The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.

"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"There's a court for dead people?" Percy asked.

"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare—people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward—the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."

"And do what?"

Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."

"Harsh," Percy said.

"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."

A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.

"Nope." Sophie hummed quietly. Her memory was really bad... like really, really bad.

Percy said, "What're they doing to him?"

"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur—the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him."

"But if he's a preacher," Percy said, "and he believes in a different hell..."

Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn—er, persistent, that way."

They got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now that it shook the ground at their feet.

Then, about fifty feet in front of them, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.

They hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at them.

The dead walked right up to Cerberus—no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"I'm starting to see him better," Percg muttered. "Why is that?"

"I think..." Annabeth's voice shook slightly. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

"He's kinda cute." Sophie said, personally she'd been able to see him fine the entire time.

The dog's middle head craned toward them. It sniffed the air and growled.

"It can smell the living," Percy said.

"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to Maisie. "Because we have a plan."

"Right," Annabeth said, sounding majorly unconfident. "A plan."

They moved toward the monster.

The middle head snarled at Percy, then barked so loud the ground shook

Percy took the big stick out of his backpack—a bedpost he'd broken off Crusty's Safari Deluxe floor model. He held it up, and tried to channel happy dog thoughts toward Cerberus—Alpo commercials, cute little puppies, fire hydrants.

"Hey, Big Fella," Percy called up. "I bet you don't to play much."

"GROWWWLLLL!"

"Good boy," Percy said weakly.

Percy waved the stick. The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads also trained their eyes on the son of Poseidon, completely ignoring the spirits. Percy had Cerberus's undivided attention. But that maybe wasn't such a good thing.

"Fetch!" Percy threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. They heard it go ker-sploosh in the River Styx.

Cerberus glared at Percy, unimpressed. His eyes were baleful and cold.

So much for the plan.

Cerberus was now making a new kind of growl, deeper down in his throats. One head was trained on Percy, one of Annabeth and one on Grover.

"Um," Grover said. "Percy?"

"Yeah?"

"I just thought you'd want to know."

"Yeah?"

"Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice. After that...well...he's hungry."

"Has anyone got a dog toy?" Sophie asked looking at her friends, all of them shook their heads or looked around frantically hoping to somehow find a dog toy. "A bone a ball..."

Annabeth's face lit up as she paused for a second and reached into her pocket pulling out a read bouncy ball.

Annabeth seemed ready to do it, but Sophie motioned for the girl to give her the ball instead. The dog hadn't growled at her in particular yet.

Before anyone could stop her, Sophie raised the ball and marched straight up to Cerberus.

She shouted, "Hey Cerberus! Hey boy! See the ball? You want the ball? Sit!"

Percy wanted to scream at her to stop being such and an idiot, but he was afraid they'd all become doggie treats if he did that.

But the dog listened falling back on his haunches as two of his three heads tilted sideways and the other started panting happily. A loud banging started and Sophie realised that he was wagging his tail which was hitting the floor.

Sophie grinned, "Goooood boyyy!"

Sophie threw the ball up to him.

He caught it in his middle mouth. It was barely big enough for him to chew, and the other heads started snapping at the middle, trying to get the new toy.

"Good catch! Now, drop it.'" Sophie ordered.

Cerberus's heads stopped fighting and looked at her. The ball was wedged between two of his teeth like a tiny piece of gum. He made a loud, scary whimper, then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten nearly in half, at Sophie's feet.

"What a good boy," she said, praising the semi-truck sized dog. He wagged his tail happily, and she picked up the red ball, ignoring the monster spit all over it.

She turned toward the other three. "Go now."

"But-" Percy started.

Sophie looked at Annabeth. Annabeth nodded and said, "EZ DEATH line—it's faster."

Percy frowned. "Wait—"

"Hurry up!" Sophie said.

Percy looked unsure, but he followed Grover and Annabeth as they warily inched forward.

Cerberus started to growl.

"Cerberus." Sophie gasped like she did whenever any of her grans dogs didn't listen.

Cerberus whimpered and laid down. His ears flat against his heads.

"If you want the ball no growling," Sophie said squeezing it so it squeaked, with her grans dog Dove, you could always convince her to do more with a squeaky toy.

"What about you?" Percy asked Sophie as they passed her.

"I'll be there in a minute."

Percy was shocked by how confident she sounded.

The three demigods walked around the dog. Two of its heads looked at them with narrowed eyes. But he didn't move. Didn't even growl.

"Good boy!" Sophie praised.

She held up the tattered red ball, and rewarded him by tossing it. The dog jumped up to his feet, and his left mouth immediately snatched up the ball up, only to be attacked by the middle head, while the right head moaned in protest.

While the dog was distracted, Sophie briskly walked under its belly and joined the other three at the metal detector.

"How did you do that?" Percy asked her, in awe.

"Thank Annabeth, she was smart enough to bring a ball," Sophie credited.

