aphophis child

V. Monkeys

You might be like, so you got kidnapped by some random person. Yes I kinda did.

So anyway, we followed Amos down to the weird boat docked at the quayside. I was forced down there by Blake who was dragging me along. I've been there before, I did not want to go back. Bad memories and they'd start freaking out. I was spared because Ra is also my ancestor some how.

Blake didn't know, he just dragged me along. I then got Basil to bite him hard and I ran for it. But the shadows again pulled me back. "Hades!" I hissed.

Amos stepped aboard the reed boat. Sadie jumped right on, but Carter hesitated. He'd seen boats like this on the Nile before, and they never seemed very sturdy. Blake went on and I nearly ran but the shadows held my legs down.

"You really want me to go on, don't you hades?"

It was basically woven together from coils of plant fiber—like a giant floating rug. I figured the torches at the front couldn't be a good idea, because if we didn't sink, we'd burn. At the back, the tiller was manned by a little guy wearing Amos's black trench coat and hat. The hat was shoved down on his head so I couldn't see his face. His hands and feet were lost in the folds of the coat.

"How does this thing move?" Carter asked Amos. "You've got no sail."

"Trust me." Amos offered him a hand.

I wrestled off the shadows and tried to run again. But the shadows covered my whole body and my mouth. "MMMMM!"

Amos grabbed me and put me on the ship. "Wasn't so hard now was it?"
The night was cold, but when I stepped on board I suddenly felt warmer, as if the torchlight were casting a protective glow over us. In the middle of the boat was a hut made from woven mats. From Sadie's arms, Muffin sniffed at it and growled.

"Take a seat inside," Amos suggested. "The trip might be a little rough."

"I'll stand, thanks." Sadie nodded at the little guy in back. "Who's your driver?"

Amos acted as if he hadn't heard the question. "Hang on, everyone!" He nodded to the steersman, and the boat lurched forward.

The feeling was hard to describe. You know that tingle in the pit of your stomach when you're on a roller coaster and it goes into free fall? It was kind of like that, except we weren't falling, and the feeling didn't go away. The boat moved with astounding speed. The lights of the city blurred, then were swallowed in a thick fog.

The tingling turned to nausea. The sounds got louder, until I was about to scream myself. Then suddenly the boat slowed. The noises stopped, and the fog dissipated. City lights came back, brighter than before.

Above us loomed a bridge, much taller than any bridge in London. My stomach did a slow roll. To the left, I saw a familiar skyline—the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building.

"Impossible," Carter said. "That's New York."

Sadie looked as green as I felt. She was still cradling Muffin, whose eyes were closed. The cat seemed to be purring. "It can't be," Sadie said. "We only traveled a few minutes."

"Omg! Oly- I mean..." I gasped. I waved to a nymph who looked through the window. She smiled.

And yet here we were, sailing up the East River, right under the Williamsburg Bridge. Bad memories flashed by and I started hyperventilating. Not again. We glided to a stop next to a small dock on the Brooklyn side of the river. In front of us was an industrial yard filled with piles of scrap metal and old construction equipment. In the center of it all, right at the water's edge, rose a huge factory warehouse heavily painted with graffiti, the windows boarded up.