lost in the labyrinth, of my mind.
☆ battle of the labyrinth
☆ book one in the 'midnight mayhem' series
[ annabeth chase x fem!oc ]
[ percy jackson x fem!oc ]
( started - 6/9/23 )
( completed - 11/25/23 )
chapter thirteen sick and tired of your attitude, feeling like i don't know you
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RACHEL LED THE group to the hotel basement. There was a metal door half hidden behind laundry bin full of dirty towels. It didn't seem strange at first, but Rachel then showed them where to look. A faint blue symbol was etched on the metal.
"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth noted.
"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."
"No." Annabeth stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."
She put her hand on the mark, and it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and opened, revealing a dark staircase leading down.
"Wow" Rachel was calm, but it was hard to tell if she was pretending or not.
Instead of her golden statue look, she was dressed into a Museum of Modern Art t-shirt, marker-colored jeans, and a blue plastic hairbrush stuck out of her pocket. Maybe it could be like a weapon or something. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face. "So...after you?"
"You're the guide," Annabeth told her with mock politeness. "Lead on."
Gabriella shot her a look, as if saying, Remember, be nice.
The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark, and hard to see what was in front of the them. Annabeth, Percy, and Gabriella restocked their flashlights. As soon as they switched them on, Rachel yelped.
A skeleton grinned at them. It wasn't human, though. It was huge, at least ten feet tall. It was strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a giant X over the tunnel. But what really creeped Gabriella out was the black eye socket in the center of its skull.
"A Cyclops," Annabeth realized. "It's very old. It's not...anybody we know."
Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"
"Tyson," Percy replied. "My half brother."
"Your half brother?"
"Hopefully we'll find him down here," I said. "And Grover. He's a satyr."
"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."
Rachel stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. Gabriella, Annabeth, and Percy exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged. They followed Rachel deeper into the maze.
After fifty feet they came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. On the right, the walls were made up of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.
Percy pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."
Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right-those old stones-that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."
