Greek Times for a Future Girl

The King of Thessaly

"New arrival in the Grove of Despair!"  I shot up out of bed when the sound of Pain's voice scared me awake.

"Geez, Louise, how can such a tiny thing yell so loudly?" I yawned. "It's 12:30 on a Saturday. People are trying to sleep."

I then got up and was ready to make sure all this was normal. I put my Celestia dress on, not realizing what it was until the last minute, but I was too lazy to change clothes, and sauntered downstairs to see what the commotion was all about.

I saw the imps standing by the River Styx. I couldn't tell if they were waiting on me or the boat to get there, so I decided to break the silence that was present.

"I'm awake." I yawned.

Panic smiled up at me. "And in good timing! C'mon, we're gonna see what sorry soul got dumped in the grove."

I facepalmed and groaned. Of all the puns in existence, he had to go with the cheesiest one? And at this early on a Saturday morning? I noticed that Pain gave a similar annoyed look.

"How long did it take him to come up with that?" I asked him.

Pain whispered to me. "He's been saying that lame pun for years."

The three of us teleported to the Grove of Despair, which is more like a section in Asphodel where the souls just go and cry their unbeating hearts out when they just hate being dead. It's not an official place in the Underworld, but more like a really depressing rest stop. Anyway, when we arrived in the Grove, we appeared in front of a fat man emotionally eating what was a chicken leg.

Panic then started reading off a list from a clipboard to the dead guy as Pain was taking measurements. "Okay, now that you're dead, you might feel disoriented, dazed and/or a general malaised. This is normal."

The guy then snatched the clipboard and started looking at it in disbelief.

"Excuse me? Dead?" the guy repeated as felt his chest, which I noticed to be a little too squishy to be dead. "I'm not dead."

"Oh yeah, he's confused alright." Pain said as he lassoed up the guy with the measuring tape he was using.

"I dunno, boys. He looks a little..." I made hand gestures to identify his weight. "Fleshy for a dead guy."

The guy then noticed me standing in front of him. "You're not dead?!"

Was that all he could talk about or was he brain dead on other subjects?

"I work here, pal." I told him.

"Whoa, we're gonna have to grease the doorway of the Underworld to get this one in." Panic snickered when he poked the guy's stomach.

"Lift 'im up and move 'im out, my boys." I gave the order.

But just as they did, the weight of the soul's body was literally crushing the imps. His weight should've been dead after coming down here. How much did this guy weigh as a deadbeat?

"I think I slipped a discus." Panic groaned.

"Sheesh! It's like he's still alive!" Pain complained. "Have a salad."

Wait a minute, I remembered this episode, and I knew that this guy was actually still alive. He was down here because he was a king and the idiot tried to impersonate Zeus to get his people to worship him but got electrified when the actual king of the gods found out. That's one of the biggest rules of Ancient Greece, or any ancient civilization that worshiped deities, that a person couldn't do unless they had a death wish.

"Uh, guys?" I addressed the imps with a worried look. "I think he is still alive."

"Oh no." Panic moaned in fear.