▃▃▃ ᴅᴏɴᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ʜᴇʀ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴏꜰ ɪɴɴᴏᴄᴇɴᴄᴇ ꜰᴏᴏʟ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱʜᴇ ɪꜱ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ʙᴀᴅ-ᴊ ɪʀᴏɴ ᴡᴏʀᴅ
▃▃ ʙᴏᴏᴋ 1 ▃▃ In which the only daughter of Persephone sneaks on a quest to see the world for the first time since she's been at camp. The daughter of wisdom...
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𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⭑ ‧₊˚ ⋅ જ⁀➴๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⭑
Hell was nothing like Elara imagined. It resembled a vast football field, densely packed with as many souls as you might see at a Taylor Swift concert. Yet, an eerie silence hung in the air, and a dim, oppressive light cast long shadows, as if something tragic had just occurred.
The field was filled with empty souls, whispering quietly as if they were waiting for something monumental to happen. The black grass, trampled by eons of dead feet, crunched underfoot. A warm, moist wind blew through the air, reminiscent of the breath of a swamp. Clusters of black trees grew sporadically, their twisted branches reaching out like skeletal hands.
The cavern ceiling loomed so high above them it could have been mistaken for a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites. These glowed a faint gray and were wickedly pointed, threatening to impale anything that dared to ascend.
Elara and her companions tried to blend into the crowd, keeping a wary eye out for the security ghouls. The dead spirits all wore expressions of mild anger or confusion. Occasionally, they would approach, their voices a cacophony of chatter, like bats twittering in the night. Once they realized Elara and her friends couldn't understand them, they would frown and drift away.
However, some spirits approached Elara with a different purpose. They bowed to her, recognizing her lineage, and then silently moved on, leaving her with an unsettling mix of reverence and dread.
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 the back of the tent came two much smaller lines. To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path towards 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, Elara could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.
She could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top.
And she saw worse tortures, too - things she didn't want to see. The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down towards a small valley surrounded by walls- a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld.
