It would sound a lot cooler if I were brave, wouldn't it? I wish I could tell you the story that way, too. That I marched ahead, leading my friends to Hades's glimmering obsidian palace, where I defiantly took command in making Hades transport us to Russia.

But in reality, my legs were shaking so much that I was scared to let go of Johnny's hand for fear of tumbling to the ground.

We followed the spirits from the boat towards an archway between two large stone walls that marched as far as our eyes could see through the thick, green haze. Silently, I wished I was back on the ferry with Charon, rowing his way back to the lobby of DOA Recording Studios, but as fearful as I was, I knew this was something we couldn't turn back from; not unless we wanted to watch the whole world die.

Under the violently dark archway that said something about entering somewhere, there were three separate entrances; two stretching to the left, and the middle one disappearing to the right. Each entrance had a guarding standing metal detector, with security cameras flanking the tops of each. I wondered why there was so much security. The way Diana put it, nobody who wasn't supposed to be here would be.

"Where's Hades?" I asked my friends. They didn't look like they had any idea, either.

As we made our way closer to the door, I saw that the centre line was moving quicker than the rest - and a sign above the metal detectors read "EZ DEATH", the other two lines beside it were moving as slow as a line for the woman's restroom (or, in other words, not very much).

"EZ DEATH goes to the Fields of Asphodel - obviously." When Diana saw my confused expression, she continued. "They don't want to risk judgement because, though it may lead them to Elysium - a really great place to be when you're dead - it could also lead them to the Fields of Punishment, and I'm sure you can sense how bad that is if it has a name with the word 'Punishment' in it."

"I'm going to pretend to understand what you just said." I replied, marching ahead. One of the dead people from the boat turned briefly in my direction, and I came to a staggering stop.

"Y/N?" Johnny asked softly. "Are you alright? What is it?"

"Did everyone make it out of our train alive?" I asked slowly, shaking.

"Y-yes..." Diana and Johnny shared matching glances.

I shook my head, temperature rising. I looked back at the man, who turned again, but this time didn't turn away. He was a pale old man made solely of skin and bones. He had a daunting white moustache and a broad smile. His eyes, forest green, bore into mine. I remembered seeing him before in a picture, with a plaque underneath reading his name; 'Roy William, Train Conductor'.

The realization hit me like a sack of staplers - unexpectedly and weird. The explosion on the train had come from the conductor's cart, the same cart Roy was in. That bird was there because we were - meaning that Roy had died and it was all our fault.

"The conductor," I whispered. Then anger reddened my cheeks. "Why didn't you tell me someone died? Why would you keep that a secret?"

From my sudden outburst, dead people all around me stopped to look curiously. An angry roar sounded from somewhere close, and everyone started moving again, but at the moment I didn't care what it was.

"Calm down!" Diana ordered. "Stop attracting attention or the Furies might just check us out - and they won't care if Hades owes us or not!"

"We didn't tell you," Johnny said, softer still, "because we didn't want you to blame yourself. Monsters can pick up on both your and Diana's scents, but yours is stronger because Zeus is your dad - so the bird would have to have locked on to your scent to find us...Which gets me wondering why more monsters didn't come after you a while ago..."

"Hang on," I felt like I'd been sucker-punched. "He died because of just me?"

Diana elbowed Johnny in the gut. Another roar arose, and this time it shook the ground at my feet, so I payed special attention to it. About fifty feet in front of us, just visible behind the parting green mist, standing just where the three lanes split, was an elephant-sized black Rottweiler. Eyes daring, teeth baring.

And it had three heads.

Dead people walked up to Cerberus as if this were normal, the two outer lines parting around him, the EZ DEATH line barreling right under.

"He's transparent, like the ghosts..." I muttered, as we shakily made our way closer with our other boat mates.

"No," Diana said beside me, "He looks like a solid dog to me."

"Not to me." Johnny whispered. "Why is it like that?"

Diana paled. "I think...I think I'm getting closer to being dead. B-but why aren't you two...?"

The question went unanswered when the sound of three whips cracking sent us looking up towards the cavern roof. Heading straight towards us were exactly the people, or things Diana had been worrying me about - the Furies; with leathery wings like bats, claws, a mouth full of huge yellow fangs, and glowing yellow eyes, each holding a fire-cracking whip in their hand.

With a terrifying screech, they grabbed us by the underarms, lifting us above the growling Cerberus and the three lines, over the Fields of Asphodel, where people blissfully stood with blank expressions, all the while hearing me and my friends cry bloody murder.

~

As luck would have it, the Furies did care that Hades owed us. In fact, the god of Death himself had sent them to collect us and bring us to his very stereotypical palace.

Right before we passed above the black marble portico exterior, the Furies dropped us in heaps in front of the open two-story-high bronze doors.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the bronze doors had been imprinted with hundreds of murals, depicting every death imaginable to man in gruesome detail - from being trampled by bulls, to sky diving with a broke parachute.

I gaped at it stunned silence, and then Diana stuck a hand in my face and helped me to my feet. The Furies had disappeared by now, leaving only the distant sound of their shrieks as proof that they ever were here.

Beyond the doors, before the actual palace began, was the most magnificent garden - for the flowers there sparkled gold and silver, and the trees held the plumpest looking pomegranates I'd ever seen.

