by Dani Hoots
“Hold on!” I screamed as the gondola started to pierce through the veil. The gondola shook, thrashing us about. The water, or whatever this shell was made out of, engulfed us. I could hardly breath as I was thrown down to the bench of the boat. Huntley and A.J. fell as well.
I tried to gasp for air but none was coming. My lungs burned as liquid filled them. I struggled, trying to find a way out of this mess. Had this been a mistake? Did these rings not work how I thought they did?
The boat creaked as we spun out of control in Oceanus. I held on for dear life, wishing I could scream but I knew that if I opened my mouth, more water would enter.
I got dizzy, the lack of air affecting me at last. The last thing I remembered was asking my father for forgiveness.
My eyes shot open and I gasped for air, finally finding it. I choked on whatever water that was still in my lungs, hacking it up and spitting it out. Drowning, or almost drowning, was not fun. I didn’t want to die again, especially since I had no idea what would happen then. Mostly I just feared Tartarus. It was like the Krampus of the Underworld, something that should be feared by all. I kind of wanted to run around, telling people to fear Tartarus, that they could be damned for eternity. But I also didn’t want to be labeled as a freak. Again. So I would keep my mouth shut.
Pain shot from my shoulder, as the wound from Chrys’ darkness was still fresh. Being thrashed around by venturing between worlds apparently didn’t help. Go figure. I grasped it, hoping that would help. Nope, it made it worse. Owww…
Chrys was standing above me, clothes clinging to her body. She should have picked a better bra because it was really hard to not look. I guess she had no idea that this was going to happen either.
She looked relieved as I started to get up. She let out a brief sigh. “Thank goodness you are all right. I didn’t think you were going to wake up.”
She glanced down at my shoulder. Shit, she could probably see it now. I was hoping that she would never see it, never remember what happened. It was fine, really. It wasn’t her fault that she had so much power.
“Did I do that?” she whispered.
“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” I coughed some more, as water was still in my lungs. Worse feeling ever. Worse than ODing by far. Well, maybe. It had been a while, and pain can fade with memory. Or at least physical pain could. “What happened?”
A.J. was sitting next to me, as wet as the both of us. He seemed bored, waiting for me to wake up. Such a dick. “We made it through Oceanus. We are on Earth.”
I glanced around. We were next to some kind of river, the gondola sitting in the water, as if it didn’t just transport us from Hell, literally. There were some bridges and… “Holy shit, we are in London. That’s Big Ben!”
Chrys glanced over, still frowning about finding out what she had done to my shoulder, but trying to act as if it was fine since she knew I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. “Okay, that’s what I thought but wasn’t sure. A.J. had no clue, he hasn’t been on Earth for 4000 years and if I remember right, this clock hadn’t been built yet.”
I laughed. “No, no it hadn’t.” I couldn’t believe we were in the city. The sun was just beginning to rise and from what I could tell, Big Ben said it was half past seven in the morning. People were beginning to go about their day and no one noticed as we sat there completely wet with a gondola beside us.
Damn I already loved this city.
“How did we end up here?” I asked. “Not that I’m complaining, this is great. I just don’t understand…. of all the places.”
“I think my mother was here last. The portal was probably already open and such,” Chrys said as she sat down and we all watched the sun rise together.
I wasn’t sure how she was taking all this, especially after seeing my shoulder. She sat there and fidgeted with her ring. A lot was probably on in her mind as she thought about actually being on the Earth. I wondered if she thought it was worth it, going through Oceanus and disobeying Hades. Hell, I wasn’t even sure it was worth it. London, though, from what I heard, was pretty awesome.
“Well, now what?” I asked
Chrys shrugged. “I… I don’t know. What does one do here?”
“Yeah, this is a lot different than when I was on Earth. These buildings are massive, I can’t even imagine how many thousands of men had to carry bricks and climb high to place them just so,” A.J. commented.
I laughed. Finally, I had an advantage over him and was ready to rub it in his face. “No, there are machines that help. It doesn’t take nearly that many men. Though I think first we should get some dry clothes.”
Chrys snapped her fingers and all of our clothes were dry instantaneously.
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” I asked, especially since her shirt had been practically see through.
She shrugged. “Didn’t think about it. Was too busy trying to get you to wake up.”
Fair enough. I glanced around. I didn’t know the city at all, other from movies. “I guess we just explore the city. I’ve never been here.”
“You haven’t?” Chrys asked. “How far away is your home then?”
I laughed. “Quite a ways. Over an entire ocean.”
“Maybe we could visit it real quick?” she asked. She seemed genuinely interested in visiting my home. I didn’t know why, it was a hellhole. It wasn’t like this place, where we could have an adventure like no other. In my hometown, we could pretty much do drugs or go to the arcade. Or both.
