When Diana started leading us towards tortured screaming and a barb-wired electric fence, I knew we were in trouble.

"The Fields of Punishment?" Johnny bleated. He'd ditched his pants back in the fields of Asphodel, stuffing them in his bag along with his fake-feet shoes. ("I'm done acting human, these souls don't care if I'm part sheep -- I meant goat! Stop it!")

"Honestly, it's a good idea." Diana assured us, hurrying us towards an opening in the fence. "There's someone down here who can help. We just have to pass all the tortured souls first."

"Great." I muttered as we started walking up a steep hill. "Suppose we'll get a better view of the torture and where that awful disco music's coming from up here?"

"You're half right." Diana agreed. "I need to figure out which direction we're headed in. Though I guess we might have to ask the dead..."

I stopped her as we reached the peak of the hill. "Are you going to tell us what we're looking for? This is my quest, I ought to know."

Johnny nodded vigorously at my side, having scaled the hill like a goat - but don't tell him I said that.

"Okay," she put her hands up in surrender. "You know how Prometheus was bound with a chain to the rock, right?" I nodded. "Well it took a certain goddess of force to bind him there, because he was too strong to otherwise be subdued. I'm hoping to find Bia here so we can find out what the binds were made of, assuming we'll have to bring them, and also get pointers on how to get him on the rock."

A lump formed in my throat. "So it took a goddess of force to get him on that rock and you think we can do it by our selves?"

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. Then, curse words.

I looked down the other side of the hill to see a man fighting against a boulder that no doubt had just rolled down the hill and flattened him several times over. How he was still standing, I figured already being dead had something to do with it.

"You're a daughter of Zeus, maybe you're strong like Heracles," Diana suggested, flinching at the vigorous cussing.

"Hercules, you mean?"

"That's his Roman name." She replied as we made our way towards the flattened and still cursing man. "Anyway, we'd better start asking where Bia is. Why not start with this guy? He's been here long enough to know - he's certainly tried to escape enough times that he might have even met her."

"And he is...?" I asked, Johnny rolled his eyes.

"Has to push a rock up a steep hill as punishment? Will only be free when the rock rolls down the other side? Cheated death at least a bajillion times? Come on, he's one of the first legendary beings we learned about in school!"

"Hence why I don't remember him." I replied. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I did.

Sisyphus looked like one of those troll dolls you'd find in a kid section at a store. He had a round orange-skin stomach, fiery stuck up hair, an ugly face, and a loincloth covering his man bits.

Looking around, I saw other famous people from Greek mythology; malnourished Tantalus, standing in a pond under a fruit tree but unable to eat or drink the supplements around him; Ixion, flying through the air on a spinning wheel that had been set ablaze; the forty-nine daughters of Danaus, each trying in vain to fill a broken jar with water from the river Styx through a sieve.

Then I saw other damned souls I didn't recognized, being in tortured in more horrendous ways: being mauled by hellhounds, burning at the stake, running through cactus patches butt-naked, boiling in oil, having to listen to disco-funk music for all of eternity (from the few minutes of music I heard, I decided that the guy being forced to listen to it probably did some messed up stuff. Disco music is torture beyond compare), there was even a guy sliding down a razor blade into lemon juice. Each form of punishment was separated from the others by a boiling hot lava stream.

I cringed, their screams echoing and lingering in my ears.

"Ha-ha," Sisyphus said sourly once he saw us. "Come to trick me again, stupid birds? Well you did it yesterday, so if you think I'm stupid enough to not know you're the Furies and fall for it again, you're wrong." He spat, a wad of yellow-coloured saliva landing on the cheek of a thoroughly disgusted Johnny.

"Oh my gods!" He retched, hiding behind me. "We aren't the Furies, you--" Johnny let loose his own cuss word, and, incredulously, I turned to glance at him. He turned beet red under my gaze and muttered a small 'sorry', before we focused back on Sisyphus.

