bashing heads

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ERITH JAY
ERITH WAS MAKING out with Leo.

This of course wasn't the first time, but this time felt... different. It felt more desperate, more angry, more villainous.

Erith was not meant to be the villain. Her tongue moved like she spoke of light.

And villains weren't suppose to be bright.

Leo's fingers slid up her shirt. His hand wasn't warm. It was cold.

His hands were never cold.

Erith jolted away, choking, "Leo―" but her breath caught in her throat and she forgot how to talk.

Black goop poured out of Leo's eyes, out of his nose, his mouth, his ears. He was grinning, his teeth sharp against his skin. "Didn't everyone warn you?" he laughed and laughed and laughed and then choked on the black goop coming out of his throat.

Erith tried to move back, but she couldn't. She could only watch in horror as Leo crumbled to his knees, hands clawing at his throat.

He was no longer laughing. He was choking.

He scrabbled, his nails making bloody claw marks in his skin.

Then he stopped moving. He looked up at her, and grinned. "Better go check on di Angelo before you kill yourself."

Leo crumbled into ash, and the scene dissolved.

Now Erith saw Nico. He was sitting in a room, a jar, his back to it. He was deathly pale. His sword lay next to him. In front of him, pomegranate seeds.

"Nico?" Erith heard a warbling voice say. She turned.

She could see a faint, blurry, fuzzy image of Percy.

Then, as if blown by the wind, he dissolved.

"Are you dead?" Erith whispered.

She could see the rise and fall of his thin chest.

Nico's eyes snapped open. Black goop began to spill out of his eye sockets.

"No," Erith choked. "Not again."

Nico smiled a twisted smile. "Better wake up before you die."

Her dream dissolved.


ERITH JOLTED UP in her bed, her heart pounding. She reached up and felt her face streaked with tears.

She let out a hoarse sob, her chest heaving. She willed the lights to turn on, then looked around.

Empty. Her cabin was empty.

She was still on the Argo II.

She stumbled out of bed, her whole body trembling. She was wearing one of Nico's shirts that she had taken from camp before she left. It was slightly big on her, light gray in color.

She clutched at the fabric of the shirt, trying to swallow back her sobs.

She couldn't stay here. Not in this cabin. She felt like she was suffocating in black goo.

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