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I 027. I
𝑪𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔
❝ alcatraz ❞
ARIADNE RAN LIKE THE WIND. They were trying to put a great distance between themselves and whatever was chasing after them, and it wasn't going well.
The good news: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news; it was a dead end. After sprinting a hundred years, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path.
Behind them, the a hounds of dragging footsteps and heavily breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—definitely not human—was on their tail.
"Tyson," Percy 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 they dashed behind it.
"Close the entrance!" Annabeth said.
They got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into place and sealed the corridor.
"We trapped it," Percy said.
Ariadne glanced behind them. "We trapped ourselves," she said.
Her friends turned. They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunneled straight into a cell.
Ariadne was the first to try to find a way out. Her biggest thing was not having a place to escape. It wasn't necessarily her biggest fear, but it made it a bit hard to calm down and focus.
She tugged on the bars. Her knuckles white with her tight grip and she wished she could do something other than panic in the back of her mind.
"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. They didn't budge. Through the bars Ariadne 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—"
"Ahh," said Grover. "Listen."
Somewhere above them, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a deep raspy voice muttering something that she couldn't make out. It was like rocks in a tumbler, and she couldn't make them out.
