Hi everyone here is chapter 5 of my book, in the last one I promised a extra long chapter so get ready to read for a while. Oh and by the way this chapter switches to Forest's perspective. Forest is Nyla's brother in case you have forgotten.

Chapter 5

Forest

Plink, plink, plink, plink I sighed and creaked open an eye cautiously hoping that I was actually with Nyla hearing the rain outside on a Saturday but instead it was the constant dripping of water over in the corner of my cell. Ah, the life of living in a cell. Not that I'm complaining three square meals a day, a nice cot, oh and I even have my own toilet. How exciting! But there were the downsides. No lighting so I was constantly in darkness, the food sucked, I really needed a shower, um and oh yeah I was a prisoner. I stretched my sore muscles in the darkness and worked out any kinks until I was ready to try and make my way out of my cot and over to my little toilet.

   The floor was wet and stained with mud and dirt. I dare not touch the walls because something oozed from them that had a green glow, I doubted it was water. So I walked blindly in the darkness slipping on the dark ground trying to make it over to the toilet. If anyone had been in the cell with me they probably would have laughed. With my swaying and slipping I probably looked like a drunk man walking down the streets.

   After relieving myself I went back over to my cot and waited for my next meal to be delivered. The food was disgusting but after living in here for a week you kind of get used to it. Sure enough after about what I guessed was twenty minutes I heard the scraping of large feet against the floors in the hallway outside my windowless and door less cell.

"Hey kid here's your food." I rough voice said from outside my walls. A small opening was created and a tray of food slid through it.

"Why thank you how kind." I said my voice dripping with sarcasm as I walked over and picked up the food trying to avoid the light because my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness.

"Don't get all like that kid. I don't like it down here and neither do you so just deal with it." my guard said with annoyance.

I didn't recognize the voice although there was something familiar about it, yet I couldn't place it.

"I don't recognize your voice, are you new?" I asked while munching on stale bread. I decided to ignore the mushy slop they had put in a bowl for me.

"Yes I am brand new. I had been wandering out in the barren lands for a while but then Hades found me and restored my memory and thought it would be a good idea for me to come and guard you.

"Uh huh," I said barely paying attention to him. His voice was so familiar my mind was aching trying to remember the person it belonged to.

"Do you know how long you have been dead?" I asked, yea I know kind of personnel but hey I was the one in a cell.

"Oh about three years or so maybe longer kind of hard to tell."

"What's your name."

"O.k. kid now your getting personnel, I'm not even supposed to be talking to you."

"Well ya are."

"Well I won't anymore."

"Oh come on, I am going to start guessing names until you tell me."

"You'll never guess it."

"Oh yea," I said and then started blabbing off names that came to my head when I thought of the word noodles.

"Squishy, Sloppy, Smelly..."

"Kid those names sound like something from Snow White and the Seven Dwarf's."

"Well then tell me or else its back to Snow White names."

"You really wanna know."

"Yes...As long as it's not like Machine Gun Kelly or Al Capone then I'm good." I said. Those dudes had been dead before I was alive but for all I knew this guy was some deranged maniac.

"Pete Dalbert."

"Pete!" I yelled. Then I placed the name. He was my Grandpa's old fishing buddy who had died 4 years ago after a heart attack.

"Yup that's my name now settle down in there before someone hears you."

"Pete don't you remember me?"

"I don't remember anyone who I don't know the names of kid."

"It's me Forest, your best friend Niell Sparrow is my grandfather."

"Forest? O.k. stop messing with me. That kid Forest is only eight years old and nearly drowned the last time I took him and his grandpa fishing...while I was still alive that is."

"Yea I remember nearly drowning, I remember we were out in the shallows of the lake and you yelled at me about how I shouldn't stand up while the boat was going but I didn't listen and was thrown of the side of the boat and grandpa had to dive in after me. He got to me right before I was nearly under the water." I paused for a moment. "And then you and grandpa flipped a coin on who was going to tell my mom and grandpa got it. Then later that night when he told my mom she threw a huge fit. She yelled at my grandpa about me being safe and how they should have taken me to a hospital as soon as we got back into city limits. Then Grandpa burst out laughing and so did we."

"Wow it really is you isn't it."

"Yup."

"Why are you in this place. Your only eight you should still be in second grade."

"A lot of time has passed since you died," Forest paused. "I'm thirteen years old and you have been dead for five years."

"Wow, five years....How's you're dad doing. Last time I was there he was talking about going to join the war." He asked. Oh why did he have to go and ask that? Tears filled my eyes.

"He died a year ago..." I said trying to hold back the tears.

"Oh Forest, I am so sorry." He paused. "You're father was a great man, If he died in battle then he would've gone to the Isle of the Blessed. That's where all of the hero's go if they die for a worthy cause."

"It's fine Pete, Nyla took his death the hardest. She wouldn't come out of her room for weeks and my mom had to practically force her to eat. That is when my mom even made dinner. Most nights I would just make Nyla a peanut butter sandwich and bring it to her. After mom recovered from the loss she took Nyla to counseling and she slowly started to come back to reality. My mom bought her a dog named Sydney which helped a lot." I tried to stop the tears but they just kept rolling down my face. In the halls you could hear the echo of them hitting the rough cement walls.

"You shouldn't be here. What are you doing in the land of the dead?" Pete asked.

"Our city got bombed by the terrorists. I thought we were dead but then we woke up here still alive and breathing."

"You mean you didn't die?"

"Nope, we met a boy named Kovull and he helped us survive out in the savage lands." I paused gathering my thoughts. "Nyla has a rare ability called beast charming it allows her to control any animal or beast that lives down here in the underworld. She saved my life by accidentally controlling Cerberus the first day we woke up. We stayed on the run, trying to keep away from Hades guards and spirits that were hunting us. We don't know why we didn't die that night but we know that mom did or at least that's what we think. We are officially orphans and if we ever do escape from this place we will have no where to go." I let loose a big hiccup of a sob.

"Forest, don't cry kid. You are a strong and intelligent boy. Even when you were eight I could tell that you were destined for great things. Don't let anything get you down. Even when you're being held in a cell." He paused. "How is Marie" Pete asked me.

"She's fine, been living in the same house and still goes up to you're cabin every memorial day." I said. "Nyla is the one you would want to ask, she spends so much time with Marie sometimes I wonder if they are a member of a secret club or something." I paused. "That is until we were sent here."

"Well it's good to know at least that much. Now you need to get some rest and pretend you don't even know me because my shift is almost over. It is the middle of the night."

"Wow, you guys feed me at really weird times."

"They are trying to keep you confused about how long you've been here."

"Why?"

"I don't know, like I said I am brand new to this kind of stuff." He paused. "Goodnight Forest,"

