Divine Chaos

Chapter 27 - Styx and Stones

Hey guys! I hope you all enjoy this chapter, for anyone that was wondering - this depiction of the underworld is based loosely off of Vergil's tale of Aeneas and his journey through the underworld (worth a read!)

- xox Andrea

Chapter 27

The twelve of us journey through the dark as the shadows of monsters pass through us.

Harpies, Gorgons, the Chimaera, you name it, we saw it. Their ghostly flames passed through us, they're beastly screeches pierced our ears, but we journeyed on.

"They're not real." Marco told us when the first monster appeared, the hundred-bodied Briareus. Luca was drawing his sword and ready to take it on, as were Andrew, Damian, Asthore and Lyke.

"Well..." Selina snapped, "What the hell are they doing here?!"

"They're lifeless, they're no longer real. These creatures are just an empty shell of what they once were. They can't hurt any of you."

"They're still bloody terrifying though!" Laura interjected, jumping a little as another scream echoed throughout the dark forest.

"I must agree with you on that." Emma sighed, pulling up the skirt of her glowing dress as it became caught on one of the dead branches littering the ground we were walking upon.

Laura guided us through the dying forest, it seemed that the further we travelled, the more rotten the trees became, the more barren their branches were, the closer we were to absolute death.

The voices in Laura's head got louder instead, she began to wince with every new horrible thought that entered her mind.

Sadly, this is how we knew we were getting closer.

Eventually, we discovered the source of Laura's pain.

A large crowd of people gathered at the muddy bank of a murky river, the other bank was completely barren.

In between both river banks was a small lone boat, I could just make out the shape of a squalid figure sitting on one of its ends, rowing it back and forth between the two banks.

The twelve of us decide to hang back from the crowd and gather behind a large cliff face before the riverbank.

"It's the River Styx, isn't it?" Callia asks.

I nod. It is.

The River Styx is the separation between life and death. It is the only thing separating us from the underworld, and there is only one way to cross it.

You must be ferried across on the small boat by Charon, the frail old man who I saw earlier. However, I don't exactly know how we're going to do this. He will only grant you passage into the underworld if your bones have been buried together, an old Greek tradition.

None of us are dead, so there is no way we can achieve this. Since we're also immortal, we can't exactly kill ourselves and hope to be granted some eternal life later on either.

"Err, so how the hell are we going to get across here?" Georgie asks.

I lean my spear against the rock-face and lean my weight against the wall, thinking.

"We could just force him to let us across, I mean, we are gods after all..." Asthore suggests.

"Yeah, not gonna happen." Ashlyn chuckles, "He's got a law to stick to."

"One created by the rule of the underworld." Marco chuckles.

We all stare at him.

"You guys can be seriously stupid sometimes, I hope you all realise this." He chuckles.