𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆 [pjo]

𝐈𝐈.

━━cold shock

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The cold shocked her. Callahan gasped as the water met them, and it surged into her mouth and burned her throat. Annabeth and Percy slipped from her hands, and she began to sink to the bottom of the river. Wailing filled the river, the sound of heartbroken people crying in her ears. The weight of their cries helped her sink.

What's the point? Let go. Don't fight it. You're dead anyway, just let go.

What is the point of all of this? There's no plausible way the three of them would survive, no way they could escape, not if she was there. Maybe she should just let go, let her weight sink and carry her down the river into nothingness. She'd fade eventually, her sorrow joining thousands of others. She'd escape.

The water swirled around her, something pushing her toward the surface. Callahan thrashed, gasping as her head broke the surface.

"No!" She didn't want to leave, "No stop!"

"Callahan!" Something was calling at her, "Callahan, please!"

"No, stop!" She screamed, thrashing against the cold as she was tugged toward the water's edge, "Stop, please! I don't–"

There was no point in leaving. It would trade one death for another, harsher one.

"I don't want to–"

Fighting it was pointless. Why would she? Drowning was easier than anything Tartarus had to offer. Maybe if she just closed her eyes, she would wake up again on the Argo II with Percy and Annabeth.

Someone wrapped their arms under her shoulders and began to drag her out of the water. Her feet met the harsh rocky bank of the river, and she shrieked as her body was dragged out of the water.

"No, no, no, please!" She whimpered, her feet kicking against the sand, "Please, I can't–I can't–"

The fight began to drain out of her as she registered the jagged sand beneath her. It was like a fog was lifting off of her, her mind no longer begging for a simpler death. As she stopped thrashing, the arms pulled away and she could hear the person collapse beside her.

It was freezing, and the air stung, and the ground was made of thousands of little shards of glass.

"What was that?" Callahan muttered, forcing her sore and shivering body up onto its feet, "what the fuck was that?"

"Cocytus." Annabeth was standing beside her, her clothes sopping wet, "The River of Lamentation. It's made of pure misery."

"Oh." Callahan nodded. The air was so dry and stank so badly it made Callahan's eyes water. The air made Cal's eyes water.

She turned away from Annabeth's wet form and found Percy lying there, his body shivering on the black glass. He looked horrible, his shirt ripped to shreds and his fingers red and raw from the ledge. His face was as white as a sheet of paper. She dragged her feet over to him, reaching out to pull him.

"Come on, Seaweed." She muttered, "We gotta go."

He groaned but nodded, leaning into Callahan's body, one arm wrapping around her waist. Annabeth moved to stand on the other side, and Percy slipped his other arm around Annie's shoulders.

"We need to keep moving or we'll get hypothermia," Annabeth muttered, and the two nodded. Annabeth herself also looked bad, her leg still wrapped in a bubble wrap cast and wet cobwebs stuck in her matted hair. Her lips were blue.

Callahan shuddered to think what she looked like.

The black glass beach dropped off suddenly about fifty yards inland, red light licking at the edges. Cal couldn't see beyond it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to.

Percy inhaled sharply, and pointed downstream, "Look."

A hundred feet away, a familiar-looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand. It looked just like the Fiat that had smashed into Arachne and sent her plummeting into the pit. Callahan shuddered, and beside her, Annabeth let out a sound somewhere between a moan and shriek before her mouth snapped shut. Callahan wanted to leave it where it was, never think of the creature again, but Annabeth tugged her and Percy forward.

One of the car's tires had come off and was floating in a backwater eddy of the Cocytus. The Fiat's windows had shattered, sending brighter glass like frosting across the dark beach. Under the crushed hood lay the tattered, glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon – the trap that Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving. It was unmistakably empty. Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver...as if something heavy, with multiple legs, had scuttled into the darkness.

"She's alive," Annabeth whispered.

"It's Tartarus," Percy said. "Monster home court. Down here, maybe they can't be killed." Callahan stifled a groan, leaning forward out of his grip to level him with a glare before she turned to Annabeth,

"Or maybe she's mortally wounded and she crawled away to die."

"Let's go with that," Annabeth agreed.

The three of them were shivering despite the sticky and hot acid air. Annabeth's hands were leaving blood stains on the ragged torn edges of Percy's shirt, and Callahan's back smarted whenever she moved.

"This place is going to kill us." She said, tipping her head back to stare at the red sky.

"Unless...," Annabeth muttered and turned to look at the drop-off above them. She looked like she was planning something.

"Unless what?" Percy encouraged, "You have a brilliant plan in mind, don't you?"

"It's a plan," Annabeth murmured. "I don't know about brilliant. We need to find the River of Fire."