My stomach rumbled. I remembered how Diana had spent the remainder of our money on the motel room, so we couldn't buy food before we came. Absentmindedly, I pulled a pomegranate off a low-hanging branch and inspected it.

Johnny was quick to slap it out of my hand.

"Y/N, are you crazy?" He asked skeptically, leading me by the arm away from the fruit-baring trees and towards the inner palace.

"Are you?" I returned. "You slapped a harmless fruit out of my hand! Who knew you had a grudge against pomegranates?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. Diana, still shaken about the 'seeing-Cerberus-clear' thing, looked like she would have laughed if she weren't in literal hell.

"Don't you remember what happened to Persephone after Hades kidnapped her and she ate some of a pomegranate?" Johnny asked as we entered the obsidian temple.

"She enjoyed the fruit peacefully, without anyone knocking it from her hand?" I suggested.

"No. She condemned her soul here so that now she has to spend winter with Hades. That's why crops die in the winter; because Demeter mourns her missing daughter. You would've had to stay here!"

Suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore, and we pushed into the bronze-floored entrance hall.

Looking up, I realized that Hades's house didn't have a roof, but the cavern roof acted like one high above.

Every nook and cranny and door- and hallway was guarded by skeletons in battle gear - some being in old military uniforms, Greek armour, British redcoats, Canadian army martyrs. Each held a weapon matching their outfit; battle axes, muskets, spears, very, very large guns.

Though they didn't have eyes, the chilling feeling of them watching us lingered as we made out way up the hall, towards another large set of doors.

Two marines holding grenade launchers (I hid a yelp) tilted their heads at us as we approached. If they had faces on top of their skulls, I might've thought they were grinning.

"Do we ring a doorbell or something?" I whispered to Diana.

Suddenly, a hot gust of wind blew in from Persephone's garden, and pushed the doors open. The marines sidestepped, grenade launchers held diagonally over their chests.

The throne room around us followed the rest of the palace's pattern; black marble walls and bronze floors.

Technically, Hades was the first god I'd ever met, but the second I'd talked to. Being the first, I hadn't prepared to see him ten-feet tall and sitting on a huge black onyx throne that was decorated with human skulls.

Intimidatingly, he wore black silk robes, a golden braided crown, and smiled down at me with a wicked grin. His skin was as white as snow, slick hair the absolute opposite. Though scrawny, he had a sort of aura that told me he should be calling the shots. I should be listening to this guy, he should be my master.

Snap out of it, I thought. He's playing mind games.

"Daughter of Zeus, I see you have come to claim your reward for returning a stray soul to the Underworld?" His voice was soft and stern at the same time, a sort of mesmerizing lull.

I took a step forward from the group. "Yes, Hades. You see--"

"Lord Hades." The god insisted. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes in fear of ending up the next human skeleton on his throne.

"Yes, Lord Hades." I corrected. "You see, we know that Prometheus has stolen the Pithos as revenge on Zeus for chaining him to a rock and torturing him. Well, Epimetheus stole it, but that's sort of a side note so never mind. Anyway, that rock is on a mountain in Russia. We were hoping that our reward could be transportation there."

Hades feigned thinking about the matter. Then, in all his ten-foot glory, he stood and walked off the dais, stopping a foot in front of me so I had to look up. He glowered back down at me.

"How, I may ask, do you expect to defeat Prometheus?"

My blood turned cold and I wondered vaguely if I'd paled to his albino skin colour.

"Well--"

"You don't know." Hades finished quickly. "I'm not going to give you transportation if you have no plan to defeat dear old Prometheus. He is the Titan of forethought, so he will predict your arrival. He will kill you without a strain."

Magically, as the god of death spoke, he shrunk so he was now only six-feet high. Even though I still had to look up to meet his cold, steely eyes, I felt my nerves ease in the slightest.

"May I ask a question, Lord Hades?"

"I hate children of Zeus." He replied. I took that as a yes.

"Why can't you, now that you know where Prometheus is, go get rid of him yourself? Or tell Zeus so he can chain him up again? Isn't that easier?"

Hades smiled cruelly, then looked at Diana.

"Gods cannot interfere with a quest unless it is foreseen, and judging by the prophecy, it wasn't." Diana said smoothly. "Right, Lord Hades?"

Like before, he didn't answer the question, but returned it with something almost off topic.

"You I do not owe, which is why your life force falters while your friends' remains intact. I assume you've realized this by now. However, because if this quest fails and the mortals all die - to which I would rather reside in Tartarus - I will grant you this one favour you will find your own way to pay back, in order to accompany your friends on my mode of transportation."

"I'm so confused." Johnny said, and when I looked over my shoulder I saw him hold a hand to his head. "Are you giving us the transportation or not?"

"When you figure out how to defeat Prometheus, boy." Hades said alarmingly angry. I, seemingly, was as much a fan of Hades as he was of me. By definition: not one.

"Now go, find the answer and return." Hades said, using his pale hand to shoo us away. We obliged before the grenade-launcher-wielding skeleton guards could usher us out.

"Any ideas?" I asked as Johnny once again had to pull me from one of Persephone's fruit. We made past the death-engraved double doors before Diana's eyes sparked and she turned on Johnny and I.

"I think I have one."

_________
Questions: