ੈ｡ﾟ  ･ׂׂ   ✩  RED ⌇˚ɞ act i . . .
change in perspective               

· 。ﾟ *. 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑  TEN,
───── ❛ the world's worst babysitter ❜

  SOMEHOW, AFTER GETTING jumped by a gang of miscreants and almost getting the cops called on them for being the Juvenal delinquents on the news, Percy and his friends found themselves standing on Valencia Boulevard, the golden letters of DOA RECORDING STUDIOS staring back at them. 

It was almost midnight, but the building buzzed brightly with light and life. Well, no . . . definitely not life.

Through the windows and clusters of what seemed like people, they could see a tall and tough-looking man seated behind a security desk, overlooking the crowds in the room.

"Okay," Percy said, taking a deep breathe. "Remember the plan."

"The plan, mhm." Grover gulped, turning about three shades paler and looking ready to throw up. "Yeah, I love the plan."

"And what do we do if the plan doesn't work?" Annabeth inquired, not totally on board with Percy's idea.

"Don't think negatively."

"How are we supposed to think positively when we're walking into a lobby full of the undead?!" Laurie asked hushedly.

"By riding on the fact that your mom lives down there so maybe they'll be lenient. Now come on!" Percy insisted, gesturing towards the door with a harsh tilt of his head.

"Wow, lenient. Another big word for you, Jackson." Laurie remarked as she looked back at him with a falsetto laugh, the boy nudging her closer to the door.

"You two are going to have to get along if we're gonna pull this off." Annabeth scolded the two, pointing an accusatory finger at them.

Laurie wanted to remark on how that was rich coming from her, who'd also fought with the both of them in the earlier times of their quest, but there was no time for that.

The pair grumbled an agreement without sparing the other even a glance, and Percy grabbed hold of the door handle.

"Let's whoop some underworld butt."

Holding in her laughter at his expense, Laurie followed her friends in.

Despite its clean and expensive appearance, the room itself cast an eerie feel inside the kids the minute they were inside. Maybe it was because they were walking amongst spirits of the dead, or maybe it was just because the man at the security desk they were approaching towered over them and practically cast its own shadow.

The man was dressed in a silk Italian suit, the color matched with his bleached blonde hair. His eyes were hidden by sunglasses, but something told Laurie she didn't want to see what they looked like underneath.

For some reason they'd let Percy be the first to speak to the man, whose first words were, "Your name is Chiron?"

The man leaned across his desk with a cold and sweet smile. "What a precious lad," he said in a British-sounding accent. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"

"N—no."

"Sir."

"No, sir."

Smiling in satisfaction, he pinched his name tag and ran a finger underneath the letters, pointing out the A specifically.

"Can you read this, mate? It says C-H-A-R-O-N. Say it with me: Care—on."

Though he felt like he was being mocked, Percy obliged and repeated the name.

"Amazing! Now: Mr. Charon."

"Mr. Charon."

"Well done." He sat back and for a quick moment Laurie thought he was done speaking. Of course though, he wasn't. "I hate being confused with that old horse-man. Now, how may I help you little dead ones?"

Taken aback by his question, Percy looked at his friends for help, and Annabeth came quickly to aid. "We want to go to the Underworld." She said.

With raised brows, Charon's mouth twitched. "Well that's refreshing." He muttered.

"It is?"

"Straightforward and honest. No crying.  No screaming. No 'there must be a mistake Mr. Charon.'" He leaned forward once more with a skeptical look. "How did you die, then?"

Percy nudged Grover and he sputtered out, "Oh! . . Um, drowned . . in a bathtub."

"At the same time."

"Big bathtub."

Charon looked mildly impressed at such an idiotic sounding death. His gazed flickered over and lingered for a moment on the brunette girl that'd yet to speak, who'd let her friends do all the convincing while avoiding any and all eye contact with him.

Sighing, he looked back at Percy and asked, "I don't suppose you have any coins for passage. Normally, you see, with adults I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry cost to your last cable bill. But with children . . . alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."

"Oh but we have coins." Percy told him as he set three golden drachmas on the counter.

"Well now . . . Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven't seen these in . ."

His greedy fingers hovered over the coins. They were so close. Just an inch further. . .

Then he looked up at the kids, sending a cold stare into their chests. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"

"No, I'm dead."

Charon leaned forward and took a whiff of the air. "You're not dead. I should've known. You're a godling."

"We have to get to the Underworld." Laurie blurted out, finally speaking. She looked up at him with glowering eyes, hiding the intimidation she felt as the man looming over her and her friends.

"Ah, so it does speak." Charon sneered. "Knew I smelt an irregular underworldly presence."

Percy glanced nervously at the daughter of Persephone. Even Hades' workers weren't fond of the demigod.

"Come along while you can." He finally told them with a sinister smile, scooping up the drachmas. "If anything, it should be an entertaining day in the Underworld. The boat's almost full, anyways. I might as well add you four and be off."

Wordlessly, he emerged from behind the counter and lead them to the elevator. As they walked, spirits desperately clawed and grabbed at their clothes and limbs like the wind. Charon shoved them out of the way, muttering about freeloaders as he cleared the path.

Once they reached the elevator, which was already filled with souls of the dead grasping their green boarding passes, the kids were squashed in. Charon shoved out two spirits that were trying to join on and threw them back into the lobby.

"Right. Now, nobody get any ideas while I'm gone." He announced to the room full of the dead. "And if anybody moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"

Without as much as a grumble, Charon shut the doors. He then stuck a keycard into a slot on the operating panel and they began to slowly descend.

"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annabeth asked after a long while of silence. Laurie glanced nervously at Charon, unsure if she wanted to hear that answer.

"Nothing." he said.

"For how long?"

"Forever, until I'm feeling generous."

"O—oh." She muttered. "That's . . . fair."

Charon arched a brow down at the young girl. "Whoever said that death was fair, young miss? Wait until it's your turn. You'll die soon enough where you're going."

His eyes then shifted to the brunette behind the daughter of Athena and the boy beside her. "If you're lucky."

"We'll get out alive." Percy said firmly, his fingers rolling around the small pearls he'd received at Santa Monica in his pocket.

"Ha."

Suddenly, the elevator was no longer moving downwards, but forward. The spirits began to flicker and change shape, their modern clothes exchanging for faded gray robes. The floor began to sway.

In the blink of an eye, Charon was no longer a spiffy-looking lad in an expensive suit, but an eyeless, dark-hooded figure. His glasses were now gone, reveling the gaping holes of darkness behind them; his suit had been exchanged for a black, hooded robe.

"Well?" He asked Percy, probably quirking a brow if it had been there.

The boy stared for a moment before managing to shake his head. "Nothing."

The floor kept swaying. Grover looked as if he were about to become the first ever to puke in the Underworld. The elevator wasn't an elevator anymore.

They were now standing in an old wooden barge that Charon was poling across a dark oily river that swirled with bones, dead fish and other odd objects such a as broken dolls, soggy diplomas and cracked watches. The River Styx. Floating with broken dreams and forgotten memories.

"The River Styx .  ." Annabeth awed, gazing down at the void of swirling liquid. "It's so. . ."

"Polluted." Charon finished for her. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you came across— hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."

"But you might want to focus less on that and more on your little friend there."

Annabeth and Grover both turned around to find a frantic Percy shaking Laurie by the shoulder. Only problem was, he couldn't get a good enough grip on her because like the spirits before, her entire form was flickering. The girl looked like a faulty lamp being plugged into the wall for the last time.

"What's wrong with her?" The daughter of Athena exclaimed, eyes darting between Percy and the girl wobbling in her spot.

Percy, who seemed more scared about the ordeal than Laurie was, rambled out, "I— I don't know! She took one look at the Styx and this happened."

"Well make it stop!" Grover exclaimed, gesturing towards Laurie, who couldn't seem to hear them at all and stared blankly down at the boat's cracked floor.

"I'm trying?!" Percy yelled back in an astounded manner, still trying to grab onto the girl's arm.

Annabeth snapped her fingers in front of the girl's distant face and called out to her, "Laurie?? Laurie, can you— can you hear me?"

Laurie could hear the girl's voice, but it sounded like a ghostly shout from miles away. Nothing to grab onto, nobody to look at. All she could see was the haunting current of the Styx moving in slow motion. It felt like the flow was going through her veins, consuming every inch of her. She needed out.

"Guys it's not working." Annabeth said desperately and frustrated. She was a daughter of Athena, for goodness sake, she should be able to figure something out.

The boat stopped. Spirits dispersed every which way and the boat emptied in the blink of an eye. A horrible sound came from somewhere nearby, echoing off the stone walls.

Charon looked at the kids and gestured for them to de-board as well. "I'd wish you luck, mate," he said. "But there isn't any down here.

ೄྀ࿐ ˊˎ-

       THEY'D MADE IT all the way to the metal detectors in front of the "EZ DEATH" gate before Laurie was responsive again. The entire time that Annabeth obedience trained Cerberus the three-headed dog with a rubber ball, Percy was ( with much difficulty ) pulling Laurie along with them like she was a child on a backpack leash.

Getting her out of the boat had been a task in itself. Percy had opted for picking her ups and stepping out with her in his arms, only for her image to fade out then back in again and cause her to slip directly through his hold and onto the ground.

She just stared at her feet the entire time, like she was in some sort of trance that none of them knew how to break. The weird flickering had gotten less violent the further they got from the River Styx, happening only every few minutes instead of every millisecond.

Now, alarms blared as they stepped through the metal detectors, screeching, "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"

Laurie's eyes darted around as she took a deep breathe, letting oxygen fill her lungs to save her from what felt like suffocation. The alarms rang vigorously through her head, rattling her skull like she was hearing for the very first time.

"What the—" she began, only to be cut off by Percy grabbing her wrist and shouting, "Run!"

She did as told, running with her friends as they passed underneath the "EZ DEATH" gate, which only triggered more alarms. As they ran, a surprised Percy realized that he was actually touching Laurie and yelped, "Holy shit, you're okay!"

"I wouldn't say 'okay' but yeah, sure!" She called back to him.

In under a few minutes, they met  back up with Annabeth and Grover, and the four mortals were holding their breathes as they hid in the rotten trunk of a huge black tree while security ghouls scurried past, calling for backup from Furies.

"Well, Percy, what have we learned today?" Murmured Grover.

"To never take a daughter of Persephone to the Underworld unless you wanna play babysitter?" The boy asked. Laurie reached across Grover and punched Percy in the shoulder so hard that he had to suppress a groan of pain.

Oh right, he thought, she can touch me now.

"No," Grover scowled. "That your plans really, really bite!"

After a long while of waiting, they slowly emerged from their hiding place and somehow waded their way into the Fields of Asphodel. It was like a gigantic stadium filled with darkness and souls wandering around in utter nothingness for all of eternity.  

Laurie tried not to think about who she knew that might be here. No no, she told herself. Logan wasn't here. He was in Elysium. He had to be.

They tried to blend in with the crowd to avoid security. It was hard not to look at the shimmering faces of the dead, their expressions some vague space between angry and confused.

They weren't scary, not even a little bit. They were just sad.

The four living followed the lines of newly arrived spirits that snaked around from the main gates towards a pitch black pavilion that read:

" JUDGEMENTS FOR ELYSIUM
AND ETERNAL DAMNATION
Welcome, Newly Deceased! "

Out the back, they could catch a glimpse of two smaller lines that split the paths of fate to either paradise or eternal torment.

Percy's eyes stuck on the location to the right, with its silver and gold blooming flowers, rippling rainbows, and glittering blue lake. Laughter and glee could be heard all the way from the back of the line, the smell of barbecue and freshly baked cookies slipping by.

"That's what it's all about." Annabeth said to him, noticing his interest.  "That's the place for the heroes."

Laurie stared at the same place with a hole in her heart. If only there were some kind of visitors window by the paradise, somewhere that she could stop by just to see him and apologize.

Grover noticed the saddened look on her face and felt the heaviness on her heart. He nudged her with an elbow and said, "He's in there."

With a small, sad smile, she nodded. "I know."

"Come on."

They treaded along as the line moved grudgingly slow, the fields growing darker as the chattering voices around began to thin out.

After a few miles, a horrifically familiar screech echoed through the air. Lurking in the shadows of the horizon were winged figures perched atop of jagged cliffs. The Furies. Something unsettling made Laurie think that they were waiting just for them.

"I suppose it's too late to turn back." Grover gulped as he caught sight of the creatures.

"We'll be okay." Percy assured him, mustering up everything within him to try and sound confident.

"Maybe we should search some other places first," the satyr suggested wistfully. "Like . . . Elysium for instance."

"Come on, goat boy." Annabeth grumbled, grabbing his arm.

