[3] 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒 ― p.jackson, l.valdez

020.

「020. her living nightmare 」

BARBIE HAD always been scared of the dark. maybe it was the fact that when she was little, her dad was never there for her. when she was young, before she ran away and arrived at camp, her mind used  to be plagued with nightmares. monster picking at her brain every night just for the fun of it. lightning crashing in her mind, frying her senses. she'd wake up in the cold dead of night, dark room full of expensive things she held no value for, and she'd just want to be held. but her dad would always be on a night shift, her dad always too busy. she was never... she never felt like she was safe in the dark. to her, the dark was a blanket of fear and loneliness, something barbie hated and was scared of.

in the dark, you don't know who's watching you. the air around you seems to mock you, like there's somebody behind you. eyes could be staring right back at you, but your vision fails you. turmoil and frets scramble around your mind. in the end, barbie was left crying all the time. though who could hear her sobs through the loud and sinister sonata of the night?

and she thought that was the worst thing that could quite possibly happen to her- no seriously, that's what she thought! because in barbie allens mind, there could quite possibly be nothing worse than the dark she knew of.

she was not expecting what happened.

darkness, the one she knew of, was no match for nyx. forty feet tall, big blakc wings, a whip made out of stars and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses. she was far too much to take in. looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and smoke, as big as the athena parthenos but very much alive and downright terrifying. her dress was void black, mixed with the colours of a space nebula, as if galaxies were being born on her bodice.

her face was hard to see except for the pinpoints of her eyes, which shone like quasars. when her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs making barbie feel heavy but awake- far too scared about how it was caving in on them. she wasn't claustrophobic, but with all of the darkness around her- it felt like she was suffocating.

the goddess's chariot was made of the same material as nico di angelo's swor-d stygian iron- pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. the beast's legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.

the horses snared and bared their fangs at barbie, and she felt herself begin to shake. the goddess lashed her wip, a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs, and the horses reared back along with barbie flinching.

"no, shade," the goddess said, "down, shadow. these little prizes are not for you."

percy eyed the horses as they nickered. he was still shrouded in death mist, so he still looked like an out-of-focus corpse. he was holding onto barbie tightly, squeezing her hand- or as much as anybody could when their limbs felt like they were flimsy bits of tissue paper.

still, the camouflage must've not be so good, because nyx had made it quite clear she could see them very well. barbie couldn't quite read the expression on percy's ghoulish face well, but she was guessing what the horses were saying weren't too nice.

"uh, so you won't let them eat us?" percy asked cautiously, "cause... they really wanna eat us."

nyx's quasar eyes burned. "of course not. i would not let my horses eat you, any more than i would let akhlys kills you."

barbie didn't feel particularly witty or gorgeously into that kind of thing as of the moment. in fact, she was probably the complete opposite. for one, she looked like a corpse (with a fabulous fashion sense,though) and she was pretty much as still as a statue. the overwhelming amount of fear in her body in her body was stopping her from pretty much doing or saying anything.