How Do You Say Gods- Battle of the Labyrinth

13: I TAKE A PERMANENT VACATION

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! This is a depressing freaking chapter to infuse the holiday with, lol.

For everyone else, I hope you enjoy your day and your life and your year and the hour you spend reading my insanity!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Nico read the new chapter title with a sense of ill. The idea of running across Percy's ghost had come to him plenty in the darkest parts of that maze, he'd been convinced for months at a time those would be his only friends. The one who had gotten Bianca killed had himself died in his own Greek tragedy of trying to come after him and becoming lost in a place Nico was slowly conquering, but Nico would find his wandering spirit and nurse him back enough to guide him to where he needed to go.

The idea that Percy might have died in this volcanic eruption and he didn't even get a hint of knowing that disturbed him slightly less than his old creepy thoughts about how his part in this would end, so he tried to read like it was any other.

"Oh hell," Magnus yelped. "Are we finally going to get an explanation for how you wound up down here? Are you permanently sleeping with the fishes? Did someone," he cut his finger across his throat with sound and everything.

"I don't think I'm actually dead," Percy studied his still trembling hands with uncertainty though, patting absently at his shirt and pants too to make sure it was real.

"And it wouldn't explain the rest of the books?" but Jason's sounded more like stacked questions, because really none of this made to much sense given they had no answers to start with outside of a gods will.

"As far as I'm aware, you are not actually dead," Thalia managed casually enough, but she dreaded this chapter more than anyone. Calypso was not a myth she'd ever dealt with personally, and she knew all she'd be hearing while Nico read was Annabeth's desperate voice through their connection begging her to help find an answer other than the obvious. She'd been prepared to go down to Tartarus and drag his soul back to get that look out of her little sister's eyes.

...My skin stung. My throat felt as dry as sand.

"The fact that you still have feeling is the impressive part after being a literal comet," Will told him with a kind of critical, stern tone like he thought Percy was still tempted to try again.

"The kind that only comes around in one lifetime," Percy assured.

"Hopefully they don't name anything after it, or worse, you get some kind of crazy superpowers from it," Alex offered.

"Or worse, aliens." Magnus agreed.

"Why would there be an alien free riding on my comet?" Percy asked.

"I don't know, just seems like every sci-fi movie comes with aliens masquerading as comets," he shrugged.

"My life is weird enough without adding bad costumes and CGI," Percy sighed.

... I'd been to the Land of the Dead, and there was no blue sky.

"The fact that that is a more normal sentence than you, a child of the sea, not waking up on the beach more regularly, really says something about your life," Magnus couldn't help but inform Percy.

"Who would want to wake up with a sunburn every day?" Percy shrugged. "Plus, that sand really does get everywhere. Nah, I'm good."

Apparently only normal people, Magnus sighed as he answered himself.

...My muscles felt like they were melting.

"I hear to much exercise will do that to you," Will said wisely.