What would've been a quiet summer turns into a globe-trotting adventure when an incident in Olympian High's campus garden gets the attention of resident Chosens Amelia Kingston and Zeus Olympian. To their surprise, the culprit is none other than the...
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Amelia screamed. Zeus tried shaking off the hand, but it already got the belt before disappearing into the wall of bones.
"Shit, no!"
Panicking, he turned to the wall and started to claw for the Artifact, dropping the arranged bones on the floor without a care. Meanwhile Amelia stood there, stunned. A part of her told her she must've been seeing things—that it must've been a trick of the light or some sort of prank, but then a stronger part of her yelled at her otherwise.
This was no prank. Someone else was here with them.
"Nonono!" Zeus continued to make a mess, almost half of his wall already empty. "Don't you just stand there! Help me find it!"
Only then did the rest of the bones begin to move.
The bones of the floor and everywhere else vibrated, creating a unified clunking noise that echoed through Amelia's ears. She stepped away to the middle of the narrow path, gripping her staff till her knuckles ached.
Amelia could only stare in horror. Like pieces of magnet, the bones moved around and about. Parts that were separated throughout the decades united once again, becoming complete skeletons that stood tall as if they were alive yesterday. Some that were much, much older weren't so lucky, with several bones missing and broken from their framework.
The catacombs' residents came back to life. And they were all coming for them.
Zeus drove a fist into the nearest skeleton's skull, falling apart instantly. A pair of bony feet hopped towards Amelia, who swung her staff at them. The feet smashed through the wall.
The risen dead continued their harmless approach. With their backs facing each other, Amelia and Zeus broke through the ranks of the skeleton army. But with every one that they take down, another three would take its place. Both of them were completely surrounded.
"There's too many of them!" Zeus shouted, his fists scraped from punching bones.
Amelia kicked away a rattling skull. "You think? There's seven million skeletons here!"
Amid the chaos of bones crumbling and rising from the ground, the silhouette of a man appeared a few feet from the path the pair were about to take. His black hoodie and jeans made him look like he slipped from the shadows, but the most notable thing he wore was the glittering mask that covered his face. The same mask that Amelia saw in the gala.
Frozen on her spot, she watched as one of the skeletons approached the man in black and handed him a familiar golden belt. The pink gem shining against the dim lighting broke her from her stupor.
"Hades!" Amelia yelled.
Zeus paused for a second, looking around. "Where?"
The man broke into a run and disappeared into a corner. Amelia cleared the way by knocking out two skeletons at once. Before another came to block it, she dashed forward. She could hear Zeus calling for her, but she tuned his voice out and focused on what was at stake.
