Sunburn- phoebus apollo

-xviii. they find out the truth, and it ain't pretty

THE FIELDS OF ASPHODEL was like a really big concert crowd full of dead people. 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 told them they were poplars-grew in clumps here and there. The ceiling was so high above them it might've glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. 

Rhea, Annabeth, Grover, and Percy tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. Rhea 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. Some spirits tried to speak to them, but their voices sounded like chatter, like bats twittering. One they realized Rhea and her friends couldn't understand them, they'd 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 black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION 

Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out of 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, Rhea could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. Rhea could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top, along with worse torturers too-things she didn't want to describe. 

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. Rhea 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. Rhea immediately knew that this was that that's where she wanted to go when she died.

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth said, like she was reading her thoughts. "That's the place for heroes." 

Rhea then thought about 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 depressing. 

They left the judgement 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.

After a few miles of walking, they began to hear a familiar screech in the distance. Looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. Above the parapets swirled three dark batlike creatures: the Furies. Rhea got a nasty feeling that they were waiting for them. 

"I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.

"We'll be okay," Percy said in a half-hearted tone.

"Maybe we should search some of the other places first," Grover suggested. "Like, Elysium, for instance....."

"Come on, goat boy." Annabeth grabbed his arm.