The ugly troll-goblin was scratching his chin, looking at each of us in turn. "Furies don't apologize..." He said, deep in thought. "The last demigods who wanted to speak to me had to do me a favour, so that's how it's gonna work this time. You hear me?"

He had his arms crossed, so I mimicked the gesture. "What's the favour?"

"Before, the angry girl pushed my rock up my hill while the ugly boys talked to me." - I bit back a comment about how he could say anybody was ugly when he had a face like that - "So that's my favour. Push my rock, or we don't talk."

Despite trying to sound forceful about it, there was a slight whimper in Sisyphus's voice, telling me that he was desperate for a break. A part of me felt pitiful, another felt like he'd gotten what he deserved.

"Fine, I'll do it." Diana volunteered.

I would have gladly let the columbian goddess go, because she was, without contest, the strongest of us three. But she was also the smartest, which meant she'd probably do a whole lot better of a job of getting information than I would.

"I'll do it."

Johnny bleated again, and Diana raised a quizzical eyebrow. They were both undoubtedly questioning why I'd want to be away from the conversation on my very own quest.

"We'll see if I do have strength like Hercules," I promised, then I turned to Sisyphus.

He laughed at me. "You?"

"I'll push the rock higher than you ever could, ninny." I scowled, his flickering eyes to my muscles, or lack thereof, making me feel self-conscious. I dropped my backpack to the dirt.

"A lot of hope you have there," he muttered, "Fine. Go."

~

As I pushed my shoulder against the rock and slowly guided it upwards, I had a strong feeling that even with strength like Hercules' I wouldn't be able to push this up faster than the snail-pace I was currently maintaining.

At first I was under the assumption that it wouldn't be too hard and that I could overhear the conversation, but the strain blocked out any sound, disco music and all, and quickly I was sweating, shoulder aching, halfway up the hill.

If you really want to understand Sisyphus' punishment, put your shoulder against a jagged brick wall (preferable digging your collarbone into a sharp edge) and push as hard as you can. Stay this way forever.

That's what it felt like.

Despite visually seeing myself get higher, every tense muscle in my body told me I wasn't moving. My ADHD prevented me from telling you how long it took, but it felt like I'd been walking for hours. Sneaking a glance at how close I was to the top, my heart fluttered and I was fuelled by a strong sensation of hope and encouragement.

I was only a few steps from the top! I actually could shove it in Sisyphus' face that I'd accomplished his horrendous task on my first go!

Five more steps...

Four more steps...

Three more--

The rock gained an extra four-hundred pounds and my arms turned to jelly. I managed to jump out of the way of the boulder before it crushed me, shouting "NO!" so loud that Diana and Johnny looked up to see why I was screaming, then also jumping out of the way before the rock was stopped by Sisyphus.

Panting, I stared down at the heavy mass of rubble, knowing I was only two steps away from achieving the impossible. I knew that if I just tried again that I'd get it.

On impulse, I started making my way back down, eager to attempt the feat again.

When I got there, Sisyphus was screaming at me to do it again, crying, and shouting at Diana and Johnny in the foulest of tongues.

"Take your own damn rock," Diana said, obviously annoyed. "Come on, Y/N. We can tell you what happened once we get far away from this blundering idiot."

~

"He says that there's only one person here who'd know where Bia is." Johnny said, giving me a quick run through of their conversation. "Tityos, who's being punished for assaulting Leto, Artemis and Apollo's Mom."

I nodded, pulling my bag tighter against my sore shoulders.

"Hey, are you alright?" Johnny asked.

"I can take your bag, if you want." Diana offered.

"No, that's alright." I said quickly. "It's just...I was almost at the top. I thought I'd had it; I was so hopeful that I was going to get it right over to the other side. And then it fell, and I had the urge to try again, because I knew I'd get it..." A chill ran along my spine, and I realized I was, if only slightly, shaking.

"Hey," Diana said softly, as we jumped over another lava stream and past more people being tortured. "Don't worry about it. Let's just focus on hurrying and getting to Tityos, okay?"

