Hades' Chosen Prince

48. The Cave of Ice

I felt how my heart froze and sunk down from my chest. Only the cold wind from the Himalayas making noise passing through my ears. I was about to start crying, but I immediately felt a shock go from my ankle through my spine, to say that I yelped is an understatement, I literally squeaked and jumped about two feet in the air. Instead on lading on the cold ground of the mountains, I fell onto two strong hands, by this point I was about ready to smack the Tartarus out of him.

"Aww, did Bri thought I was a goner? " said Joey smiling like an idiot, I could only glare and waddle off his arms "it's not funny Joey Stone", he gasped and started poking my sides "you never call me by full name Bri, what's wrong?" He asked as if he didn't know what happened. I glared at him, my eyes growing sharp "you faked falling off this dammed mountain!" I managed a yell, but it wasn't loud enough to cause an avalanche. Joey gave me a confused look "let me explain first".

To summarize Joey's adventure, he apparently heard some rattling under the mountain, he slid down, causing that break in the snow, and found out that there are a bunch of caves in every mountain around Mt. Everest. And that the Everest had its own cave system.

"So what you're telling me, is that you went down and found out caves exist?" I asked trying to understand, Joey answered by nodding slowly "yeah, and a whole bunch. If I do say so myself" he said proudly, though I wouldn't celebrate if I was him.

He tried to make me smile by shooting his signature toothy smile, that smile that you close your eyes as you do, but needless to say, it didn't work out. I walked up to him and touched his cheek "don't. Ever do that again" he nuzzled into my hand, but soon yelped as my hand started burning up with Underworld fire.

He rubbed his cheek whimpering softly "I'm sorry okay? I didn't mean to scare you..." He looked at me with puppy dog eyes, his bright blue eyes sparkled with the snow around us. I couldn't help myself but ruffle his hair "alright fine, now the question is. Which of these caves is the one that this girl is trapped in?". Both Joey and I paced around the summit of the mountain, the sight was breathtaking, but we weren't exactly here for sightseeing. That's when Joey rose his hand like an elementary kid would. I looked at him and motioned him to go on, "didn't the Oracle say something about the night's gown? Maybe we have to look for the cave in nighttime" he explained, I blinked rapidly and nodded slowly "uh-huh, but we will freeze our toes off if we stay here over night". Joey grinned and held my hand "there is a cave just under us, I also found it" with no more words, he dragged me down a steep part of the mountain and into a cave.

It wasn't big, or even a cave, it was more like someone made a hole on the side of the mountain and just left it there.

We set our stuff in the deepest part of the cave, which wasn't that far, Joey had packed two big parkas; that was our only source to be warmth while night fell, I tried to use my fire ability to start a small campfire, but there wasn't oxygen for the fire to stay alive, that and we don't have wood or something to set fire on, all we had was me making a small fire ball for heat.

We shivered and curled up around each other to try and conserve heat, to keep us awake we would tell stories we knew. Joey said how his mom had died at birth and he was taken care by his grandma, he had found camp when he was seven years old.
I really didn't knew this, he would always quiet down when it came to those stories, guess the cold and lack of air went up to his head. I had already told him how I got to camp a few months ago, so instead, I bored him by in how in some cultures they, instead of engagement rings, gave a sort of necklace to their loved one. Joey smirked and looked into my eyes "do you want a necklace?" I blushed brightly and nudged him "no, but that won't stop you", he grinned and nodded "you know me too well".

After what seemed hours, the moon appeared in the sky showing that it was in fact nighttime, I walked towards the entrance of the cave and looked for something, anything. And yes just me, Joey was figuring out if he heard jingle bells as the night fell.

There was nothing, everything was pitch black, the silver glow of the moon being the only light source. Out of the blue, Joey walked up next to me and started shooting lightning into the sky, this made me yelp and scoot away "what was that for!?" I whispered, Joey only smirked and kissed me while shooting another lightning bolt, he closed his eyes, but I didn't, the light from the lightning had illuminated a cave. I smiled into the kiss and kissed him back "you're a genius Joe" I mumbled, "yeah, I try my best" he whispered and pulled away "now let's go, there's a girl waiting to be saved"

We both flew towards the cave slowly, we didn't know what, but there was something not right with this cave. We ventured towards the inside of the cave, it was no different than any other cave, except this one had many spiderwebs, wouldn't surprise me if there were poisonous spiders in here. Soon enough we found a single pice of ice, like a boulder with spikes around it, Joey peeped closer and gasped "the girl! She's in here!" He said. A bit too loud, something from the ceiling had extended and tugged him away from the ice boulder. "Joey!!" I yelled and ran towards the place he was standing, I looked up and froze in terror, I saw Joey knocked out in some sort of web, and right next to him, six glowing red eyes "welcome to my den, Brian Alfred Grey" it chittered.