The Sea and The Moon

Chapter 14

Artemis POV:

As we jumped into The Pit, my heart was racing. I could feel sweat trickling down my eyebrows and my breathing was harsh and rapid. I had never died in all my life as a god, so I had never been in Tartarus before. I didn't know what to expect. I felt a squeeze around my right hand and looked over. Perseus was looking at me with confidence and it made me feel a little better.

We fell and fell, until darkness enveloped us and we were on our way to the home of the monsters. I squeezed Perseus' hand back and we looked at each other, smiling slightly.

Maybe this won't be so bad after all. I have somebody by my side to go through everything that I am.

(Line Break)

We had been falling for an unclear amount of time. It felt like a week, but who knows, time flows differently in Tartarus. I'm not even sure it this classifies as Tartarus yet though. Finally, I could see a light bellow us, rapidly growing, until I could see the opening into the realm of monsters.

"Perseus! Look! There's the opening. We need to find some way to slow our fall before we smash into the ground," I shouted.

"I know! I'll just use my powers over wind to slow us. I'm not sure if they work, but we'll just have to try," He shouted back. I nodded and prepared to smash into the ground if this didn't work.

As we neared the ground, I was starting to get a little bit worried. He still hadn't slowed us at all, and we seemed to be moving even faster now. He needed to do something fast.

"Perseus! What are you doing?! We're about to hit the ground. There's no time to fool around!" I yelled at him.

"I'm not sure why it's so hard to control the air around here. It's like it's hundreds of times thicker than the air on Earth it's almost impossible to manipulate! You're going to need to prepare for an impact unless you have an idea!" He shouted.

Great. That's just great. I turned my body so that it was in front of Perseus' as he wasn't a god and would most likely take more damage from the fall than I would. I felt the air whistling past my ears and I shut my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

Seconds before we hit, I felt my body come to a complete stop and we hovered in the air, just inches above the ground. My eyes were still closed and I didn't know what was going on. Why haven't we hit yet?

I slowly opened my eyes and looked down. I saw that we had stopped and looked over to Perseus questioningly only to realize that he had blacked out. He must have exerted too much energy getting us to stop. We dropped to the floor and Perseus rolled off me and falling limp onto the ground.

Tartarus was even worse than I had expected. All around us, there was a red haze, almost like fog, that covered the surround area. I could barely see twenty feet ahead of us. The whole place felt alive with corrupted power and it made my skin crawl realizing that Apollyon was probably somewhere in this pit with us. Just thinking about him from my dream sent shivers down my back.

Sighing, I picked up Perseus and started walking in a random direction. We were going to need to find a way to get some food. I don't think there are any restaurants in Tartarus.

As I continued walking, my mind wandered to Perseus. Why was he so different from all other men. It would just be easier for him to become somebody vile that I could hate, but no. He's the most kind and selfless man I have ever met and he deserves my respect. The only problem is that it goes against my customary way of thinking.

Suddenly, Perseus shifted on my shoulders and groaned. I stopped and set him on the ground and waited for him to wake up. After a couple minutes, his eyes opened and he blinked a couple times. He seemed to realize where he was and bolted up, looking around and madly, as if trying to find something.