Chaos Rising |BOOK 2| Harry Potter x PJO |Alexandra Marine|

ALEXANDRA MARINE

I was choking on rotten eggs.

The air was intolerably hot, and the sound was way more decibels than the healthy limit.

The entire island of Manhattan could fit in Tartarus. Maybe even more. Red clouds hung in the air like blood bags made to float with a Levitating Charm.

The plains were black as the night-sky, embedded with rough and slightly sparkly diamonds and punctuated by jagged black mountains, fiery chasms and the ground dropped off into a series of cliffs, like never ending steps leading deeper to the heart of Tartarus.

I cursed. 

When I'd been hit by that Killing Curse, I realized I had very less options. 

Option one, I could live the rest of my life in Elysium and wait for the others to join.

Option two, I try not to die, which was too late to do.

Option three was to find Chaos and take control of it. 

Option four was to find Chaos, take control of it, then kill Tartarus.

Somehow, my brain rewired itself to find Tartarus first, because here I was after a long, probably two month nap.

The environment here was designed to hurt, not kill. You'll have to find yourself a monster pet to kill you. I looked down, thankful for my shoes. They were still pretty new looking. 

"Okay," I muttered to myself. "No god knows Tartarus better than me."

The Cocytus roared beside me, lamenting. "You're already dead," one ghost wailed. "What's the use?"

"I've been through here seven times, lady!" I shouted at the river. "You can do better than that!"

"Misery," a ghost sang. "Pointless- everything is pointless."

"Everything is pointless if you look at it that way," I muttered. I took a deep breath. "This is not pointless."

I had my trident in hand. That was that. A dagger or two. The wand was sticking in my pocket.  I almost cried. The ten daggers I usually had were all my favorites. The rest weren't just as good.

Okay, okay, I thought. At least the trident's still there. What else?

No food... okay, that's okay. 

No water. 

Alright, we're screwed.

I looked to the Fiat car that had once crashed in Tartarus from Rome. Arachne had fallen in along with my brother and Annabeth in that same car. And she'd still survived.

Okay, two regular mortals can survive Tartarus. So can you, I told myself. You're the goddess of heroes, for god's sake.

With incredibly painful cramps, I had to limp carefully all the way to the ledge. 

And then I realized how much I hated being human.

(Yes, every god turned mortal goes through that phase, Percy.)

I looked down, and took a deep breath in. The cliff dropped a whopping eighty-three feet, I remembered. I wanted to vomit at the sight of it. The climate wasn't exactly helping either. At the bottom of the cliff was the infamous nightmare version of the Grand Canyon- the River of Fire running through the black plains that went even steeper, to the home of the most terrible monsters, and ultimately to the Doors of Death.

River Phlegethon.

The ultimate destination for purifying yourself and suffering. Drop in for a drink, and you will most likely regret it.