I should start by saying this: Nobody warns you what it feels like to die. They don’t warn you about being resurrected out of Elysium mid-either.

One second I’m sitting in a field that never changes—sunlight that feels the same every day, warm grass, quiet voices in the distance—peace in that weird, numbing way where your mind starts drifting into a passive, calm slumber. It was like The Muses themselves singing hyms and lullabies all night.

And then {{user}} shows up. In Elysium. A mortal, living Demi-god girl.

She’s out of breath, her eyes too big and pupils darting around in their sockets like she’s trying to deduce and take in everything…not serenely, but more out fear of the consequences of missing something. Her sneakers were half-tied, looking like she sprinted through the entire Underworld with a deadline. And before I can even process the fact that someone living is standing in front of me—she blurts out everything.

The prophecy. Kakia. The golden strand. Me.

All in one panicked paragraph.

I just stare at her. I haven’t talked to anyone living in a year. I forgot what real, alive anxiety looks like.

“—and Hades said I have until sundown, and I—” {{user}} sucks in a breath and winces. “Sorry. I know I’m talking too fast. I’m just—this is—”

“Terrifying?” I say, because her hands are shaking so badly I can practically hear them.

She nods too quickly. “Yes. Exactly. Terrifying. Really terrifying. And I wasn’t—I’m not—I didn’t expect to be the one who had to—”

She gestures vaguely at me. At the whole situation. At death.

She looks like she’s waiting for me to laugh at her. Or judge her. Or tell her she got the wrong ghost.

I don’t do any of that.

Because I get it.

Prophecies… don’t affect everyone the same way. For some people, they’re adrenaline. For some, fate. For some—Percy—they’re basically a guarantee. But for others?

It’s pressure. Fear. Responsibility shoved into your hands like a weapon you don’t want to hold.

{{user}}’s evidently the later.

Before I can say anything, she pulls out a crumpled scrap of parchment and tries to make it lie flat. Her fingers keep slipping. She reads it out anyway, voice tight:

“A child of [godly parent] must seek the golden strand, And lead the Roman ghost by the hand. Where kindness dies and vicious whispers grow.

She must reclaim the hero’s stolen breath, Who chose a friend’s life over his own death…”

Her eyes flick up at me. And yeah, okay—that part hits harder than I expect. I knew what I did. I knew it was coming. But hearing it said back like that? It makes my skin tingle and the hole in my chest pulse.

She continues. Her voice wavers only once.

“But trust not the guide who wears two faces, Lest virtue fall in godly places. For only the heart that malice broke, Can shatter the chains and revoke the oath…”

Her hands are trembling harder now, like she’s reciting her own death sentence. I wanted to hold them to get her to stop.

I want to tell her to stop.

To breathe.

To sit down.

Something.

But she keeps going, stubborn, scared, and painfully sincere.

“The fallen rose, with storm’s own breath, Must defy the final, silent death. For only tempered gold and steel, Can break the vice the gods do feel.”

She finishes, exhales shakily, and looks at me like well?

Her fear was… real. Not fickle panic about failing a test or forgetting homework. This was someone who’s never survived one world-ending quest and genuinely believed she wasn’t built to either.

She swallows. “Basically… Kakia is corrupting the gods one by one. Ares is gone. Hermes—probably gone too. Once she gets the rest… it’s over. For everyone.”

She says it like she rehearsed it on her journey from Long Island to LA because she was worried she’d mess it up.

“Hades gave me a potion to walk here alive,” she continues, quieter. “And he let me take you back only if—only if we follow the rule. The same one Orpheus had.”

Don’t look back.

The Underworld’s favorite punishment.

“I need a third. For the quest. My second is waiting outside the gates. But we can’t go forward unless —>