𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐲; 𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖺𝖻𝖾𝗍𝗁 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗌𝖾

Falling into a hole (Mud version)

At dawn, the store opened up. The owner was a little surprised to find four teenagers crashed out on his picnic table, but when Percy explained that they had stumbled away from last night's train wreck, the guy felt sorry for them and treated them to breakfast.

Ivy's mind wasn't really into it though. She had had a very weird dream about suffocating. Like literally, that's all she did. She suffocated in complete darkness.

But well, the nice owner called a friend of his, an Inuit native who had a cabin close to Seward. Soon they were rumbling along the road in a beat-up Ford pickup that had been new about the time Hazel was born.

Ivy, Hazel and Frank sat in back. Percy rode up front with the leathery old man.
The truck broke down a few miles outside Seward. The driver didn't seem surprised, as though this happened to him several times a day.

He said they could wait for him to fix the engine, but since Seward was only a few miles away, they decided to walk it.

By midmorning, they climbed over a rise in the road and saw a small bay ringed with mountains. The town was a thin crescent on the right-hand shore, with wharves extending into the water and a cruise ship in the harbor.

"Seward," Hazel said. She didn't sound happy to see her old home.

They'd already lost a lot of time, and Ivy didn't like how fast the sun was rising. The road curved around the hillside, but it looked like they could get to town faster going straight across the meadows.

Percy stepped off the road. "Come on."

They were about to follow when Hazel shouted, "Percy, no!"

But it was too late. His next step went straight through the ground. He sank like a stone until only the earth closed could be seen.

             ∆ ~•••••••••••••••••••••••~ ∆

Ivy barely had time to react. She didn't even understand what had just happened. But it didn't matter. She knew she had to get Percy out.

"Your bow!" She shouted.

Frank didn't ask questions. He dropped his pack and slipped the bow off his shoulder.

Ivy's heart raced. She tried not to think what would happen if Percy was already deeper than the length of the bow.

And she also tried not to think about the being trapped inside. For some reason, that thought creeped her out more than most things did.

"Both of you, old one end," she told Frank and Hazel. "Don't let go."

She grabbed the other end, took a deep breath, and jumped into the spot Percy disappeared in. The earth closed over her head.

Instantly, a not so pleasant presence loomed inside her head. "Get out of my mind."

'Oh, but my dear, this is a gift from me.'

Ivy was somewhere else. Some place that even if she couldn't remember, she knew she didn't want to visit.

Her throat closed and panic filled her stomach. Her heart raced for reasons she didn't know and didn't want to learn. She wanted to leave.

"Where am I? Get me out! I need to find Percy!"

She looked around. She was in a house, but all the furniture was sprawled over the floor. There were shards of red tainted glass and pieces of broken dishes everywhere.

Gaea's voice resonated again. 'But, dear, weren't you saying how you wanted to know about your past? About your mother? This is it. Look at her'

A woman barged in the house. She looked like her, but her eyes sent chills through Ivy's spine. She looked crazy.