The Third Camp Trilogy: The Chaotic End

Chapter fourteen: Carrie

It burned.

Every part of me burned.

Every second.

Every minute.

Every hour.

Every part of my body burned.

From fire, or the chains, or the poisons, or everything else they did to me.

I couldn't tell which it was, but it burned like the flaming pits of Hades had been set upon me.

I was waiting to wake up, in a cold sweat, yelling or breathing heavily, like so many other nights.

That was the first week.

Now I wait for death, begging Thanos to embrace me, and for me to stand in front of the judges and wait for my sentence, await my trip to the Fields of Punishment. Though, I already knew what my punishment would be, to serve the gods. They had decided long ago.

Well, I guess I already do serve the gods, so as soon as I die it'll be like nothing really changed.

But I had to escape, to prove that I was strong. To prove myself worthy of being Camp Ops' praetor.

"You are leaving." Nyx appeared in front of me.

"Why? Run out of weapons?" I sneered at her.

"Of course not." Nyx glared at me.

"Then why?"

"Do you want to stay?" She raised an eyebrow.

I had forgotten why I had been in such a hurry to get back home, but I knew I had to, so I didn't answer her.

"Your parent made the arrangements." She growled and snapped her fingers.

A wave of darkness overpowered me and I blacked out.

I woke up, body throbbing with pain, on the shore of the Phlegethon river.

Sitting up, I groaned and clutched my head. It throbbed almost as bad as the burning scars on my back.

"Where...?" I glanced at the river and looked around. "Ah, come on... Ares is on the whole other side..."

Suck it up, I thought. Just go and get him, do your job, and get punished for it. Like everything else in life.

I hoisted myself up from the ground, and dusted off my torn jeans. I was without a shirt, which made this whole experience worse.

It made the heat hotter,

it made the cold colder,

and made the pain way more painful.

But I had to forge on.

So I did.

As I trudged through the red-tinted darkness of hell, sweat burned my eyes and cold made my hands numb. But still I marched onward, through the burning heat and freezing cold.

Something in the back of my mind was tugging at my thoughts, making it hard to focus on the mission at hand. I had forgotten something, something important, something huge. But it had nothing to do with the mission at hand, I knew that much, so I ignored it.

Without warning a hideous monster, with three tails and a shaggy wolf-like body, burst out from behind a large cropping of rocks and began to slash at me with it's long claws. I dodged under the swings and quickly climbed the cropping of rocks, pulling out my bow and shooting it as I did so. It withered away from the pain, but it didn't dissolve into golden dust.

I fired shot after shot, hoping to make it crumble to sand, but it didn't. Finally I had to trick it into falling into the river beside me. The river of fire.

The monster wailed as it went up in flames.

I sighed, letting the acidic air burn through my lungs. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the horrible landscape before me, but it was burned into my retinas. Not just from seeing it so many times in person, but from all the horrible nightmares.

Every night.

Every morning.

I would wake up, sweating.

Thinking that I was there again.

Looking terror in the face.

Waiting to be slapped by death's inevitable fate.

Wishing it would be over.

Haunted by the horrible memories.

This was just like every other time I had been in the Pit.