He wasn't hard to find, evidently. In fact, he was a giant.

I understood immediately why he would be the only one to know the whereabouts of Bia. The goddess of force had once overseen the punishment of Prometheus - him being fastened to a rock and getting his organs ripped out by a hungry vulture every single day - so it made sense that she would oversee a punishment almost identical - where Tityos was fastened to the ground and two vultures circled hungrily above him, though they seemed not to have touched him yet.

"Quick, let's talk to him before the vultures start tearing apart his insides!"

~

For what Tityos was condemned to punishment for, I had expected him to be mean, ugly like Sisyphus, and unwilling to talk to us.

He was the exact opposite.

Looking at his large face (he was a giant), I wondered if that was what Zeus looked like, and I instantly felt better about the rock incident thing. He had a chiseled jaw, electrifying blue eyes, and slick black hair. Where I thought he'd hold an angry and evil expression, he simply looked dull; years of torture winding away who he once was.

He turned his head to look at us, a small smile crossing his face. "I've never had live visitors before. And you? It's an honour."

I raised my eyebrow when I realized he was looking at me. Subconsciously, I pulled my straps tighter against my shoulders again.

"Me?"

"Oh." A shock of realization reached his face, and he shook his large head so the ground at our feet shook. "Never mind, halfblood. Why do you seek me out?"

I was still confused about the whole 'it's an honour, never mind' thing, so Diana had to jump in.

"We're looking for Bia."

Upon hearing the name, Tityos blanched and said a Greek curse word Sisyphus probably taught him that I somehow understood.

"Bia? The one who helped bind me here as she once did Prometheus? The one who helped lock me into this eternal damnation? Why would I ever tell you where such a vile creature is? In fact, you seeking her must mean you are vile as well, in which case I'm rather happy without visitors!"

He spoke with such hatred that I felt compelled to hate Bia, too. Then I remembered that she was just doing her job, and that he had done very bad things to warrant it in the first place.

Regardless, we still needed to know where the goddess of force was, and Tityos was the only one who had that knowledge.

"If we don't get to Bia, everyone in the world will die," I told him softly, then explained about the quest when he pushed for further details.

"It doesn't concern me if the puny humans - no offence - parish. Actually, yes offence. Why should I help you?"

"Y/N is your half-sister!" Johnny said quickly. "Yup, daughter of Zeus right here! You've gotta help family, right?"

We all held our breaths. If he didn't say yes, we'd be facing a brick wall.

Tityos didn't speak for a long while. Diana brimmed with obvious agitation, Johnny bleated once or twice while scratching his fur-covered legs. I myself was anxious as well.

He studied me again, and finally answered.

"If you are here, it must mean that this is important. Bia is a daughter of Styx, she'll be there - she should come when you call her." I couldn't help but feel like every time he said 'you' (meaning me) he was talking about someone else, not meaning Diana and Johnny. I shrugged the feeling away, thanked him, and lead my friends away before we could watch the vultures tear out his liver.

"That went well," I said. "We know where Bia is, we talk to her and we can tell Hades. We'll be in Russia in no time."

Diana's eyes were wide, though. Johnny seemed to have caught on to her horrifying thought.

"Uh, Y/N?" Johnny said slowly. "You do remember how we got to the Underworld, right?"

"Of course. On Charon's boat. So?"

"On the river Styx. It's outside the perimeter, past Cerberus. We didn't even pass him the first time, and nobody goes out through the entrance...We'll be killed."

My first thought: oh.

My second: but we're alive, surely Cerberus wouldn't stop us...

My third: "Hang on, how did we expect to get out of the Underworld anyway?"

"Hades's transportation; i.e. a jet, a shadow-travel-portal-prime, a--" I stopped Diana.

"How did the other few 'exceptions' you mentioned get out, then?"

"Pearls."

"What?"

"Y/N, you're missing the big picture. We need to get to the Styx, preferably alive!"

_________
Questions: