Child of Hades {Interactive Story} (PJO/HOO/TOA)

NINE: Lost It All

Matt shook me awake a while later. I pulled out my headphones, and watched him pull something from his backpack, a water bottle and an oddly familiar bottle in his hand.

"I got Caleb to give me your Clozapine when you asked me to go instead of Simon. He was hesitant, because it's sort of against the rules for anyone in support group to have medication on their person, but he allowed it. Even in the Underworld, you have to take your meds."

I frowned. It wasn't like they'd been helping since I got them, though I suppose since I got to the Underworld the hallucination had been few and far between... But I figured that was for the same reason they were non-existent on Olympu. Nonetheless, I took the pill and chased it down with water. Matt seemed satisfied.

"Okay," I said. "Your turn to sleep. I'll wake you up in a few hours, then we'll start for the Fields of Asphodel."

Matt looked at me, and shook his head. "I'm okay. We need to go."

"Um... No." I said. He was obviously exhausted, and he needed sleep just as much as I did. "Matt, you can't tell me you're not tired."

"I accidentally fell asleep when I was supposed to be on watch, I'm fine." He said quickly. I furrowed my brows, but as I opened my mouth he'd already moved on. "Besides, we don't have time. It's gotta be at least Wednesday now, the eighteenth. If it took us so long to reach the Acheron in the middle of the Fields of Punishment, it's going to take time to get to the Fields of Asphodel and then all the way bak. Factor in recovery time from shadow travelling again..."

I shuddered at the thought of shadow travelling again any time soon. "Okay. I get it. This would be a whole lot easier if Hades gave us some sort of help. He is, you know, my dad."

It was said as an empty statement. I didn't think Hades would hear, much less respond. The ground shook below us like a mini earthquake. Startled, I turned to face Matt. It seemed to take him a second longer to realize what was happening, all the while the souls around us were screaming more frantically. Then I saw a soul in the next section over dive into his flaming fire pool, charring him black. Whatever was coming was enough to scare him into willingly being punished.

Then, it came into view. A silver chariot emblazoned with Greek depictions of death make the ground quake underneath it. It rolled over the lava streams that separated the sections like there was no break in the ground whatsoever, and it pulsed with black light like energy. It was pulled by two very large, very scary skeleton horses. They fixed me with red, glowing eyes, and were wearing black feathery plumes on their heads.

Inside the chariot was what appeared to be a Roman soldier. He had a helmet on, gold shoulder plates and body armour, a red woollen tunic, and was holding a javelin in the had he wasn't using to hold the horses' reins. The charioteer pulled the horses to a halt in front of us. He moved big, muscular arms (that were slightly transparent, allowing a view of the inner workings of an arm that I did not need to see) to lift off his - no, her helmet. She looked at me behind translucent skin, and after a moment she stepped down off the silver chariot.

"You asked for help?" She asked in a gravelly voice, pulling whisky tendrils of brown hair from the bun that was previously hiding in her helmet.

"Um... Hi." I offered. "Didn't really expect my dad to answer."

She blinked. "I did not answer to Lord Hades. I answered to you, m'lady."

Matt, very confused, looked at me for some sort of explanation. Then his expression softened as he came to a conclusion. "Oh. Just like when you yelled 'stop'. Y/N, you have control over the Underworld, and apparently a legionary on Hades' elite guard."