The Protector (Niall Horan)

Chapter 8 - Charon the ferryman takes us to hell

Here is the next chapter, sorry for the long wait but I still hope it’s worth it :) And for those who don’t know I posted a deleted scene for this story in my ‘deleted scenes & one shot’ book, you can find it on my profile. It’s chapter 1.5 :P Anyway enjoy and don’t forget to vote and comment!

Chapter 8 – Charon the ferryman takes us to hell

Jack was right, we did make a scene. I can imagine the headlines for almost every newspaper in the world ‘Flying car spotted, is Harry Potter real?’ or something like that.

I’m sure there were people in LA who saw the flying car, Jack didn’t bother flying higher so people won’t see us, “Why don’t you fly higher? That way less people will see a flying car,” I asked him.

“Easy, when those people say they saw a flying car nobody will believe them, those people will be labelled crazy, and about the pictures everyone will say they’re photo shopped,” he replied focusing his green eyes on the road – well more like the air – I frowned, “Poor people, nobody will believe them.” I said feeling a bit sorry for those people, “Nothing to do about it, the less the humans know the saver they are.” He said, but it sounded like he had it more to himself than to me.

“Look we’re here!” He suddenly yelled making me jump in my seat, why did he have to scream?

Jack stepped out and so did I, I looked in front of me and saw the Hollywood sigh, a smile made its way on my face. I always thought that the Hollywood sigh was pretty awesome.

But what surprised me was that there was a building next to it, I never saw the building before, I frowned, “Jack, what is that?” I asked my friends, “That Niall, is the way to go to the Underworld,” Jack said with a grim look on his face. I can tell he didn’t like that place, not even a bit. I know Jack told me he was in the Underworld before and I know he’s keeping things from me, I wonder what it is but at the moment his mind is set on saving the lads, maybe I can get it out of him when we saved them.

“Let’s go,” Jack said and walked towards the door, I took a good glance at the building. It almost looked like an abandoned train station, Jack pushed the doors open and we walked inside, to my surprise it was full of people. But there was something off about them.

They looked transparent, and they were from all ages, from children till elderly. I knew what they were, this were the doomed souls, the ones who didn’t make it to heaven. I couldn’t help but to feel bad for them, they had to go to the Underworld, I had the change to go to heaven and to become an angel, the same with Jack. “These are the doomed souls, right?” I asked Jack, just to be sure. “Yes, they are,” he replied.

I took a glance at him and noticed he looked at all the faces of the people who passed, I also looked around at the faces and noticed they all had the same expression, grim.

Soon we came at a desk, behind the desk was a middle aged man with black hair and grey eyes, he looked up at us with a grim face. His grey eyes scanned us, “What can I do for you young men? And can I ask how you to died?” He said in a raspy voice. Died? Me and Jack shared a look, the look he gave me showed play-along, Jack turned to the man and said, “We want to go to the Underworld, please. And we drowned in a lake when we went swimming,” he said, if I didn’t know that was a complete lie the ‘dying’ part at least I would have believed him. That’s the effect Jack has on people, with talking he can let you believe anything, he even can let you believe that the sky is green for example. The eyes of the man grew wide and he looked more interested at us, “So, so, you just say you want to go to the Underworld? Mostly they beg me to not take them or to take them to heaven instead. You two are something special I can tell. And a terrible way of dying let me tell you,” he said again in that raspy voice of his and laughed at the end, it was a wicked laugh, not a nice one. “We are indeed special, can you take us to the Underworld Charon?” Jack asked him. Charon? Now I knew who he is, he’s the ferryman who takes the doomed souls to the Underworld! I thought he would look scarier, more skeleton like actually.

“Wait a second,” Charon said with narrowed eyes, “You two aren’t transparent, that means you aren’t death, you two are angels! The blessed ones!” He cried out and rose from his seat, this isn’t going to end well, “Listen to us, and listen well,” Jack warned Charon, something in his tone made Charon sit back down and look at him, he signalled to Jack to continue, “It’s very important for us to go to the Underworld, we need to talk to Hades, your king,” he told Charon in a calm tone. How can Jack stay calm in a situation like this?

“Why do you need to talk to Hades angel? Die and come back later, I won’t bring you to the Underworld,” Charon said crumply glaring at us. He won’t bring us? I guess this was it then, when I was about to turn around Jack’s voice stopped me from doing so, “Wait, probably this will change your mind,” he said and took a single golden coin out of his pocket. I looked at the coin and noticed it was an obolus, an ancient coin. He placed it on the desk.

Charon raised one of his eyebrows, “No, I won’t bring you there. No leave!” He boomed, but Jack didn’t leave, his hand went in his pocket again and placed six more coins on the desk, Charon looked at them greedy, he looked back up at Jack, “For a total amounts of ten obolus’ I will bring the two of you to the Underworld,” he said with a smirk, Jack placed three more coins on the desk, I looked at the coins. Ten golden obolus’, I wonder where he got them from, I made a mental note to ask him later. He took the coins and placed them in his pocket, he looked up at us with a smile, “Thank you for your generous payment, like you asked me to I will bring the two of you to the Underworld!” He told us, he stood up and walked around the desk, “Follow me, gentlemen,” he said and gestured with his hand to follow him, we did. We walked past the souls who begged Charon to take them with him, he just ignored him.

He pushed a door open at the end of the room, when we stepped inside I looked around. To my surprise I saw a pond considering out of grey fog, on the ‘pond’ I saw a big boat without a roof. He walked towards and stepped inside, “Come on, step inside! And I will bring you two to the Underworld, like promised,” he told us.

I looked at Jack who nodded and walked towards the boat. He jumped in and looked at me. I took a deep sigh and slowly walked towards the boat. When I stepped inside and sat down next to Jack, Charon took the anchor – which I just saw – inside the boat and the boat started to automatically float towards the Underworld.

I looked nervously at Jack, only to notice he seemed lost in his own mind. Like he was reliving flashbacks from whatever happened when he was in the Underworld before.

I sighed and looked in front of me. Come on, Niall. You have to this, the guys are there and I need to help them. I’m their protector after all.

And by the way, what’s the worst that can happen? I’m only going to the Underworld, the kingdom of Hades, the God of the death, who can kill me in a heartbeat. And I have to go past Cerberus, the guard of the Underworld, who is a gigantic three-headed dog. And we still have to find the lads.

That was when I noticed a lot of bad things can happen, I gulped, and hopefully this will end well.

So this was it…. The next chappie of ‘The Protector’, Niall and Jack are finally heading to the Underworld, what do you think it looks like? And what will happen with the two of them? Will they succeed their quest of saving the lads? Let me know in the comments :)

I also added Charon in it, like you can see :P I like the Greek Mythology so expect things from those Myths to happen in this story. Also don’t forget to read the deleted scene from this story (chapter 1.5)

dedicated to @AnneHawthorne for making the amaZayn cover :)

Next time I update ‘Secrets’

Stay beautiful my dear Sharkicorns.

-          Jack the Irish leprechaun