𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋

𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐜𝐡𝟏𝟒|Voices of the dead

Will

I woke up to pain. And yelling. Wait. Was that yelling at me? From Nico?

"Huh?" I said, intelligently.

The pain from my arm was throbbing mercilessly, and I had taken so much ambrosia that I had been on the brink of exploding. It was poisoned, I could tell. But I had no idea where it had come from and I had never seen it before. Guess that's a problem for another time.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!"

Or not.

"You're supposed to be the doctor! Show me!" Nico yelled at me.

"Woah, woah, woah. What's going on?" Rachel asked. "Nico passed out, we check his wound, fix it up and then suddenly you drop to the floor as well! What is wrong with you two!"

"Take off your hoodie, Will!"

I knew I wasn't going to get away from Nico. Hesitantly, I prised off my hoodie
with my left arm and dropped it on the floor in front of me. They gaped at my wound as I slowly took away the bandages.

"It's worse than she made it out to be," Nico whispered. I glanced at my arm. A cut from the top of my shoulder to my elbow ran down my right arm. The veins webbed around it were black.
I was a healer, so the sight of it didn't really make me sick - but the pain did.

Everyone watched in silence as I grabbed my backpack and searched for more ambrosia and bandages.

"What's wrong with it?" Clarisse asked, "And how did you know, from the second you woke up Death Boy?"

Nico recounted his dream while I did my best for my wound.

"You have forty-eight hours Will! What are we going to do! I can't let you..."
He broke off. His expression made my heart sink lower than it ever has since the Titan War.

I did my best to be optimistic, "Hey, Nico? I'm fine. The main thing is that we get the fleece back. Then we can worry about me. The camp depends on us. We can't waste another second."

_____________

We'd been following Rachel for hours. Six or seven? Maybe even eight hours?
I was absolutely exhausted, but still tried to keep spirits high. It had been eerily quiet in the monster side of things. Since this morning - or afternoon - or night (whatever - whenever we woke up) we had only had a few monster attacks which we'd dealt with pretty quickly. Over the past hour or so, though, I'd taken to leaning on Clarisse as we walked.

She wrinkled her nose, "Did you bring deodorant?"
I was about to retort back, but then we heard a loud roar from behind us.

"Get back!" Nico said to me, taking out his sword and stepping towards the source of the noise.

"I can fight!"
"No you can't Will!"
"I can, just let me-"

And then something grabbed me from behind.

_____________

I must've been knocked unconscious, because when I woke up, I was completely alone. It was a corridor I didn't recognise.

Warily and wearily, I surveyed my surroundings. I still had the constant throb of my arm, which occasionally made my vision blur. I went to take my backpack off to get ambrosia, but realised I didn't have that familiar weight.