The Unknown (A Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

30. Oh, Apollo's Underwear

Hullo! I'm on a roll with these updates! (It won't last long, I promise)

So we're on chapter thirty already, woah. I had planned only to go up to chapter forty but I might go slightly over because I'm terrible at following my notes. 

Enjoy!

Will

Will was in Tartarus again.

He was stumbling along the bank of a river, the roaring current rushing past him. The air was filled with the wailing and shrieking of thousands of voices, all seeming to come from the water.

Murderer. They wailed. Share our punishment.

His mom's face appeared in his mind; calm blue eyes, an easy smile and hair that curled around her ears. But as the voices grew louder, her hair began to fall out and her eyes started rotting away in her eye sockets, her smile widening as her skull was revealed beneath the decomposed skin of her mouth.

You let her die. The voices screamed. You're just as bad as us.

Will so badly wanted to walk into the current but he knew, even in a dream, that he was in some sort of enchantment. He forced his legs to move and staggered away almost drunkenly. He fell to his knees several feet away from the river, feeling jagged glass-like rocks slice up his legs.

He was trembling, his mom's face scarred into the tissue of his brain. She might not be dead. He tried to convince himself numbly, though he knew that the likelihood was that it was the opposite.

His gaze happened to lift upwards and he became aware of a huge mansion looming over him a yard or so away. It was so terrible that he had to look away, his eyes burning and his throat closing up with fear. An aura of pure, unyielding power seemed to come from the mansion, turning his muscles to jelly and his brain to mush. Later, he would not remember what it looked like, only that it was made up of pure shadow.

It's just a dream, he told himself. And I need to see what's inside it.

He climbed back onto his feet and began the journey towards the mansion, his body shuddering in protest and his instincts screaming at him to run. He was no fighter, not like his friends. Not like Percy Jackson or Annabeth or Nico...

Biting his lip so hard that it drew blood, he managed to snap out of his thoughts and focused on trudging forward one step at a time. His breathing began to become laboured as his lungs already felt the effects of Tartarus' toxic atmosphere and blisters started to form on the exposed skin of his arms and legs and face.

Eventually, he collapsed in front of the mansion, his chest heaving as he gasped for oxygen. Black dots swam before his eyes. Get up already, Solace. He scolded himself.

Once again, he lifted his head and saw that he was in front a huge gate that stretched away and into the distance, before dropping away into an abyss. The gate was made of what he presumed was Stygian iron, though the metal seemed to have ripples and waves of a strange, silvery substance that gleamed wickedly.

Will stretched his hand to the gate, his fingers brushing against the metal until—

Suddenly the gate and the mansion dissolved, and he was standing in a long hallway. Wooden floorboards creaked under his feet and he swore that he heard voices and tapping sounds coming from inside the walls. Torches of Greek fire lined the walls, crackling as the green flames licked at the ceiling that was much too low for his liking.

His heart was thudding like a drum in his chest. "Percy?" He croaked.

A door seemed to materialise at the end of the corridor and Will started running towards it, only to find that it seemed to move away with every step he took.