WORLDS BEYOND ( pjo )

𝐢𝐯: the hunters become the hunted

The woods were always cold. Even in the bright summer, the cold of the night would always pierce through their armour. The shadows coated their surroundings, blocking out even the light of the moon, making it seem like it was twilight. It would have been, daresay, peaceful, even, if Percy and Kia weren't currently monster-hunting.

Fairly quickly into entering the woods, Percy had detected scuttle marks, marks that would be left behind something like a sharp tail, and the prints of something with many limbs. He nudged Kia, pointing his sword towards the marks, casting a dim bronze glow onto the area. Kia nodded, understanding and they shuffled along, carefully following the tracks.

The skin on the back of Percy's neck stood up when he and Kia heard a few twigs snap, just short of a few metres away from where they were, having jumped the creek. He let out a breath of relief when he saw that it was just the Stoll siblings—it was ironic how their father was the god of thieves while their stealth probably wasn't something that they could rely on.

Still, to remain hidden, they tactfully stayed quiet as they waited for the Stolls to pass by. They continued forward, forging deeper into the darker parts of the forests, where the crickets chirped louder and the voice of the wind was all you could hear. In dead silence, they stood on a ledge, closely clipping off a marshy lake.

"This is where we stopped looking," Kia said, her voice seeming to be missing something of its original tone. A second later Percy realised what she was talking about.

Last winter, two campers had disappeared: Nico di Angelo and Ethan Nakamura. This was where they had given up looking. It had been months since then, and still there was no sign of either of them. It made the back of Percy's throat taste bitter.

He looked at Kia, and he saw that her face was hardened. Her eyebrows were pulled together and the set of her mouth was tight; she looked angry and upset. One look at her was enough to tell him that she blamed herself.

"I saw Nico last night," Percy said, breaking the thickening silence.

Kia's gaze whipped to him immediately, interest and maybe a trace of hope clearing up her features. Percy knew it was impossible, but her eyes seemed to brighten just a little bit, taking to a slightly less intense shade of brown. Her eyes were quite beautiful if you learnt to look at them right. "Did you see Ethan?"

Percy shook his head no, feeling pathetic and helpless. He hated watching as Kia deflated slightly, and for a brief moment, he believe he shouldn't have told her at all. She knitted her eyebrows together right after though, pursing her lips. "Okay, never mind. How did you see Nico? Is he okay?"

Percy didn't know if 'okay' was the word to describe a child summoning the dead and talking to a ghost that was poisoning his thoughts, but he told her anyway. After he was done, she looked thoughtful. They kept walking as he waited for her to say something. A slit of moonlight poured through a gap between two tall trees, and it illuminated the darkening curves beneath Kia's eyes. The light made her skin look grey and ghoulish; Percy thought she looked like a very old ghost then, one who had seen much—wise yet so, so undeniably haunted.

"That can't mean anything good," she said at last. Kia sighed. She whispered, like it was to herself, "One job Bianca gives me and I can't even do that properly."

It didn't seem like it was meant to be heard by Percy, so he pretended not to, keeping quiet. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault, that she couldn't have known, and about a million other things, but in the end, he knew that Kia wouldn't listen. He knew that because he couldn't make himself listen either.

Just beyond the ridge, a branch snapped, lighting aflame the air between them with an edge of survival. Something large, something with a clear intention to wound or worse, was lurking behind the bushes, rustling the branches and snapping twigs.