Stella Darke: Depths of Tartarus

Come Find Me

"What the hell would you know about my mother?"

"Just about everything. I'm a witch, Stella. I can see whats going on in that head of yours and I can feel your pain about your mother." She says as she steps closer to me, but I can't trust this person.

"You don't know anything." I say as I start to back away from her.

"You can trust me, Stella. I'm only here to help you." She says as I continue to back away.

"How do I know I can trust you?" I ask, but as I continue to back up I feel water rushing against my foot, then I completely fall and submerge into the river behind me.

The current starts to pull me under. I can feel the water filling up my lungs as I try to reach the surface, but its pointless, I'm already being pulled to the other side and deeper into the water. As I look up, I see a hand on the other side of the river. The hand reaches down into the water and I grab it. I get pulled out of the water only to see the witch being the one who saved me.

I fall to the ground and cough up all the water that was in my lungs.

"How did you get across?" I ask, still coughing.

"I'm a witch. I can do things a half blood like you cannot."

"Why did you save me?"

"Now, why would you ask that question? Is it because you don't think your worth saving? Because to answer that question that has plagued your mind...you are worth saving, Stella. You can trust me with your life." She says as she smiles.

"I'm sorry, but I have trust issues. It won't be that easy for me to believe you, especially since we are in hell."

"I understand, but don't let that keep you from finding your mother and being able to get answers you have been searching for your whole life."

"I killed my mother when she gave birth to me, trust me, she won't want to see me."

"Don't blame yourself for that, Stella. And, I've spoken to her before, all shes ever wanted was to know you."

"Shes down here? How?"

"When she had a child with Hades, she was already sentenced to an eternity down here."

This is hard to comprehend, but I'm wasting time. I need to find Hades Helm and get out of here.

"Thanks for telling me, but, you have to understand that I'm still alive and I want to get out of here asap. I just need to find that stupid helm."

"Well, I don't know where the helm is, but you may want to look in Hermes' Shrine." She says as she points to an all white building about ten miles ahead.

"You think its in there?"

"No, but maybe there is something that can point you in the right direction." She says as she begins to walk away from me.

"Wait! What do you mean?" I ask as she begins to fade away using some magic-witchy spell.

"May we meet again." Is all she says as she just disappears.

"Thanks." I say under my breathe as I prepare for a ten mile trek.

———

Even though I've had hundreds of near-death experiences, I've never had time to actually think about how I'd die, or where I would go when I died. I know I died when I was stabbed by the manticore and I ended up in some type of limbo. But, when I actually die and don't come back to life, where would I go. Am I destined to go to hell? Or would I go to the good place instead.

Gods, Stel, way to depress yourself even more. This is really all I can think about while walking to the Shrine of Hermes in one of the deadliest places ever. I need to lighten up.

I take out the cornucopia and eat some of what I'm guessing to be prosciutto, but only the gods know, and some olives. I couldn't be anymore greek right now. As I continue walking, I hear a hissing noise behind me and I turn around to find nothing there. I turn back around and continue walking, but I hear it again shortly after. I turn around again to check, whilst pulling my sword out, but nothing. I turn back around again, shaking it off, only to see a 30 ft tall Hydra about 5 yards in front of me.

"Holy shi-." I start to say, but am cut off by one of the heads shooting fire at me.

I somersault out of the way and slice the Hydra's tail with my sword, but it doesn't do anything. My idiot self forgot that Hydra's are fire proof, so I have no chance of defeating this thing on my own. The Shrine of Hermes is about 1000 feet away from me, so I gun it.

I have never ran so fast in my life, but no matter how fast I run, the Hydra followed closely behind. I could feel the heat of its fire-breathe racing against my back as I missed it by an inch. To distract it, I make a very not wise, and not approved by Annabeth decision and throw my sword at its eye which only distracted it for about ten seconds. Those ten seconds put at least 100 feet between us as I never looked back and just continued running.

I approach Hermes' Shrine and run right through the door and shut it. As I shut the door, I lean against it, trying to catch my breathe.

"I just out ran a Hydra. Kudos to me." I say under my breathe, seeing as I have no one else to talk to.

So, the witch said I have to find something that will point me in the right direction. Which will narrow it down a bit as I look at the stacks and stacks of random things. I begin sorting through everything and finding lots and lots of flying shoes.

"Pfff. Luke was not wrong about Hermes' having hundreds of these things." I say to myself, I really need to break this habit of talking to myself.

After about ten minutes of searching, I am totally lost. Like literally lost in all of Hermes' stuff. He has the most random things lying around and only like a quarter of this stuff is actually helpful. I grab a bow and a couple of arrows since I ditched my sword earlier. Then, something gold catches my eye. A golden compass.

"'Something that can point me in the right direction.'" I remember the witch saying which totally makes sense with this.

I take the compass in my hands and it starts pointing all over the place. Until, it stops and points a little to the right. Maybe its pointing to Hades' Helm. I'm just gonna take the chance that it is.

As I prepare to leave and follow where the compass is pointing, I see something that gives me hope. Its a distressor. Its kind of like when a satyr can use an empathy link to send a distress signal to someone, but without the satyr. I grab it and hold it in both of my hands. This will connect me to who I love the most and I can feel it working. But, who I see confusing me all the more.

"Luke?" I ask hoping he can see and hear me.

"St-Stella?" He asks confused. "How can I see you?"

"Luke, listen to me. I'm in trouble and I need your help. Please get this message to Percy at camp. Tell him that I'm alive and in Tartarus and-." As I try to continue to talk, the connection starts to fade away.

"Stella?" I hear Luke ask. "Whats going on?" He sounds worried.

"Luke? Luke??" I ask as he starts to disappear.

I fall back to the ground uncertain of whether or not it worked. But, I smile because this gives me hope that they will find me. I feel hope and its the only thing that can keep me going.