Eyes, End and Eagle

{Unknown Place, Unknown Time}

My eyes snapped open, and I found myself in a world of blinding white. For a moment, I thought I was still blind, but then realization struck me like a thunderbolt from Zeus himself. I could see color. For the first time since the misery trial, the world around me wasn't just shades of black and colored auras.

I blinked rapidly, my eyes watering from the intensity of the white landscape. As my vision adjusted, I noticed something that stood out starkly against the blank landscape surrounding me: a massive, glowing blue book. Its size was almost comical, bigger than even Mount Olympus itself, so bigger than the Empire State Building. The cover was adorned with strange, incomprehensible symbols that seemed to shimmer and shift as I looked at them.

Curiosity overcame my initial shock, and I reached out to touch the book. As soon as my fingers made contact with its surface, the tome sprang to life. Pages flipped rapidly, a blur of blue and white, until it settled on a specific page.

The page bore the same indecipherable script as the cover, I noticed some of what I could only assume were letters changing rapidly, glowing with an ethereal blue light. But what caught my attention was a small photo in the corner, a fourteen year old boy with black hair that was tied in a bun, wearing a green hoodie and a Camp Half-Blood shirt, but what interested me the most was his eyes two pupils of shadowy purple.

That was what surprised me the most, since I knew that looking at the picture that it was a picture of me. So of course I was weirded out, after all I had been told multiple times that my pupils were so white that they were almost invisible.

Before I could about think about the book or my eyes something extraordinary happened. Shackles, seemingly made of the same blue energy as the book's text, shot from the page. They lashed out, stabbing around my legs, arms, head, heart, and eyes.

Oddly, I felt no pain. The shackles simply melded with my body, as if they had always been a part of me. However, the ones connected to my eyes began to vibrate intensely. The vibration grew stronger and stronger until, with a sudden snap, the eye shackles shattered.

The other shackles remained firmly in place, pulsing with that strange blue energy. I opened my mouth to speak, to question what was happening, but before I could utter a word, consciousness slipped away from me like water through cupped hands.

{Odysseus Dreamscape, Unknown Time}

When awareness returned, I found myself in a completely different environment, one which I had seen many times before. Gone was the white expanse, replaced by an inky blackness that seemed to stretch infinitely in all directions. But I wasn't alone in this void. Thousands of eyes, of all shapes, sizes, and colors, floated around me, blinking and watching my every move.

"Have you seen it my boy," a familiar voice echoed through the darkness.

I turned to the largest eye like I always did when I got to this place, and I noticed something this eye was the same color as the one I had seen on the photo myself.

"Dad," I greeted, my voice steady despite the fact I had been sucked some place. "Before coming here I went to some place else, there was this book..."

The eye squinted as if in a show of concern. "I'm afraid I can't explain everything, Ozzy. Not because I won't, but because I truly can't. There are some things that even I can't overcome."

I frowned, frustration bubbling up inside me. "But surely you must know something? The shackles, my eyes..."

"Well I can tell you one thing and one thing only, one of the reasons you were born blind was because of that book, and the reason you were sent onto this quest was also because of said book. That is as much as I can tell you."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Ok then, let's change the subject. My quest? It's done."

A proud smile spread across Erebus's face. "Well, you didn't kill all her children but yes it is, your quest is finally finished kiddo."

My consciousness started slipping away once more, so before I sunk into the ground I left some parting ways with my dad.

"Hey dad, when I have some free time I'll come visit you and mom, okay."

"Great kiddo, just don't take too long."

{Mount Tamalpais--San Francisco, 3rd of May 2005}

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back at the base of Mount Tamalpais. But this time, everything was different. The world exploded with color, so vivid and intense that it almost hurt to look at. The grass beneath my feet was a lush green, the sky above a brilliant blue. Even the dirt and rocks seemed to possess a beauty I had never noticed before.

I stood there, awestruck, trying to take it all in. I had seen some colors in aura before and in the Misery Dreams made by Akhlys but this was different, it was all so real, so beautiful. Tears welled up in my eyes as I gazed at a nearby flower, marveling at the delicate yellow of its petals.

However, before I could fully process this new, colorful world, movement caught my eye. A large wolf, its fur a mix of greys and browns, appeared before me. It was easily the size of a small car, its yellow eyes fixed intently on me.

The wolf approached slowly, its gaze never wavering. When it reached me, it did something unexpected – it nudged my shadow with its nose.

A strange compulsion came over me. As if in a trance, I plunged my hand into my own shadow. My fingers closed around something solid, and suddenly, a jolt of electricity shot through my arm. Startled, I yanked my hand out, pulling with it a golden eagle statue. Yellow sparks danced across its surface, giving it an alive, almost electric quality. The shock hadn't been painful, exactly, but it had certainly gotten my attention.

The wolf barked, the sound echoing across the mountainside. It seemed... pleased? Then, without warning, it turned and began to walk away. After a few steps, it paused, looking back at me and barking again. The message was clear: follow me.

For a moment, I hesitated. I had just completed a grueling quest, faced down some of the most fearsome monsters in Greek mythology, and undergone some kind of mysterious transformation. Part of me wanted nothing more than to return to Camp Half-Blood, to rest and try to make sense of everything that had happened.

But another part of me, the part that had driven me to take on Echidna and her brood in the first place, was curious. This wolf, the eagle statue, the book and the shackles – they all seemed to be pieces of a puzzle I couldn't yet see the full picture of.

With a deep breath, I made my decision. I placed the golden eagle in my shadow once more and began to follow the wolf. Admiring the beauty around me, enthralled by everything like a kid at Disney Land. 

As we walked, the landscape began to change. The forested slopes of Mount Tamalpais gave way to more rugged terrain. I noticed that we seemed to be heading north, though to where exactly, I couldn't say.

The wolf maintained a steady pace, occasionally looking back to ensure I was still following. Despite its size, it moved with a grace that was absolutely supernatural. I couldn't shake the feeling that this wolf looked familiar, it reminded me of the stories I'd heard about Lupa, the wolf goddess who trained Roman demigods.

But if this was Lupa, why would she be interested in a Greek demigod like myself? And how come it knew I had the golden eagle? 

Still I stopped thinking of all of that, focusing on running after the female wolf, after all wherever she was taking me she wanted me to get there fast.

[Greek Myth Fact: Today's fact wil be about another river of the Underworld, the river of fire, Phlegethon.

The River Phlegethon is called the River of Fire because it is said to travel to the depths of the Underworld where land is filled with fire—specifically, the flames of funeral pyres. 

River Phlegethon leads to Tartarus, which is where the dead are judged and where the prison of the Titans is located. One version of the Persephone story is that her eating some pomegranate was reported to Hades by Askalaphos, a son of Acheron by an underworld nymph. In retribution, she sprinkled him with water from the Phlegthon to transform him into a screech owl.

When Aeneas ventures into the Underworld in the Aeneid, Vergil describes his fiery surroundings: "With treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds/Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds." Plato also mentions it as the source of volcanic eruptions: "Streams of lava which spout up at various places on earth are offshoots from it."]