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

ALEXANDRA MARINE

My throat felt like it was filled with hot, burning sand. 

My lips were bleeding, but the blood dried away instantly. 

The rest of the cliff looked impossible to descend—nothing more than a crosshatching of tiny ledges—but I kept climbing down.

I imagined myself growing old in this place. I'd have to swear by the River of Fire at all times. Build a hut made out of empousai skin or something. Die from eternal starvation. 

I shook my head and cleared my head out.

"Stupid," I muttered to myself. "Keep climbing."

My stomach seemed to want to growl a no, but it kept itself quiet.

A dozen billion years later, I finally got down, and crashed into the land. 

Ahead stretched miles of wasteland, bubbling with monstrous larvae and big insect-hair trees. They were usually harmless.

Keyword: Usually.

***

The Phlegethon split into branches that etched the plain, widening into a delta of smoke and fire. To the north, along the main route of the river, the ground was riddled with cave entrances. Here and there, spires of rock jutted up like exclamation points.

The soil felt alarmingly warm and smooth. Under a thin layer of dirt and debris, the ground was a single vast membrane...like skin.

I massaged my neck uncomfortably and tried not to throw up. It was incredibly hard not to.

About a hundred yards ahead, a blister burst on the ground. A monster clawed its way out...a glistening telkhine with slick fur, a seal-like body, and stunted human limbs. It managed to crawl a few yards before something shot out of the nearest cave, so fast that I could only register a dark green reptilian head. The monster snatched the squealing telkhine in its jaws and dragged it into the darkness.

Reborn in Tartarus for two seconds, only to be eaten.

I swallowed some more of the fire water, struggled to my feet and began walking, keeping close to the banks of the river as much as possible.

Red lightning flashed overhead as the day almost came to a close.

Here's the thing.

When it's nighttime in Tartarus, things like the moon don't show up. Instead, the dark red clouds clear away, and all that's left is sparkling red lightning against a dark backdrop.

There are conflicting descriptions of Tartarus. It's a bottomless pit. It's a fortress surrounded by brass walls. It's nothing but an endless void.

I wouldn't say those are wrong.

But times keep changing, and so does Tartarus, just as the gods are changing from place to place all the time.

The best description of Tartarus however, could be that it is the inverse of the sky—a huge, hollow, upside-down dome of rock- with no real bottom but made of multiple layers, each one darker and less hospitable than the last.

I poked with my trident a blister. Inside was a half formed drakon. It burst into a geyser of yellow slime, and the drakon dissolved into nothing.

I came to a stop at the ridge. 

Hermes' shrine. 

Fortunately enough for me, out the fire came a large slice of pizza. 

I made a mental note to thank Hermes later.

I sat down for a whole half an hour, just looking around as giant firefly-like moths and monsters flew above, lighting the place like stars in the dark nighttime sky.