Ninja University

The Underworld Isn't Pretty

{Erin's Point of View}

I woke up this evening with a splitting headache, a pain in the neck, and dried moisture all over my body. Daddy probably took me to the underworld for punishment over choking that stupid girl. I stood up, surprised I wasn't in my usual room I stayed in when I came here. Instead, I was in a dungeon-like chamber.

I walked over to the glass wall. It was a two-sided mirror, they could see me but I could only see my reflection. But what scared me the most was my reflection, not that I was being studied.

My head wasn't on my neck. It was floating just above it. There was a lot of blood. My clothes were soaked in dried blood. My face was crusty with it. It seemed my face was forever a mask of horror.

I was dead. And in the Underworld. Crap. This was not good.

***

Skeleton soldiers came to my dungeon cell and, not very politely for Hades' daughter, brought me before the devil himself. My father.

"Oh, Erin. You shouldn't have got in the way of that blade. You wouldn't be here if you had stayed across the arena. Lukas would be."

"Wait. I ran in the way of a blade? That means Dew-"

"Accidentally-" he interrupted.

"Killed me!" I finished, yelling. Hades gave me a disapproving glare and dismissed me.

One of the skeletons grabbed me roughly on my arm and tugged me out of the throne room. I kicked at him, but being all bone, it didn't really faze him. Behind me, the 15+ foot tall doors slammed shut, its booming echo ringing in my ears.

***

The rivers of Styx and Acheron were as grim colored as usual. Charon's ferry could be seen in the distance, yet another soul coming to the underworld. I had been bathed in those waters as a child. It had burned my skin, the most painful thing I had experienced then, but when I didn't die, I became powerful.

The skeletons guided me to the Fields of Punishment. Of course Daddy would send me here. And he most likely made my punishment himself.

"Your father decided your punishment would be seeing your love fall in love with his soulmate, even if he's not here," one of the skeletons, Charles, told me, pushing me into the field. "Have fun." I glared at their disappearing skulls. Idiot skeletons.

Well, here goes. Punishment time, I thought as I turned around. Of course, I didn't think I would see Lukas and a beautiful blonde woman standing in a meadow full of flowers. Beautiful flowers that I instantly hated.

I sneezed, announcing my allergies and that I was there. They didn't seem to notice me. I felt my jaw clench as I stomped over the beautiful flowers over to them. I grabbed at Lukas' shoulder, to pull them apart. My hand went right through him.

I couldn't stop them. This was my punishment. To be helplessly in love and watch that person fall in love with someone else, with nothing to do to stop them. I was helpless and desperate to stop it.

If I can't stop them, I won't watch, I thought as I pulled a knife from my pocket. I took one last look around the beautiful meadow full of my allergies and punishments, before plunging the knife into my eye.