𝒊𝒗. 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔

𝒙𝒊𝒊.

Noelle, with her enhanced vision in the dark, could see ground rushing towards her. She managed to muster up enough strength to transform into a bird, slowing her fall and gliding into the small room awaiting her at the end of her fall. 

As she turned back into her normal self, she cursed herself for not thinking of using her shapeshifting earlier. Now she was trapped in a dark, dusty room of the labyrinth with no food or water. She wouldn't last more than two days.

At this realization, she curled up into a ball on the floor, willing herself not to cry because it would only dehydrate her faster. She didn't know when she fell asleep, but when she woke up there were two new tunnels leading out of the room she was in.

She listened carefully for any sign of something dangerous down either of them. The one on the left was silent, and, for some reason, much darker than the other. The right one had a faint pitter patter as if it was raining or there were a drip of water.

Noelle noticed just how dry her mouth was listening to the right tunnel, and she realized the labyrinth was catering to her impending doom of malnutrition. So, as much as she wanted to find water, she couldn't trust the labyrinth and she chose to go into the left tunnel.

She unsheathed her knife, using its faint silver glow to help guide her through the tunnels. She had to have been down there for hours, meaning days or weeks had passed by up above. She kept going through tunnels, listening carefully to each option when at a crossroads.

A few twists in turn into her journey, Noelle came upon a room that looked like an ancient Greek wedding alter. It was crumbling slightly, but she could tell that's what it was. As she walked forwards, stepping into the middle of it, she felt her heart ache because she didn't know if she'd ever get to see her own wedding day.

"Hey, don't think like that," a familiar voice said from inside her head.

She didn't know why but she felt like she needed to turn around. When she did, tears immediately sprung to her eyes.

"You're not real," she whispered. "I'm hallucinating from the dehydration and malnutrition."

"Sure, I'm not real," Percy's voice said in her head, but his hallucinated image moved as if it were really him talking. "That doesn't mean I can't tell you what you need to hear."

"What? That I'm going to die?" Noelle laughed humorlessly. "I already know that."

"You're stronger than you think, Noelle. You have more power in you than you know."

"No, I don't," she said dejectedly to the hallucination. "I'm weak. If I were strong I wouldn't be down here."

"The labyrinth is trying to trick you," Hallucination-Percy said. "But you've been smarter than it. You're closer to camp than you think."

"If you're just my subconscious, then how do you know this and I don't?"

"You do know it," he insisted. "You're just too much in your own head."

She scoffed. "That's ironic."

"Noelle, you have the power to get to camp from here. You just need to concentrate."

Noelle scowled at the hallucination before giving in to her subconscious and closing her eyes, concentrating on camp. She didn't know how, but she knew to think of the entrance to labyrinth that was in the woods. She felt the telltale signs of her beginning to teleport before she was blinded by the daylight, her legs giving out from under her.

~

Hours later, Percy's raft washed up at Camp Half-Blood. How he got there from Ogygia, he had no idea. At some point the lake water just changed to salt water. The familiar shoreline of Long Island appeared up ahead, and a couple of friendly great white sharks surfaced and steered him toward the beach.