The Nature of a Demigod

Prison Break

[Annabeth's POV]

There was good news. The left tunnel went straight down, with no turn-offs, intersections, or traps. There was also some pretty bad news too. The wall cut off in a dead end.

After we ran a full olympic sprint, we (literally) ran into a boulder that was completely blocking our path. I had no idea how we were going to get past this and get to wherever the other end was. Behind us, feet dragged and heavy breathing filled the echoes of the hall. Something was right on our tail, and it wasn't friendly. I could figure that much out.

"Tyson," I said, "can you-"

"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled from the stone ceiling. "Hurry!" Grover said. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!" The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room and we dashed through behind it.

"Close the entrance!" Percy shouted. Tyson nodded and started shoving. We all got behind him and pushed. Whatever was on the other end cried out in frustration just as we set the boulder back into place, sealing off the corridor, and sealing its way to get to us.

"We trapped it," Percy said. "Or trapped ourselves," Grover countered.

I turned. We were in a twenty-foot-square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. We'd tunneled straight into a cell. A familiar looking cell at that.

"What in Hades?" Percy tugged on the bars. They didn't move an inch. But I looked around curiously, seeing slash marks in the middle of the metal. Not like a scrape, these look like they'd been sliced apart and molded back together.

Through the bars we could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks. "A prison," Percy said. "Maybe Tyson can break-"

"Shh," said Grover. "Listen."

Somewhere above us, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too. A raspy voice muttering something that I couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler. "What's that language?" I whispered.

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be."

"What?" I asked.

He grabbed two of the busted looking bars on our cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through. "Wait!" Grover called.

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. We ran after him. The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above. My heart turned over as I finally figured out where we were. Where Y/N was in my dream. "This is Alcatraz." I told Percy. He raised a brow inquisitively. "You mean that island is near San Francisco?"

I nodded assuringly. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum. And there, look." I pointed at a pair of slash marks in the wall. "That thing that attacked Y/N left those marks on the wall."

"He was here?" Percy asked.

"We're close. I can feel it." I reasoned. It seemed like no random chance that we were here not too long after my dream. He'd been here before us, and the reason those bars looked weird was because he cut had to cut through them to get out. Someone must've welded them back together, though.

"Freeze," Grover warned. But Tyson kept going. Grover grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength. "Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"

I looked where he was pointing, and my stomach did a somersault. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything I'd ever seen before. It was some kind of centaur. It was a woman's body from the waist up, but a dragon below that. It was at least twenty feet long, black, and scaly, with enormous, dripping claws, and a tail covered in barbs.