different torture areas.
The place of her nightmare. Melanie shivered as she remembered the horrors that took place. Annabeth next to her grabbed her hand, making Melanie flinch. She tried to remove herself from the strong grip, but Annabeth firmly held on.
"It's okay, you're here. On this side." She whispered. Melanie stopped fighting the hand that was clamped down onto her, and instead followed along.
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. Melanie could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.
