A Tale of Gods and Magic

Annabeth: Frank Zhang, the Puppy Savior

Annabeth woke up in a dark room. She could hear heavy breathing beside her. Her sides ached and her mouth was as dry as a sack of sand.

She turned over. Something that felt like crinkly parchment rustled under her as she moved. She cracked open her eyes (which felt like they were coated with little pieces of desert) and felt the ground under her.

Scales.

Glimmering green scales mixed in with snakeskins were piled on the floor, forming a cocoon around her.

Well, at least she hoped they were snakeskins.

Annabeth slowly sat up and looked around her surroundings. She was in an arid room with the rest of the demigods. They were all asleep, breathing peacefully under the dim light of an oil lamp hanging from the stone ceiling. Gucky substances leaked from between each of the stone blocks onto the scales below. Annabeth’s stomach clenched painfully. She had to get out of here.

Looking around, she quickly did a headcount. Percy, drooling in a corner. Normal. Will, dozing with a pained look on his face. Nico was lying interestingly close to him. Their fingers were almost touching. Maybe the Aphrodite cabin was right that Nico and the healer would get together. She wasn’t too keen about Will; he seemed to have built up an impenetrable wall of humor around himself. She could sense there was something troubling him behind the guard he’d put up. But she didn’t want to pry. Leo was near Piper and Jason, and there was Hazel holding a puppy… ? Oh, right, Frank. He looked pretty happy in Hazel’s arms. The Stolls were in a little nest of snakeskins under a particularly troubling drip of fluid from the ceiling.

Annabeth sighed deeply, but her breath caught as she let it out. She was scared. Not as scared as she’d been facing Arachne, but who knew what kinds of vermin were lurking under the scaly mess? On that note, she stood up and walked over to Leo, who was the closest to her. She at least had to try to wake them up.

“Leo! Wake up,” she hissed. His elven ears didn’t seem to be getting the memo. She knelt down and grabbed his hand. “Leeeeeeo. Up, up, up…. Calypso-” Leo shot up from the ground.

“Where?” he asked, a curl of dark hair falling in his eyes.

“Good morning to you too, Valdez,” said Annabeth. She realized that she had no idea what time it was. Had it been a day since they’d docked the Hephaestus express? An hour? A week? And how had the strange man gotten them here? Some sort of drug, most likely. Ugh.  She hadn’t brought any ambrosia or nectar!

“Really? Where’s Calypso?” Leo’s wide eyes stared at her.

“Not here. Sorry. I just needed to get you up.”

“Oh, and reminding me of the love of my life-who, coincidentally isn’t here-is the best way?”

“She might not be the love of your life, Leo. You’re only ___.”

“I bet you thought Luke was the love of-” Annabeth’s mood went from annoyed (hey, she’d woken up in  room full of dead snakes with all her friends conked out) to boiling as soon as Luke’s name came out of Leo’s mouth.

“Don’t you dare talk about Luke to me!” She usually didn’t let small things Leo said get under her skin, but Luke? This was going way too far. An image of Luke smiling at Annabeth from the coffin enveloped her mind. She shivered.

Leo rolled his eyes at Annabeth and sat down. He didn’t seem as upbeat as usual; always ready with a witty comeback or joke.

Maybe he really did love Calypso that much.

At first, she hadn’t really believed what he felt for the Titan’s was more than a mere crush. Leo had been known to crush on any girl… as long was she was way out of his league. Khione and then Thalia… Annabeth had heard all the stories. But Annabeth had felt the same way after Hera had taken Percy that Leo most likely did now. She cursed herself for underestimating his feelings.

A loud cough jarred Annabeth from her thoughts.

“Annabeth… I… “ Leo was lying on the ground in fetal position. He sounded as if he was coughing his lungs out. Annabeth was surprised that none of the other demigods had gotten up yet. She shot a look at Percy blissfully snoozing. She wanted to wake him up so badly it felt like her heart was being ripped from her chest, but she had to figure out what was wrong with Leo.

“Leo? What’s wrong?” she asked, kneeling down. Maybe she should wake wake Will. He would surely know what to do. Leo’s hacking lapsed for a second and Annabeth leaned over him.

“I feel… “ he screamed. It was a scream filled with raw pain. It brought memories to Annabeth, memories that hadn’t even happened. Images of her falling into Tartarus alone, Percy above her, laughing like a demon. She fell into the Cocytus River alone with no thoughts of New Rome to console her and she was drowning among the screeching voices, her throat being constricted, her soul being extracted from her body and there were no memories of Percy. She almost wanted to lie down and start crying and screeching like Leo. She put her hands over her ears. She had to think. What could she do? She had to do something!

Before she could pick a choice of what to do, a door she hadn’t noticed clicked open. A man, no, the man from the beach, glided in.

“Welcome, Annabeth. He pulled a wooden, floppy stick from his pocket and pointed it at Leo. Crucio,” he said. The pain in Leo’s voice intensified. “now, my friend,” he said, voice insipid. “you have some difficult things to think about, even for a daughter of Athena.” Annabeth rose to her feet, but the man pointed the stick at her chest. A wand, she thought. This was a wizard! As pieces of the puzzle came together in her mind, an invisible force pulled her towards the ground.

“Come with me,” said the man. “My name is Arnold. I am your new enemy.” Hmm, nice to spell it out for me, Annabeth mused as her invisible bonds tightened. He jerked his wand forwards and she followed. Her chest contracted and all the air seemed to be sucked out of her lungs.

“Percy!” she tried to scream, but she knew it was no use. He stirred a little, but Arnold had pulled her out of the room before she could yell his name again. But she did see the puppy’s eyes pop open.

Maybe she did have some hope. You never know the power of a puppy until it bites off the hand of some unsuspecting wizard.