Reverie - Awakened Sequel - Travis Stoll

Chapter 14

Hazel leans down, running her hands over the Earth. A deep rumbling noise arises as my attention is drawn to a section of the ground. The dirt begins to cave in, revealing a fairly decent sized hole. 

"This thing won't cave in, right?" I ask nervously. 

Hazel grins at me. "Not unless I want it to." 

In that moment, I see how scary Hazel is. I shiver, walking into the tunnel with her and the others. 

The glow of Percy's sword does little to illuminate the dark tunnel. All I can see is Hazel's curls in front of me. They're pretty. I wonder if Annabeth's hair is like this. I've only seen them in braids. 

A bug skitters somewhere nearby and I flinch. 

Even being a daughter of the Underworld, I prefer being above ground? Level grounded? Whatever the term is. 

Hazel pauses, causing me to bump into her. 

"Hazel?" Frank asks. 

"Here we are." She whispers. 

Another deep rumbling happens as the ceiling caves in in front of us. Thick dust fills my nose as I cough, covering my mouth. 

Sunlight streams through the open hole, I can hear cheers and shouts from up above. Something glimmers on the floor and my eyes widen. "Is that gold?" 

I reach forward but Hazel grabs my hand. "No!" She says quickly. When the images flash by, they're no longer of the curly-haired boy, or Frank or horses. Instead these are... dark dreams. 

Ones of gold and silver but they...

They feel like death. 

I pull away, slamming myself backwards as I fall into the wall. It felt like death. Like I was dying all over again. 

"Imena," Percy says, rushing over to me. "What just happened?" 

I look up at Hazel. She stares at me, almost pleadingly. 

I force a smile. "Nothing, sorry. Just wigged out." I stand up, fixing my armor. "Come on, we have a battle to win." 

Hazel scoops up the gold. Shoving it in her pocket as her face darkens. Something about that gold really spooked her. Well. Pluto is the god of riches so maybe she doesn't like the reminder of her dad. 

An explosion snaps all of our attention's back onto the task at hand. We forge on and find a decent sized hole for us to crawl out of. 

Frank had to help lift us out, but since he's a bit bigger, he was able to pull himself up easily. Something I would not be able to do. 

I look up at the wall and the people on it look right back at me. 

Shit. 

In seconds, flaming arrows and rocks hurdle towards us. As I try to dodge them, Percy grabs my arm and yanks me back. I go to question him but a huge arch of water hits right where I was standing. Leaving a crater in the process.

Percy whistled. "That's a lot of pressure, all right."

"Check that out." Hazel says to us, gesturing to our 'allies'. They aren't even fighting. They're just... watching. 

"What a bunch of jerks." I grit my teeth. How stupid do you have to be to blame a group of kids for something that happened years ago? That has nothing to do with them? 

What the hell? 

They think they're superior because they're not us. They're not superior. They just got lucky.