WORLDS BEYOND ( pjo )

𝐱𝐢𝐢: worlds

Kia woke up with an urge to throw up.

Thankfully, however, no one had seen, so she didn't have to come up with a half-assed lie to cover it up. She did remember everything Percy told her earlier, but she couldn't tell them now. She would later, of course, just... not yet.

All of them had gotten at least an hour or two of rest, so they were all energised enough to restart going through the maze. It had only now occurred to Kia to have bought a watch with them or something. Maybe it would have been interesting to see how a pocket watch would be effected by the maze, since time flowed differently down here. Would it speed up or slow down accordingly? Would it move the same? Would it break, crack, maybe?

They all ate some food—granola bars and juice boxes—and shouldered their backpacks and supplies, starting to walk again. As they walked, Kia noticed the corridor's fashion start to change. Soon, the stone walls became cedar beams. Annabeth seemed displeased with this.

"This isn't right," she said, looking around irritably. "It should still be stone."

The group arrived to a cave where stalactites hung low from the ceiling in various shades of grey and white. Right in the centre of the dirt ground was a hollow rectangular pit, deep like a built grave would be.

Grover shivered. He sniffed, and his nose trembled. "It smells like the Underworld in here."

Something caught Percy's eye. He shined his flashlight to the top edge of the pit, finding a foil wrapper. Out of curiosity, Kia shined her flashlight directly into the pit, edging forward slightly so as to be able to see but not fall in. Half of a cheeseburger was floating in what looked like a carbonated beverage gone bad—bubbling and sticking to anything it touched.

"Nico," Percy said grimly. "He was summoning the dead again."

Normally, Kia would have found humour in how Percy mentioned 'again' as if it were something normal for an eleven year old kid to do, but Kia was actually worried about the kid this time around.

Tyson whimpered. "Ghosts were here. I don't like ghosts."

"We've got to find him." Without any warning, Percy started to run.

The rest of them followed hastily, of course, but Kia would have definitely appreciated some kind of foretelling.

"Percy!" Annabeth called.

They all ran after him, but Kia paused, hesitating as she felt a cold drift come from her right. A hallway she hadn't seen at all appeared beside her, and she stopped in front of it. Whispers came from farther along the corridor, unintelligible, but it felt like they were calling Kia to come in. They were like murmurs, floating around her head, coming closer and closer to her ears, but she couldn't make out anything.

She didn't know why, but she felt an unmistakable pull towards the corridor, like a magnetic field inside was drawing her nearer and nearer to it. Kia didn't realise she had been walking it until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Spinning around, she whipped out her sword, meeting the neck of the person who had touched her with it. Annabeth stood absolutely still, waiting for Kia to put the sword away, breathing out as she did.

"What the hell, Beth! You scared the shit out of me!"

"You were the one walking away without the group like an idiot!" Annabeth scolded. "Where are you going anyway? We found the ranch Hera talked about earlier up ahead."

Kia hesitated. How was she supposed to explain she just had a feeling that she had to go in here. "Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" was what Annabeth said, but she, too, looked around as if she could feel something powerful pulling them further down the splitting hallway.