Forgotten memories

Shit, Shit. SHIT

"What in Hades—?" Annabeth muttered, yanking hard on the bars, but they didn't budge an inch. From where we stood, we had a clear view of the place: rows of prison cells stacked around a dark courtyard, at least three stories high, with iron doors and thin catwalks crisscrossing overhead.

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

"Shh," Grover cut in quickly. "Listen."

From somewhere above us came the sound of heavy, broken sobs echoing through the walls, mixed with a rasping voice that muttered strange words I couldn't understand. The sound was rough, like boulders grinding together in a tumbler.

"What language is that?" I whispered uneasily.

Tyson's eye widened, and he shook his head. "Can't be..."

"What?" Percy pressed.

But Tyson didn't explain. Instead, he grabbed two bars on our cell door and, without effort, bent them wide enough that even he could slip through.

"Wait!" Grover hissed, but Tyson was already moving.

We had no choice but to hurry after him. The prison was dim, lit only by a few flickering fluorescent bulbs, each buzzing faintly, casting eerie shadows along the walls.

"I know this place," Annabeth whispered, glancing around. "This is Alcatraz."

Percy frowned. "You mean the island—near San Francisco?"

She nodded quickly. "Yeah. My school took a field trip here once. It's... it's basically a museum now."

It didn't make sense, coming out of the Labyrinth on the other side of the country. But Annabeth had lived in San Francisco for a year, watching Mount Tamalpais across the bay. If she said this was Alcatraz, she was probably right.

"Freeze," Grover warned sharply.

But Tyson kept walking. Grover grabbed his arm, pulling with all his strength. "Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Don't you see it?"

I followed his gaze, and my stomach lurched. On the second-floor balcony across the courtyard stood a monster more horrifying than anything I'd ever imagined.

She was like a centaur, but wrong—her upper body was a woman's torso, while the lower half wasn't horse at all but a black-scaled dragon. The body stretched twenty feet long, ending in a barbed tail, with claws that could rip through stone. Her legs looked wrapped in vines, but when I stared, I realized they were actually writhing snakes, hundreds of them, constantly darting and snapping. Even her hair was made of snakes, like a nightmare version of Medusa. Worst of all, around her waist where woman and dragon met, her skin kept bubbling and shifting, forming the snarling heads of beasts—a wolf, a bear, a lion—like she wore a belt of ever-changing animals. It was like staring at something half-finished, a monster born from the raw chaos of the ancient world.

"It's her," Tyson whimpered.

"Down!" Grover urged.

We crouched low in the shadows. The monster didn't notice us—she was focused on a cell on the second floor, the one where the sobbing came from. Her voice rumbled in that strange, ancient tongue.

"What's she saying?" I asked quietly.

Tyson shivered. "The tongue of the old times. What Mother Earth spoke to the Titans... and her other children. Before the gods."

"You can understand it?" Percy asked. "Translate?"

Tyson closed his eye, then spoke in a low, raspy woman's voice: "You will work for the master or suffer."