I thought about explaining to her how difficult it was to get across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, but I decided not to go into it. “That’s okay, I don’t really want to scare people I knew. Besides, I’ve had enough water crossing adventures for a lifetime.”
She smiled a little bit. It was apparent she was still nervous about being away from the Underworld, of which so was I. A.J. was the only one who was calm about the situation, which was weird. I grabbed her hand, reassuring her it would be alright. “Then should we go explore?”
“Yeah, let’s.”
We started down the walkways when Chrys finally caught sight of The London Eye. She pointed at it. “What is that? Is it a titan? Should we run?”
I laughed. “No, no, that is a Ferris Wheel. A really big one that lets people observe all of the city.”
“Oh, people are in it?” She asked.
“Yup. Each of those little capsules have a few people in them.”
A.J. studied it further. “How does it run though?”
“Oh, through electricity, mechanical engineering, I’m not completely sure since I didn’t do that great in science… or really any subject.”
“Then why exactly are you Chrys’ tutor?”
He had me there. I wasn’t even sure myself. I glanced over at Chrys who was still studying the London Eye skeptically. “So it’s not actually an eye?” she asked.
“No, it’s not. Just looks like one.”
She nodded slowly, as if trying to take it all in. Then she pointed across the water. “What is that? Is it part of Olympus? Should we stay away from it?”
I laughed again. “No, it’s a cathedral. St. Peter’s I believe.” Wow, I couldn’t believe I had retained any history. Maybe it had been from tutoring Chrys.
“To worship a god?”
“Yes.”
“What god?” A.J. asked. “My father, since it is near water?”
I shook my head. “No, a different god of a different religion. I would say we should stay away from it, as I never had one decent memory in a church, but at the same time I kind of want to take the daughter of Hades there…”
A.J. and Chrys just looked at me, confused by what I was saying. I let out a brief laugh. “Never mind, not important. Let’s keep looking around.”
We walked past the London Eye, around the bend of the River Thames. I kind of acted like I knew where I was going, but honestly I had no idea. Most of the things I knew were from T.V. shows.
“Whoa,” Chrys sai
d as she stopped on the sidewalk. Whatever nerves she had starting out were overshadowed by curiosity at this point. “That’s the Globe Theatre!”
Of course she knew that. She looked so excited about it that it made me smile. I was glad she was enjoying herself now, especially after everything. I hoped that if Hades found out about our trip, that he would see that as well and wouldn’t be too angry at us. Yeah, like that was going to happen. “What, was William Shakespeare a friend of yours?” I asked jokingly.
“He was a great mentor, for a short amount of time anyway.”
My jaw dropped. I mean, I knew people in history would have gone to the Underworld, sure, but didn’t really think that she would know anyone so famous in history. Then again I guess A.J. was some kind of king or something. He wasn’t in any of my textbooks that I knew of.
“He was your mentor? What did you learn from him?” I asked.
She shrugged. “English, plays, history. It was fun, but then he went to Elysium like most of my mentors do.”
Well I wouldn’t. I didn’t say that out loud, and was surprised that A.J. didn’t either. Was I the only exception? Why did she even want me as a mentor, anyhow? Why did she even bother saving me?
She had mentioned souls drifting in the rivers in the Underworld if they had killed themselves. Was that where she found me? Was I one of those lost souls and she pitied me enough to sneak me into the palace and convince her father that I was something special? Someone that needed to stick around? If so, for what purpose? I mean, there had to be hundreds of souls out there roaming the Underworld, lost just like I had been. Why did she pick me?
It was something I wanted to ask her myself, but I decided not to. It could have been because I didn’t want to know the answer, or just because I didn’t want to put Chrys on the spot. I could ask A.J. but he probably would just lie, seizing the moment to make me feel bad. It was already apparent that he wished Chrys had never found me.
We kept moving down along the river, letting Chrys get an idea of what the city was like and what the wider world was like. A.J. and her were both amused with all the buildings, taller than anything they had ever imagined. When an airplane flew above us, I thought the two of them were about to have a heart attack.
“It’s a god! What are we going to do? They are going to tell Zeus!” Chrys started panicking. I grabbed a hold of her.
“Breath. It’s an airplane. I told you about them, remember?”
She nodded slowly. “A bit. You said they could fly…”
“Yup, see? They fly. You are safe. Don’t start to worry until you see me worry, okay? Otherwise we aren’t going to get anywhere. You can ask questions, just don’t cause a scene.” Because seriously, people were staring. Not many though, because it was a bustling city after all. No one noticed each other in a city as they tried their best to ignore everything around them.
“Okay…”
“That goes for you as well, A.J.”
He shrugged. “Wasn’t scared.”
Yeah, right. I thought about commenting but knew it would just lead to an argument. I didn’t feel like arguing when we could be exploring this city instead.
There was so much to see, I didn’t even know where to start. Though I guess I was better off than the two of them, as I knew what some of the fun things would be to do, where as they had no clue. You would think after all the mentoring Chrys had, that she would know something about this place. Not really, it was a lot different probably than she had ever imagined. Then again, if I got thrown into Ancient Rome, I would only know a couple of places to go. I just wasn’t used to it, the culture difference was large. It was a wonder we got along so well.
“What’s that place?” Chrys asked after a couple of hours of walking around, exploring.
I glanced over to where she was pointing. “The Tower of London. It’s where a lot of the prisoners were thrown into during the Middle Ages through the Renaissance. Lots of death and famine are tied with this place.”
Her eyes brightened at the idea of death. It was cute, but a little disturbing to say the least. I guess it was what she knew best, but as a human it was a little concerning.
“Can we go in?”
I rubbed my neck. I forgot about money. I had no idea how we were going to do anything here without that. “I think you have to pay to get in and we don’t have money or ID’s for that matter.”
“What does the money look like now? And what is an ID?” she asked as she rubbed her hands together.
“Well, an ID is an identification card. I’m not a hundred percent sure what they look like in England, but for money all we need are little squares about this size.” I motioned my hands in a small rectangle. “They would have our names on them and then numbers to a bank account.”
A.J. pointed at a couple who were at the ticket booth. “Like those things?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Like those.”
Chrys held up her hand and six cards appeared, three IDs and three credit cards. I grinned widely, forgetting that she could do that. “Oh this is going to be a lot more fun than I could ever have imagined.”
We went everywhere.
Seriously, I thought we had traveled all over the world but apparently it still was only the London metro area. We had ventured through the Underground, which freaked me out because I thought we were going to where my dad was. Huntley assured me that we weren’t going to the Underworld, that the Underground was a subway system, a way humans got around the city.
Now we were in Piccadilly, somewhere north of where the gondola waited for us. I felt weird being so far from it, but A.J. had said mortals wouldn’t be able to see it.
There were people everywhere. I never imagined it would be this crowded. I mean, there were a lot of souls in the Underworld, but for some reason it never clicked that there would be so many bodies in one place.
There were moving vehicles, run by magic. Huntley tried to explain how they worked but gave up when I called it all magic. A.J. had the same look of surprise and fear as I did. It made me feel a bit better, as he always acted like he knew Earth better than I did.
This was as an eye-opening experience. I never imagined Earth to be like this and kind of understood why my mother liked it so much. I didn’t think it was better than the Underworld though, nor did I think it was alright for her to act like it was the worse place in all the worlds. I could see one getting sick of things in this world, as Huntley said he was. He preferred the Underworld, or at least that is what he had told me.
I wondered what more we could see, and how much longer we would decide to stay here. I was already getting home sick and missed my puppy. I hoped he wouldn’t give Father much trouble since I was gone for a couple of days. Cerberus always worried when I was gone and wouldn’t listen to Father very well. It was comical, especially since the dog has been around longer than me. Father probably trained it to be like that, and then it got out of hand.
Across from where we were, moving pictures with lights shifted color. I gasped as it seemed to be bigger than any painting I had ever seen, covering the entire corner of a building.
“What’s that?” I asked as I pointed up. People around me looked at me like I was psychotic. Even a guy wearing a white shirt, puffy blue and white striped pants, along with long blue socks with black shoes gave me a suspicious look.
“It’s an advertising screen. Ignore it, everyone else does.”
“How can you ignore that?” A.J. asked. “It’s huge. It’s bright. It has to have some magnificent purpose.”
Huntley shook his head. “Nope. Just kinda there.”
My eyes widened as I saw the statue in the middle of square. “Great Zeus, is that Eros?”
Huntley shrugged. “No idea, I’m not from here, not to mention I don’t know who that is. Probably just a statue with no real purpose to the gods, just happened to pick one and went with it. It’s really weird how different religions are used when it comes to art.”
“Different religions?�
� I asked. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Surely they didn’t worship other gods above my father and his siblings. “I don’t understand, do these humans not fear the gods of Olympus?”
Huntley laughed. “No, far from it. Only a handful of people in the world probably follow those gods. Mostly everyone treats them as myth. No one actually thinks they exist.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After everything my father and his siblings have done for this world, everything they had built, yet they didn’t think that we even existed. That was beyond rude and naive. “How can they not believe in such gods? Who do they think brings plentiful harvest, who do they think brings light during the day and darkness at night? Dreams and nightmares, rain and clouds?”