After she tugged on his arm, Grover let out a loud yelp. Wings sprung from the shoes on his feet and he shot forward and away from Annabeth. He stumbled slightly and just when it looked like he'd caught his balance, he fell flat on his back in the dead grass.

"Grover, stop messing around." Annabeth chided him with a roll of her eyes.

"But I didn't—"

He yelped once more. The shoes were going berserk now, the wings flapping around and about like crazy. They floated off the ground and took the satyr with them, dragging him away from his friends.

"Shout Maia!" Laurie suggested.

"Maia!" He shouted, but the magic words proved to be useless. "Maia already! Nine—one—one! Help!"

Percy got over his initial shock and reached for Grover, but it was already too late. He was going too far, too fast, skidding downhill like an out of control skier.

"Untie the shoes!" Annabeth shouted as they ran after him, tearing through the Underwold like it had set them on fire.  

You'd think that would  work, but seeing as Grover was flying head-down with his feet in the air, he could only reach hopefully for the laces and never reach them.

They kept sprinting after him, and when it looked like Grover was about to crash-land right through the doors of Hades' palace, the shoes veered a sharp right and snatched him in the opposite direction.

The slope got steeper as Grover picked up speed and his friends struggled to keep up. The cavernous walls narrowed around them as they entered some kind of tunnel, the grass and trees disappeared around them, leaving them on nothing but rock in dim lighting.

"Grover!" Percy called out, his voice echoing a hundred times as loud as it bounced off the walls. "Hold on to something!"

"What?"

The satyr was desperately clawing at gravel, but there wasn't anything in sight even remotely big enough for him to grab hold of.

The tunnel got darker, colder. The atmosphere changed. It smelt evil, clouding their thoughts with horrors that they didn't even know of.

When Laurie saw what was in front of them, she almost fell over at the sudden stop. Annabeth grabbed onto her waist, pulling the girl back into her.

Ahead of them was a gaping dark cavern. And in the middle of the floor, a chasm the size of a a city.

In a panic, the girls realized where they were and that Grover was slipping straight towards the edge.

"Come on!" Laurie exclaimed, tugging at the blonde's arm.

"But that's—" Percy began, only for Annabeth to interrupt him. "The place you described in your dreams, yeah! But Grover's going to fall in if we don't catch him."

Grover was screaming his throat raw and still grabbing at the ground fruitlessly, the winged shoes determined to drag him to an impending doom. For an awful momenta, Laurie didn't think they'd get to him in time.

Then, they saved him by the skin of his hooves.

Thankfully, the stupid shoes had never fit him quite right, and when Grover hit a large rock the left one went flying off. It spiraled down into the darkness, falling victim to the chasm.

The right shoe still fought against them, though not as fast without its partner. Grover had been able to anchor himself down by grabbing into a rock about ten feet away from the pit's opening, where his friends were able to catch him and haul him back up the slope. The other winged shoe yanked itself off, fluttering around in a spastic circle before finally dropping in to join its twin.

In an unspoken agreement, the four collapsed to the ground in an exhausted heap. Laurie felt like her body was going to flicker again and this time explode, tossing her into the chasm with those stupid shoes. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

Grover was absolutely mortified. His hands were covered in bleeding scratches, his eyes wide and terrorized.

"I don't know how . . ." He sputtered. "I
didn't—"

"Wait." Percy interrupted, silencing him. "Listen."

They all fell silent for a few seconds, but it seemed that nobody could hear anything aside from Percy, who looked as if someone was blowing in his ears. A

"Percy, this place—" Annabeth began.

"Shh." The boy insisted as he stood.

The sound got louder and then, they could all hear it. A muttering and mumbled voice of evil coming from far, far below. Coming from the pit.

Grover and Laurie sat up as well. "Wh—what's that noise?" The satyr asked. Annabeth could hear it now, too. It was evident in the stormy look that overtook her eyes. 

"Tartarus." Laurie muttered as she reached towards her hair clip and pulled it from her hair, holding it tightly in her hand. "The entrance to Tartarus."

Percy uncapped Riptide. Their blades gleamed in the darkness, which made Laurie slightly less uneasy. The evil voice didn't seem to like it as much as she did as it faltered for just a moment before resuming its dark chant.

The words were ancient. Even older than Greek. They could almost make them out.

"We have to get out of here." Annabeth said.

____________