Party in the Dark, A. Chase & P. Jackson

When Waking Up In A Crashing Bus Isn't The Worst Thing To Happen In A Day

          There weren't any dreams that came to Lydia while she was out, though there were some glimpses of what appeared to be random frames in time. It was enough to at least know she was not dead, which was fine enough for her. The images flashed through her mind, blurred and morphed due to whatever kind of high the poison was creating in her mind.

          Of course, there were glimpses of Annabeth, just as there were whenever Lydia wasn't controlling her thoughts. Annabeth's smile. Annabeth's nostrils flaring like they always do when she is angry and trying to hide it. Even glimpses of Annabeth at the dance, just before disaster struck. In one glimpse, Lydia could hear her own voice calling out to Annabeth. Her tone was playful and light like she was running to the Athena cabin to tell her best friend the latest juicy bit of gossip she had on one of their fellow campers.

          Her voice repeated Annabeth's name over and over until it began to change. The voice grew deeper and more urgent. No, it was no longer her own voice, but Percy's. It sounded like Percy was terrified. Or devastated? Either way, the name of her favorite Athena camper was repeated over and over like a horrible chant.

          Lydia gasped as she sprung up from her slumber. She looked around in a panic as she realized that the awful pain from earlier was gone. Her body seemed to be perfectly fine.

          "There you are!" a cheery voice said to her. The voice belonged to a boy who couldn't be more than twenty. He smiled a dazzling smile at her and Lydia couldn't help but feel like she did know this very attractive guy.

          "That poison was some nasty stuff, but luckily we were able to get it out of your system. Just take it easy with that shoulder," he continued, sounding like the Apollo campers that ran the camp infirmary.

          Looking around though, that was most definitely not where she woke up. Instead, Lydia appeared to have been laying on some kind of bus seat. Nico's head peeked over the seat and smiled down at her, but he was then distracted by something that seemed to terrify him. Somebody screamed out as Lydia lurched further back into her seat and the guy she had woken up to was thrown back down the bus aisle. Why did it feel like she was falling? Steadying herself, she was able to grip the seat and pull herself up.

          What she saw almost made her pass out again.

          "Take the wheel!" Grover pleaded with somebody as everybody continued to panic.

          Lydia was now able to see that they were in fact in a bus, except the bus was flying and on fire. Nico was holding onto the seat directly behind her and the seat next to her was occupied by a panicked Percy and Grover. Thalia, the demigod who had been a tree up until recently, was at the wheel of the vehicle. Lydia and Percy locked eyes and it almost felt as if Percy was more scared by seeing her than the bus that was hurdling toward the ground.

          "No worries," the guy, now pushing himself back up toward the front of the bus, said. He did not seem like he had no worries, "She just has to learn to- WHOA!"

           Lydia screamed out as she saw a town growing closer through the windshield. The closer the bus came to the ground, the more the snow in the area melted and some trees even began to catch fire.

          "What the hell is happening??" Lydia screeched out in terror.

          "Pull up!" She could hear Percy yell.

          Everybody- who were all these extra people?- was thrown around again as the bus was tilted back up toward the sky. Lydia was glad that she wasn't going to die by crash landing into a town in the middle of nowhere, but she had a feeling they were not in the clear yet.