********************************

   I woke up and peeled open one eye then the other. A chill hung over in the air like morning mist. Something seemed wrong and everything was quite. Time itself seemed to be standing still. Suspense hung in the air like a cloud. I sat up and moved my stiff legs off of my cot. I shivered at the cold in the air. I couldn't tell if it was night time or the noon. Being stuck in a cell and all. I started to review what had happened before I fell asleep. I finally found someone who I knew besides Nyla and Kovull. I just hoped that Hades didn't know that Pete was a old friend. I didn't want him getting hurt. Hades can still hurt spirits even though they are dead. Kind of like a whole zombie thing. You can still kill zombie's even though they are already dead. At least that's how it was in the movies.
   I heard a dragging noise coming from outside my cell. I clung to the small cotton blanket they had given me like a life preserver. I heard that noise every day the first time I woke up. I didn't know what it was but I knew that it wasn't friendly. It stopped in front of my cell and I could hear it trying to scratch it's way in.
"Oi, get a move on you mangy mutt!" I heard one of the guards yell at the beast. I heard it being dragged away from my cell and deep down into the corridor. I let out of big sigh. I hadn't realized I was holding my breath. Time started drifting by slowly like a snail. Every hour or so the beast would come back and scratch at my cell only to be pulled away again. When I felt tired I slept, when I felt hungry I would wait for the next meal, and when I felt bored I would just sit there and look at the wall. I know that would only increase the boredom but what am I supposed to do while sitting around in a cell all day.
  I kind of expected the guards to make me work at a court yard breaking down bricks or something like they did in the old movies but unfortunately they just let me sit in my cell. Anything would have been better than this. Maybe even a day at my grandma's. Oh man, could that lady talk. She would talk for hours and hours on end. From the first subject to the next. My mom used to tell me that I got my talkative spirit from her but I think that is a lie. I don't sit in a rocking chair all day talking about knitting or sewing.
   The boredom was starting to get on my nerves, if it hadn't already. I started pacing and even a couple times found a stick and pocked the side of my cell and play around with the goo that oozed off the walls. As my pacing increased so did the visits from the animal. No guards were assigned to watching me. I tried talking to the guard that brought by the animal every so often but all that resulted to were some grunts and threats to kill me if I didn't stop talking.
   I started pacing so often that I thought that I was going to wear a hole in the floor. I got so bored that I actually abandoned the stick and ran my hands along the walls. The ooz rubbed off the walls and started to drip down my arm. I jumped back shacking the ooz off of my arms as I walked backwards I tripped over a rough edge of the stone on the floor and landed with a thud. The ooz was off my arm but it had left a glowing green on my arm. It acted like a light source. I studied the corner that I had tripped over. It seemed to be a loose stone. I crawled over to it and lifted and pulled the stone. It raised ever so slightly but then dropped back down. I tried again and again until I had scooted over the stone about a inch. I peered down the hole I had created. It led into some sort of corridor. With knew determination I pushed the stone all the way off of the hole. There was about a 5 ft. of space from where I stood from the floor. I sat down with  my legs hanging over the edge and pushed myself down into the cavern.
   Dust filled the air when I landed with a thud on the ground. I coughed and then stood up dusting off my shirt. There was really no need to because in the underworld you are given clothing that are made of cotton and are pure white. Even if you get dirty the clothes will stay perfectly clean. They are itchy and uncomfortable so I preferred to wear my own jeans and t-shirt but when the spirits captured me they put me in the cotton clothing.
   I squinted and looked into the darkness. I had landed right in the middle of a hallway and on both ends it seemed to go on forever in the darkness. I held up my arm as a light source and saw that there were torches along the walls although not lit. I grabbed one and scraped it along the floor sparks flew. I ripped a strip of my shirt and wrapped it around the top of the torch. Then I scraped it again and the sparks flew and set the shirt on fire on top of the torch. Satisfied I looked started down the corridor on my left.   

   As I walked the silence started to get to me so I started to hum take me out to the ball game. Not the best song ever I know but in a creepy corridor what else do you do? I came to a three way split in the hallway. Each one led to a new hallway. I decided to go down the corridor on the far right. I was beginning to doubt my whole left is right thing.
   This corridor went on for a while then came to a two way split. I kept going down the right one. I soon realized my mistake. The walls seemed to be stained with some sort of dark brown stuff and as I kept walking hints of bones started. Soon as I kept walking the bones were everywhere, pushed up against the walls. They seemed to be human bones and bones of animals I didn't recognize. They looked like giant snake bones. I realized to late that the brown stuff on the walls had been stains of blood. Something was down in here that wanted to eat me.
   I turned around and started to go back the way I came but after a while ran into a dead end instead of the two way split. The maze was corridors were changing themselves.
Oh picklefifers. I thought. This is not good. 
I turned around and for the first time noticed the stench that was coming down this corridor. It smelled like rotten eggs and melted rubber. Very gross. I picked up one of the snake like heads and tore a tooth from the mouth and started back down the corridor with an improvised dagger. As I kept going down the bones began to grow scarce and after a while were gone and ahead of me I could see a large arch that led to some sort of large chamber. I walked through it, and what I saw scared me half to death.
   If I had thought that the bones were gone man, was I wrong. The chamber was filled with heaping piles of bones and dented armor of what looked like gladiators from the Roman and Greek time periods. But what really scared me was the monster that was sitting on the biggest pile of bones in the middle of the huge cavern. It was some sort of creature. It had the body of a man but huge, like a body builder on steroids and a thick brown fur covered its body, the head was the head of a bull with horns and everything, it was wearing armor across its chest and a chain mail skirt, and it was holding a huge club with very lethal looking spikes at the top. I had always been a fan of Greek mythology and I knew exactly what this creature was.
   It was the minotaur and I had just walked right into its prison. Yup that's right I just walked right into the never ending, always changing labyrinth. The Minotaur made an inhuman howl when it saw me, its next meal. Oh double picklefifers. I thought. This was going to be a problem.
And that is the next chapter in my book. I hope you liked it and again please excuse any grammer errors. I will be trying to post once a week from now on.