Horizon's Point: The Rise of the Lyre (Jason Grace)

Chapter 12: Lions

I'd never had a night with no dreams, the others at camp have told me that it's a bad sign. Now, I saw what they meant.

I awoke to being held around my middle by a giant cat. My hair was trailing on the floor and my waist was in the feline's mouth. I wasn't losing blood, but its teeth were clamping down on me like no tomorrow. My vision was blurry but I made out the hazy outline of a cave mouth, this was probably where the cat was headed. I speculated that it was a lion, but they don't usually go after people and this one was ten times larger than your average lion.

Acting like I was still asleep seemed like my best bet, the sun was rising (I thought) and we were still in the woods. This gave me little comfort that my friends would find me, but a creature this size was bound to leave some massive tracks; the Hunters were excellent at tracking things. Yeah, I'll be fine so long as the lion's jaw grip on me doesn't become any tighter and crush me.

The closer we got to the cave, the more it dawned on me that this lion wasn't alone and that he was taking me to his pride. Maybe I'll be killing practice for his cubs, at least I'll get to see some cute baby lions before I die. Er, right. I'm supposed to be asleep, maybe I should stop staring at the cave and start acting.

The air started to feel warmer, that could mean that there was heating in this cave, or that I was feeling the breath of the other ones. I heard them circling me, the soft padding of paws on rock and claws scraping on rock and, well, lots of stuff on rock.

I was rudely dropped down on a rock (was this place all rock, I swear, no interior inspiration) and a paw set its self upon my chest, it pushed down. The pain was excruciating, the teeth had left me feeling weak already, but this... this was worse then when Drew kicked me with her cavalry boot. It was compressing all the air in my lungs, squashing it down until I found myself with my eyes open and gasping for air.

The scene before me was one I'll never forget. Mr Giant Kidnaper was the was pushing me into the hard rock under my back and there were about five regular sized lionesses peering down at me with what looked like a lion's version of sympathy. But the male's golden eyes glared down at me as if ordering me to stop struggling and accept that he was going to break my ribs. This wasn't normal lion behaviour.

His razor-sharp claws dug deep into my stomach as easily as if I were just a piece of tissue paper. Then there was a crunch. 'Oh, great.' I thought, 'He just broke my ribs.'

I thought I was getting delusional. How could I be thinking like that when I was being squashed flatter than a pancake? I all honesty, I don't know. My air was being compacted and my head was spinning, the lionesses made a strangled sound like they were also experiencing my pain. I felt like I was going to die. My vision started to go. I was losing all hope of living through these next two seconds.

Then, it all stopped. The lion walked away, leaving me bleeding with probably shattered ribs. That was the last straw. I puked, then passed out.

˜"*°•.˜"*°.•°*"˜.•°*"˜

Again, no dreams.

I refuse to go into detail about my pain, about my wounds. All I will say is that it was painful and gruesome beyond measures, I doubted that even Will could fix me.

The five lionesses were licking my wound in the way one of them may lick their cubs, I gazed up at them wondering what a giant lion would want to do with me that required crushing my chest. Then, something happened that made me wonder whether I was dreaming or dead: the lionesses spoke to me in my mind, the same way that I talk to horses, only with lions.

She's going to die! One exclaimed

Thank you, Mrs Optimism. I retorted What's going to happen to me? I attempted to sit up, but pain overflowed my cortisones, forcing me back down with a shriek of pain. My chest felt like fire and I realised that I was lying in a pool of blood. My blood.

Calm down. It's ok. He won't kill you. Another lioness explained He took us too, you know. In ancient times. We used to be girls, in the Greek city Nemea.

Why is he doing this? I queried, although it was getting hard to think, my ribs were not healing anytime soon.

So that you can't run away. A third one explained. We still don't know why he turned us into lions, though. Just rest. The worst part is over.

I took their advice and passed out again. How many timed can one person do that in one day? I guess I was determined to find out.

Here's the good news: the pain was starting to numb and I remembered the lion's myth, now, here's the bad news: no dreams, the giant lion was back, the sun wasn't rising any more but climbing to the highest point of the sky and I still couldn't move. I'll let you decide which one out wayed the other.

He padded around, probably waiting for something. That something, I didn't know. This was the Nemean Lion, one of Heracles's impossible tasks was to kill it. He stole girls and turned them into lionesses, I recalled something about its skin being indestructible and that was the reason Heracles wore it. Now, if only I could remember how to kill it, that would be useful.

It fixed its golden eyes on me and snarled like 'Oh, good. Your awake.' But then I heard something that gave me hope, something I hadn't felt once in this cave. It was the sound of people running and a desperate voice called out my name, one I recognised so well: Jason Grace's.

I tried again to sit up on my elbows, or something like that. But I only got as far as lifting my back off the ground before screeching in pain and falling back down, which caused a lot more blood to escape.

"ABI?" Percy hollered; his voice gave away that he had been crying. I just wanted to run over to them and hug the two boys and tell them that I was ok. But there were two problems in that thought: 1) I couldn't move let alone run over to them, and 2) I was defiantly not ok.

The Nemean lion snarled at me then bounded up to my spot on the floor and roared in my face. Like he was trying to tell me to shut up or else he would break more ribs. All I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and wince.

"There!" A voice echoed off the walls of the cave, it sounded like it belonged to a Hunter, though I wasn't sure which one.

The lion turned around, howled at them, and charged at top speed which was surprisingly fast. There were shouts and orders being given out to cut off its claws but I couldn't hear them properly, I was too busy trying to not die from the pain.

I wasn't paying anyone any attention until a tearstained face was looking down at me. Slightly massy blonde hair, electric blue eyes and a cute little scar above his lip told me that this was my best friend. For a moment I was worried that I was hallucinating, but our eyes locked and I knew that I wasn't. He surveyed my injuries and his initial smile melted into a frown and his eyes became wild with panic.

"No," He whispered and reached his hand out to touch them but quickly jerked it back realising that touching it would only cause me more pain. "No, no, no." He let out a strangled sob of despair.

"Hey," I muttered, it was so quiet that I was surprised he heard "I'll be ok. Are you alright?"

He laughed softly probably thinking about how ridiculous it was that I was the one comforting him, "Apart from all the stress you caused me? Yeah, fine."

His voice was barely a whisper, but still audible. I found it soothing: his laugh, the sound of his voice. Probably the familiarity.

He touched my face tentatively and asked if I thought I could move "No," I replied feeling utterly useless.

Percy came running over and his eyes widened when he saw my state. I was worried that he might start crying again -because, his face was also stained with tears- but instead he asked Jason if I could move and he shook his head.

"Alright." My brother responded and scooped me up, surprisingly, that didn't hurt all that much "Never disappear like that again." His words weren't harsh, rather thankful that I was still alive. Holding me close, he and Jason ran to the other end of the cave, over to the Hunters and Artemis, informing them of my state. Audrey grimaced while a few gasped.

"Go." Artemis instructed, "Get her back to camp, we'll be there soon."

They nodded and ducked out of the cave. And you'll never guess what I did: I passed out. Yay.