The Unknown (A Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

14. I Drive Us to California...Well, Half-Way There

What is this? Is this perhaps...an update? ON TIME???!

*collective gasp from non-existent audience* 

Hello everyone! :) I hope you enjoy the chapter. 

Warning; contains some swearing and gore (and most likely typos/mistakes) *horrified faces from Grammar Nazis*

Chapter Fourteen

Hades' silver and obsidian palace became just a dark smudge in the distance.

I stepped over a fallen poplar tree, visibly rotten and soft in the middle, the bark slowly peeling away.

"It's funny isn't it...?" Thalia begun. "...How Persephone wasn't there. I would've thought that she would've loved to stick her abnormally large nose in and loiter around in her creepy way."

I raised an eyebrow. "So you're still holding her responsible for turning your bow and arrows into flowers? Thalia, that was like...two years ago."

"Thalia's right though." Nico said, looking troubled. "I know my stepmother. She wouldn't usually miss this chance to toy with us." He glanced at me with a meaningful look. "Besides, she's worked behind Hades' back before, remember?"

I remembered. Back, before the Battle of Manhattan, Nico, Thalia and I were taken to the Underworld where Persephone had ordered us to retrieve the sword of Hades before it got into Kronos' hands. We had eventually succeeded though we found out when we returned with the sword that Hades had never wanted the sword to be made, and that it was Persephone who ordered it to be created.

Annabeth slowed her pace. "So do you think that this-whatever is happening-is caused by Persephone?"

"It's always a possibility." Nico looked back at the Palace; silver glinting among the black smear. "But there's no way my father will let us return. He may change his mind about letting us go."

The others continued to debate the situation. Their voices faded as I scanned our surroundings, feeling the prickle on the back of my neck that indicated that we were being watched.

Slowly, so that to make it like it wasn't obvious that I was aware of being watched, I turned slightly as if I was about to say something to Grover (who was standing there awkwardly, munching on a tin can).

Across the fields of polar trees and soot, I saw the girl from my dream.

I felt my heart stop and freeze, dropping into my stomach like a boulder. "No." I muttered.

She was as pale as a whisper on a cold night, her mahogany hair flowing down her slim shoulders like the river Hudson. She wore a golden dress that shifted with the warmth of sunlight-a strange thing to wear in the Underworld-but it was her eyes that sent the tsunami of dread into my chest. They were black voids, waiting to swallow me whole as they burned through me.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I started sprinting towards her.

"Percy!" I heard Annabeth shout.

I ignored and continued running, my breaths becoming shallow pants. My shoulder throbbed painfully and my legs burned, muscles deprived of oxygen.

The girl, still several yards away, seemed to smile with almost bloodless lips though it was hard to tell. And then, like a mirage in the desert, she flickered and disappeared.

I stopped and felt someone slam into me from behind, nearly knocking me over.

"What in Hades, Kelp Head?" Thalia snapped, steadying herself.