❦𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓮❦ - 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴𝓼𝓸𝓷

𝒳𝒳𝐼𝐼𝐼. 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒫𝒾𝓉

𝒵𝑜𝑒 thought the best way to describe the fields of Asphodel would be to imagine the largest concert crowd anyone's ever seen, in a football field, packed with millions of fans.

Then imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, no beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has happened backstage. Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never start.

It was depressing. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees-Grover said they were poplars-grew in clumps here and there.

The cavern ceiling was so high above them it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. Zoe tried not to imagine they'd fall on them at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass. She guessed the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of her house.

Annabeth, Grover, Percy, and Zoe tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. Zoe couldn't help looking for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead are hard to look at. Their faces shimmer. They all look slightly angry or confused. They will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering. Once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away.

The dead weren't scary. They were just sad.

They crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a blacktented pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION

Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Even from far away, Zoe could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. She could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls-a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. Zoe could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.

Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium. Immediately Zoe knew that's where she wanted to go when she died.

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth said. "That's the place for heroes."

Zoe looked at how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was heartbreaking.

They left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. The colors faded from their clothes. The crowds of chattering spirits began to thin.