𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒃𝒂𝒍𝒍 - 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒐𝒄

.•°*¯'*¤° 𝑭𝑰𝑽𝑬 °¤*'¯*°•.

The good news: the left tunnel was straight with no side exits, twists, or turns. The bad news; it was a dead end. 

After sprinting a hundred yards, they ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path. Behind them, the sounds of dragging footsteps and heavy breathing echoed down the corridor. Something—definitely not human—was on their tail. 

"Tyson," Percy said, "can you—" 

"Yes!" He slammed his shoulder against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. 

Dust trickled from the stone ceiling. 

"Hurry!" Grover said. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!" 

The boulder finally gave way with a horrible grinding noise. Tyson pushed it into a small room and we dashed through behind it. 

"Close the entrance!" Annabeth said. 

The six got on the other side of the boulder and pushed. Whatever was chasing them wailed in frustration as they heaved the rock back into placed and sealed the corridor. 

"We trapped it," Phoenix said. 

"Or trapped ourselves," Davey said. 

They turned. They were in a twenty-foot-square cement room and the opposite wall was covered with metal bars. They'd tunneled straight into a cell. 

"What in Hades?" Annabeth tugged on the bars. 

They didn't budge. Through the bars they could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard—at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.

"A prison," Percy said. "Maybe Tyson can break—" 

"Shh," said Grover. "Listen." 

Somewhere above, deep sobbing echoed through the building. There was another sound, too—a raspy voice muttering something that Phoenix couldn't make out. The words were strange, like rocks in a tumbler. 

"what's that language?" Percy whispered. 

Tyson's eye widened. "Can't be." 

"What?" Phoenix asked. 

Tyson grabbed two bars on our cell door and bent them wide enough for even a Cyclops to slip through. 

"Wait!" Grover called. 

But Tyson wasn't about to wait. They ran after him. 

The prison was dark, only a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above. 

"I know this place," Annabeth spoke. "This is Alcatraz." 

"You mean that island is near San Francisco?" 

She nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum." 

It didn't seem possible that they could've popped out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country, but Annabeth had been living in San Francisco all year, keeping an eye on Mount Tamalpais just across the bay. She probably knew what she was talking about. 

"Freeze," Grover warned. 

But Tyson kept going. 

Davey grabbed his arm and pulled him back with all his strength. 

"Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"  

Phoenix looked where he was pointing, and her stomach did a somersault. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster more horrible than anything she'd ever seen before. 

It was sort of like a centaur, with a woman's body from the waist up. But instead of a horse's lower body, it had the body of a dragon—at least twenty feet long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail.