After it all

Charles Beckendorf floated through the city that was the Elysium. The buildings were white and flickering with once vibrant colors. He'd learn that these were the ghosts of house themselves. Houses had ghosts. Who knew?

He was heading to the place he spent most of his afterlife.

He waved to Zoë Nightshade, a fine girl he met on his first day. She smiled at him before returning to a conversation with her friend Pheobe, a Huntress who'd recently died.

The Elysium was nice for the most part. Everyone was kind and people acted more like a family than strangers. There was always good food, even if they didn't need to eat, being dead and all, and at night there were campfire stories that never got old because new ones were always coming in.

The last of the houses were coming up, where they gave way to the cities walls. Towering stone walls that They looked impenetrable but Beckford knew otherwise. He knew the secret passage. He found it weeks ago.

He hadn't missed a day of going. Not since he found out.

The day he realized he never could be happy in the Elysium.

He ran his hand along the stone cement, and counted to exactly 317. Then he tapped the brick 4 times. And the secret passage way opened. The wall opened and the silent twisting spiral staircase extended into a dark oblivion.

Beckendorf followed it fearlessly.

The darkness seemed to extended forever. The silence that had accompanied his walk was slowly filled. The not-so-pleasant screams of the fields of punishment that lay beyond the dark catacombs.

He kept walking, his stomach churning, the memory of uneasiness. The stair case ended and it open to an arch way. The terrain was flat with grass that came all the way up to the waist.

It moved in an invisible wind. Just like the spirits that wandered in it. The silence was almost deafening.

Beckendorf stood at the edge of the field. He scan the lines. But she was still there.

She was always there.

She never moved.

Beckendorf choked on his own tears.

He stood at the edge of the grass. He couldn't pass the grass She couldn't pass the walls. Not that it would matter.

Beckendorf watched Silena stare right through him.

She might have died a hero. But it wasn't enough for her to gain Elysium. She stood in the fields and she didn't recognize him.

She didn't remember him.

Beckendorf let the tears fall down his face.

~~~

Eh not my best.

~Greenninjagal