The Angelos Chronicles: The Otherworldy adventures

Chapter three- A confession under the stars

I awoke to the sound of the crickets outside, I groggily looked up at the window and saw the pitch-black sky, the beautiful stars shining brightly onto the forest. I must've slept into the night. I sighed madly at myself, there was no way i was gonna be able to fall asleep now, i walked to the kitchen, flicking on the lights so i could make myself a bowl of cereal, i poured the milk in, then the cereal after, and grabbed a spoon from the dishwasher that i hadn't re-loaded yet. I stuck it into the bowl full of cereal and looked at my outfit, the jeans were rubbing against my thighs making annoying, scratchy rashes appear. I walked to my room and dug through my hamper looking for my sweats and a clean sweatshirt. I changed- taking off my binder and shoving on the sweatshirt which was large enough to cover everything. I grabbed my phone from where I left it on the charger and my white bluetooth headphones, looking outside before deciding to head out there and look at the stars. I opened the screen door and got engulfed in a cold breeze, I put on my playlist and walked down to a patch of open grass. I loved this spot for star-gazing. None of the stars and constellations were obstructed by the distant city lights or trees, just the pure night sky. I could feel the dew on the grass I was laying on, though I didn't care. My head snapped to the screen door as I heard it creak open. I took one headphone ear off so I could listen and saw Artemis lay down next to me in the moonlight. "Couldn't sleep?" She questioned, not taking her gaze off the stars shimmering in the sky. "Yeah." I quietly said. We laid there for a while, sitting under the silence cast over by the stars. I was the first to interrupt it. As much as I wanted to keep it a secret, I knew that if I could trust one person with this information- with this secret- it would be Artemis. "Can I tell you something?" I questioned, still gazing at the brightest star in the corner of my vision. She nodded and I continued, "When I was in the land of the lost I met a kid there." I announced, feeling the pressure lift of my shoulders. "Oh really?" She started, "Tell me more." I gulped and started telling her about him, "His name is Noah Rivian, He helped me and became a good friend of mine, he's really-" "Really what?" I blushed, hoping she couldn't see it in the shadows. "Nothing." I said, dismissing my slip-up. We stayed in silence for a little longer before I asked, "Have you ever fallen in love?" I knew it was a personal question, but Artemis didn't look even the slightest bit taken aback. "Yes." I turned curious,"With whom?" She looked up at a particular constellation, "You see that right there," She started, pointing up at a constellation i didn't know of, "Yeah, why?""That is the giant I fell in love with, his name was Orion. He was the first and last man I will ever love romantically." "You say 'was', is he dead?" I knew that now I was getting a little too personal, and I wouldn't have minded if she wouldn't answer, but alas, she did answer, "Yes, he died due to a scorpion. He was my best friend, he hunted with me. Apollo never liked him though." "Oh..." I trailed off, but then found it in me to start up again, "I can relate to that, actually." Artemis looked at me oddly, waiting for an explanation, "I think... I fell in love with Noah. But... he didn't make it. Black soil from the ground took him when we entered the doorway. He died before he had a chance to even see the sky." Tears sprung to my eyes and my voice became crackly, but I continued, "I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye..." She said, "Not many people do. Not many like us at least." I couldn't take it anymore, and started balling my eyes out, the faint music still playing from my headphones, my vision blurred, my nose was runny, and my sweatshirt sleeve was disgusting with tears and wiped snot. I cried for a while, somewhere along the way Artemis embraced me, not seeming to care about the tears all over her T-shirt. Eventually the waterworks stopped, my eyes were puffy and my face was red, but I shakily stood up and walked back to my room, taking a cookie from the table when I passed by and saying goodnight to Artemis. I crashed down on my bed, missing the fresh, crisp, cool air from outside as i layed in my unmade bed. I took a small nibble of the cookie, then placed it on the windowsill. The emotions and essential trauma dumping had tired me out enough that I didn't need to scavenge for the melatonin. I didn't fall asleep though, the dryness of my throat had come back, so I walked down the hallway to the laundry-room that led into the garage, i jumped across the creaky floorboard and silently opened the door, going into the fridge we had out there and grabbing a soda before heading back inside, i closed the door and scuttled down the hallway, entering my room and turning on the lights, i paced for a while, thinking about Noah. It might've sounded stupid, that I was crying so much and caring so much about somebody I had only been friends with for a few months. I decided it was time to face the facts, to stop sitting around and doing nothing. Noah went somewhere, and I had a pretty good suspicion where. I went to my bookshelf and grabbed a book on Greek mythology. I was forced to read it for a project in the fifth grade. I flipped toward the chapter labeled, 'The underworld'. Of Course it wasn't necessarily natural to die by being sucked into the ground with black dirt, but I had a feeling it had something to do with the fact that Noah kinda broke the rules of time. Obviously if I were Hades or Thanatos or whoever was responsible for death I wouldn't want some dumb kid escaping and living in the world as a kid from a time that would make his age physically impossible. You'd have to kill the kid to keep order in the world.So what was the easiest way to save a dead guy, going to where the dead live? Only issue, how in the frickity frack crack do I go to the underworld without dying. It's not exactly like they just put up a glowing sign in the sky that says 'UNDERWORLD ENTRANCE HERE:" with an arrow. This might be harder than I thought. I flipped through a couple pages of the book and saw something about the entrance being somewhere in california. This was definitely going to be harder than I thought.