Arden

37. Detonation Part 2

37. Denotation Part 2

That moment where everything blows up in your face. -brittany.

***

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" I screamed.

"Aye, watch your mouth." Zane coughed as he stood up and dusted charcoal off him.

"Yeah, I have to agree with Arden," Nikki shook her head while coughing. "What the fuck?"

"Calm down, we're still alive."

We're still alive?! Who the hell cared, I almost died of a freaking heart attack!

"Still alive, you don't just drop 500 feet into the ground and say we're still alive!"

"Shh, you might wake something demonic up." Ali told me.

I rolled my eyes and finally took in my surroundings. Whoa. So this....is the underworld.

It was dark, yet beautiful. It looked like we were in a huge cave but the ceiling and walls were a black rock, rigid and outlined with thousands of crystals.

Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, a few of these would have anyone set for life. "Relax, none of Nikki's relatives are down here." Zane replied to Ali's previous statement.

She glared at him. While her and Zane started to go at it, I admired the Underworld better. Next to us was a river, it was dark blue and the waters were traveling slowly. There were also tiny crystals floating in the water.

It looked gorgeous.

I looked back up at the ceiling, which had closed up, and looked at the gems outlining it. It almost looked like a night sky with tons of stars.

"What's with the diamonds?" Ali asked.

"Hades is not only the god of the Underworld, but he's known as the wealthy god. All the riches in the world belong to him." I explained.

"So, he's loaded?" Nikki asked.

"Basically." I sighed. "Alright, guys, we need to move. First we find the 'Kai', then we get Ace back." I pushed the hair out of my face. "Zane, lead the way."

We were about to move out but he paused. "Wait, where's Armani?" He asked.

We all looked around worriedly and then Ali spotted her.

There was a huge lump of pebbles and rocks, obviously covering Armani. Ali brushed the rocks and pebbles away to reveal Armani.

She was coughing as dust covered her entire being. "Are you okay?" Nikki asked.

Armani just sneezed in response. She laughed, "That was awesome! Can we do it again?!" She jumped as she patted her hair down.

"Alright, let's move," Zane spoke gruffly. We all followed him as he started to lead us down alongside the river. "This is the Cocytus." He explained gesturing to the river.

"The river of wailing." I pointed out.

"Exactly." Zane replied as we made our way alongside it. The Underworld was big, I wonder how long this was going to take. "Don't fall in, or else there's a slight chance you'll spend eternity as a miserable lifeless soul."

Okay, seems depressing.

"Are we going to see that guy on the boat. Don't we need money or something?" Nikki asked.

Zane shook his head. "This isn't a field trip, Nikki." Zane teased her. "Plus, you won't see Charon; he rows over the Acheron River. We won't cross paths with him."