They were about to bolt through the EZ DEATH line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths, and Sophie felt compelled to stopped.

She turned to face the dog, which had done a one-eighty to look at them.

Cerberus panted expectantly, the tiny red ball in pieces in a puddle of drool at its feet.

"I'm sorry," Sophie said, really meaning it. "But I have to go."

The dog's heads turned sideways, as if worried about her.

"I'll come back," She promised, "I'll play with you again.

Cerberus let out a happy bark wagging his tail, although she noticed that the middle head was looking down.

"Let's go," Percy whispered to her, gently grabbing her arm to move her along.

But when they pushed through the metal detector, it immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"

They ran and burst through the EZ DEATH gate, which started even more alarms blaring, and raced into the Underworld.

A few minutes later, they were hiding, out of breath, in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls scuttled past, yelling for backup from the Furies.

Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"

"That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?"

"No," Grover told him. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"

Sophie frowned, hearing Cerberus's cries in the distance, longing for his new friend.

Imagine the largest concert crowd in the history of forever. A football field packed with a million fans.

Now imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never start.

That was the only way Sophie could describe the Fields of Asphodel. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees—Grover informed them that they were poplars—grew in clumps here and there.

The cavern ceiling was so high above, it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. Dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass.

Sophie, Annabeth, Grover, and Percy tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. Walking through herds of spirits, Sophie realized something: The dead aren't scary. They're just sad.

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 toward 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, Sophie 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.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns.

Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium.

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth said, "That's the place for heroes."

Sophie noticed how there were such few people in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was a depressing thought.

They left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. The colors faded from their clothes. The crowds of chattering spirits began to thin.

After a few miles of walking, they began to hear a familiar screech in the distance. Looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. Above the parapets swirled three dark batlike creatures: the Furies. Waiting for them.

"I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.

"We'll be okay." Percy said, trying to sound confident.

"Maybe we should search some of the other places first," Grover suggested. "Like, Elysium, for instance..."

"Come on, goat boy." Annabeth grabbed his arm.

Sophie let out a small shreak as the shoes started flying tugging her to the side.

She landed flat on his back in the grass.

"Sophie stop messing about," Annabeth said coming over to help her up.

"but I didn't-"

She shrieked again. Her shoes were flapping like crazy now. They levitated her off the ground and started dragging her away from the other three.

"Maia!" She yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect. "A little help here!"

Percy got over being stunned and made a grab for Sophie's hand, but too late. She was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled.

They ran after her.

Annabeth shouted, "Untie the shoes!"

Easier said than done when your shoes are pulling you along feetfirst at full speed. Sophie was floating upside down now, her blond hair dragging across the gorund. She tried to sit up, but she couldn't get close to the laces. Each time her fingers grabbed them the shoes would jolt her forwards and she'd lose her grip.

Percy thought Sophie was going to barrel straight through the gates of Hades's palace, but her shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.

"Percy! I entirely blame you for this!" Sophie called starting to feel like she'd throw up.

The cavern walls narrowed on either side. They'd entered some kind of tunnel. No black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot, and the dim light of the stalactites above.

"Sophie!" Percy yelled from behind Annabeth, his voice echoing off the cave walls. "Hold on to something!"

She was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow her down.

The tunnel got darker and colder. The hairs on Sophie's arms bristled.

The tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern the size of a city block. The same pit Percy had saw in his dream.

Sophie was heading right for the edge.

Percy pushed himself faster willing himself to catch up to her.

Sophie was staring back at him, clawing at the ground, but the winged shoes kept dragging her up and toward the pit. Percy was running out of ground. he hoped he'd be able to stop her momentum in time before she ran off the ledge.

Percy knew he was running out of time, so he took four huge strides and leapt up and grabbed Sophie's arm. But he felt the bottom of his feet leave the ground due too the pull of the shoes, but it only took a moment or two before Annabeth and Grover had wrapped their arms around him and pulled him back down.

Sophie was still hovering upside down above the cavern. But the pull of Percy, Annabeth and Grover was stronger.

The shoes slowly came off Sophie's feet (due to her always tying her laces really tight) and fell into the cavern.

But gravity existed. So Sophie who had just been flying above the cavern quickly fell downwards her stomach hitting the wall at the side.

Percy, was still grabbing onto her, he felt a hard jolt in his arm as Sophie stopped falling now only hanging onto him with her hand.

"Hang on!" Percy called down "Were gonna pull you up."

Sophie looked down towards the cavern then back up at Percy her golden eyes sparkling at him, he didn't fail to notice her dilated pupils or the tears glistening the bottom of them.

But Percy could feel her hand slipping, he tried pulling her up and he was almost there, but her fingers slipped from his grasp and Percy watched her plummet into the darkness below. 

AGHHH WERE GETTING SO CLOSE TO THE END!! just two more chapters,

I don't have much to say here tbh, Also my friend is writing a httyd fic soon, go check her out 

Blake 🫡