𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆 [pjo]

𝐈𝐈𝐈.

━━welcome to the front doors. 

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The heat made Callahan feel sick. It had gone from freezing cold that turned her bones to crystal to burning, blistering heat that made her eyes water. Her chest felt like a padded room, every breath harder and harder. Callahan looked down at the river that cut through the bottom of the obsidian chasm, liquid lava flowing and radiating heat. It looked horrible.

"Uh ..." Percy examined the cliff. He pointed to a tiny fissure running diagonally from the edge to the bottom. "We can try that ledge there. Might be able to climb down."

He didn't say they'd be crazy to try. He managed to sound hopeful.

"Well, we're gonna die if we stay here, and we might die if we go down there." Callahan said, shrugging, "I say might is better than gonna."

While the two glared at her, neither of them argued. Annie shrugged eventually.

Percy went first. The ledge was barely big enough for a toehold, and Callahan cursed under her breath as she followed Percy down. Her hands clawed at the cliff face, fingers rubbed raw by the time they were a third of the way down.

A few steps down, Percy grunted from exertion. "So...what is this fire river called?"

Annabeth sighed above her, her left foot stepping dangerously close to Callahan's hand, "The Phlegethon. You should concentrate on getting down."

"The Phlegethon?" He shimmied along a thin ledge, "Sounds like a marathon for hocking spit."

Callahan snorted, lowering herself down to the tiny ledge just above Percy's hand.

"Please don't make me laugh," Annie said.

"Just trying to keep things light." Percy replied, the strain in his voice obvious, "I mean, Callahan laughed."

"I snorted." she corrected, "But Annie's right. I'd rather not fall to my death."

The trio kept going, one step at a time. Callahan's eyes felt dry, sweat running down her temples and forehead and stinging her eyes. Her arms felt like gelatin and her legs felt like they were falling off, but they made it. Callahan had never been happier to touch solid ground, no matter how deadly.

Annie touched ground soon after her and stumbled, Percy catching her in his arms. The two of them looked like smallpox victims. Percy felt dangerously feverish when she touched his arm to check on them. She herself felt horrible, her skull pounding and her vision blurry. She couldn't swallow, her mouth was as dry as the desert.

"Just to the river," Annabeth muttered, "We can do this."

They staggered over slick glass ledges, around massive boulders, avoiding stalagmites that

would've impaled them with any slip of the foot. Their tattered clothes steamed from the heat of the

river, but they kept going until they crumpled to their knees at the banks of the Phlegethon.

"We have to drink." Annabeth's voice was barely a whisper, and Callahan had a hard time hearing her over the pounding in her head. Percy was swaying slighting in his spot between them, his eyes half-closed.

"Uh...drink fire?"

"The river Phlegethon flows from Hades realm into Tartarus," Annabeth said, "The river is used to punish the wicked. But also...some legends call it the River of Healing."