The Afterlife (HoO Fanfiction)

Hazel

Seeing Frank charging, we were up on our feet in a heartbeat, ready to go with him. I thought that the gods would help us, but they stayed frozen on their seats. I caught a glimpse of my father among the crowd and I could read terror in his eyes. How could a god be forced to witness the unravelling of its own destruction? And all of it depending on demigods. Had it always been this way? And still, Pluto and all the others had been not that much there for us and we were yet again risking our lives to save theirs.

So we all took our weapons and we threw ourselves towards Ossian and Ananke. We had fought so many times together that it seemed to me almost easy to win against a goddess and a mortal. However, our confidence was quickly struck down when the ground began to shake around us. Suddenly, walls started building around us and we found ourselves isolated from one another.

I recognized the labyrinth in which I was caught while fighting Pasiphae. As I tried to think about a strategy to outsmart the labyrinth, as I had done many years prior, a voice rang in my head.

"You can try to control the Mist, Hazel Levesque, but you can't escape me. I have the power of all the gods in me." It was Ananke's voice, powerful and caressing. She had infiltrated sneakily my thoughts.

I needed a plan, and quickly. What were the dangers around me? How could I modify the labyrinth in order to show Ananke what she desired the most? As soon as these thoughts entered my mind, two gorgons appeared in front of me. I recognized them: they were the ones that attacked Percy upon his arrival at Camp Jupiter.

They threw themselves at me, ready to chop me into bits. I raised my blade and entered another battle, one to protect my own life. In the meantime, Ananke's voice was still resonating in my head. She seemed to be taking advantage of my weakness to keep me from keeping my mind clear.

"Hazel, there's only one thing you have to do to get rid of the gorgons and to save the young demigods you came here to rescue."

I didn't answer, jumping from side to side while trying to dodge my adversaries' sharp nails. I dug my blade deep in the first gorgon's abdomen and it disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of golden powder.

"Renounce the gods, Hazel, it's all you have to do. They must be destroyed."

"No, it's a trap!" I tried to protest.

"Why? I am the inevitable, and the inevitable is that the gods will be destroyed. All they did was ruin the lives of too many people. I will vanish with them, leaving you a world in which the god's petty needs don't exist anymore."

"They are our parents, they created us, how could we betray them?" The second gorgon slashed my arm and I let out a cry of pain. As the blood started flowing out of the wound, I charged again.

"Hazel, you of all people should understand changes. Sometimes authority and the system in which we live is unfair, we have to rise up to change it. You did it sometimes in the streets, to protest against your government... How is this any different? More often than not, religion tears people apart rather than bringing them together, and this has always been true. Why accept this when you are so concerned about including everyone?"

"I..." The words died in my throat. There must be something to answer to that. It was true that I had fought against racism many times, but could this compare to what we were living as demigods? I dodged another attack and sliced the second gorgon's head off in a sharp move in order to send her away, like her sister. I attempted at catching back my breath and clearing my mind.

"The gods helped us to win over Gaia who, just like you, wanted the gods' destruction! Without Hecate and without Pluto, I would be dead!" I shouted to defend myself.

Ananke had an annoyed laugh. "Gaia wanted to give the power to giants and destroy the world as you know it. I want to leave you with what you built. And how can you come to Hecate and Pluto's defence? The former watched you as you fought for your life before deciding if you deserved to live and the later let you die without batting an eye."

As I tried to process what the goddess had just said, a vision came to me. Was it true or was it the Mist? The labyrinth seemed to open to let me see a scene that let me awestruck. A bear was ferociously fighting against Katoblepones. It was badly injured. The bear was losing its energy and changed back to Frank.

I ran to him, brandishing my sword, ready to eradicate all of the Katoblepones in my path. As I was almost at Frank's side, a wall appeared to separate me from him. I cried out in rage.

"Do you think that hurting the people that I love is the way to convince me?"

"But Hazel, I'm only showing you what could have happened. Frank could have died in Venice when you were trying to save the gods."

"But he's not dead! Mars blessed him!"

"And he did so to save himself, at the end of the line," she said, chuckling terrifyingly. "Do I need to remember you all those who suffered for the gods?"

Suddenly, another wall came crashing down and I saw Nico fighting a spectre, whose beard was pointed like a spear blade, while its eyes glittered cruelly. I didn't even have the time to get near him that the wall was reconstructing again and a different one was crumbling to show me Leo, caught in a tornado of fire. This vision blurred away, too.

"Stop it!" I cried. "Leave them alone!"

"Hazel," Ananke continued. "Since birth, you have been cursed. You never lived an independent life. You were cursed by your father and used by your mother. You lost your only friend and first love and you had no choice but to sacrifice yourself for the gods' cause. And you killed your own mother in the process. You gave up Elysium for her. When did you start making your own choices, choices for yourself? You do so much for the gods, what have they done for you?"

"My father allowed me to come back to life," I answered.

"And for what? Is your life better now? You have been sacrificing yourself for others for years now. Your honeymoon was cut short. This was a poisoned gift."

I could not find anything to retort. Ananke was making a point, but there was still something, deep down, that kept me from surrendering totally to her cause. I had to support my friends, I had to find them and not abandon them. There was still a twist in my gut telling me that she was wrong. Still, I switched from an offensive fight to a defensive one. I stopped pushing forward, I was only trying to keep enemies at bay and stay alive.