Children of the underworld

chapter 6

It was dark, and it was cold, and Nico had no idea where he was. What he did know was that he was alone. That fact seemed worse than every other factor of his predicament put together.

Anubis? he asked as soon as he became aware that he was both conscious, and somewhere unfamiliar. The thought practically echoed in the emptiness of his mind, as he realized Anubis wasn't there. Panic flared through Nico. He tried again. ANUBIS!

No answer.

"ANUBIS!" Nico screamed in his mind and out loud. His voice came out odd. Like sound wasn't meant to exist in this place he found himself now, this frigid, dark abyss. He felt like he was floating in a void. Or a black hole.

Somehow he knew that nothing was meant to be here. This wasn't a real place. This wasn't really anything. It was . . . like the opposite of existence. Dark matter. The destructive power that trumped both order and chaos, life and death. It was the end of everything. A force whose only purpose was the destruction of everything.

The End of Days, whispered something in his mind, and Nico couldn't help but remember that damned prophecy. Was this really what The End of Days meant, he wondered? Was he meant to unleash this force upon the world?

"No!" shouted Nico. He tried to back away, but he was in the middle of the void. There was nowhere to back away. "That is not my destiny! I would never do that! Never! Anubis! Anubis, can you hear me? HELP!"

His voice didn't echo. It was more like it was sucked away faster than it should have been. Like if he was trying to talk while shadow traveling, and the sound couldn't keep up at the speed he was moving. Only here it was more like the sound couldn't keep up with the rate of decomposition. Everything that existed was quickly devoured here. Nico didn't know why he hadn't been yet.

"It's like my blood," he realized aloud. He spoke even though he knew his words would be snatched away by the nothingness as soon as he spoke them. This place destroyed everything except for him. Just like his blood rotted away everything except for him. Metal, stone, wood, plastic, glass, flesh, and bone. His blood tore through it all, but he realized that compared to this place, his blood wasn't nearly as potent as he'd thought. His blood was like a diluted form of this power. Or like someone had diluted this power into his blood, pumped just a little into it, and that was enough to turn his blood into necrotic acid. But this place could rot away the whole damn world. It could rot away all of existence.

"Anubis! Percy! Sadie! Someone!" screamed Nico. "Help me! Get me out of here!"

He needed to get out now. He didn't know how he hadn't been destroyed by this place already, but he knew he couldn't stay there. If he did, it would drive him insane. Seeing this destructive power was like staring into an abyss . . . and realizing that the abyss was staring right back into him.

"This is it," said Percy without much enthusiasm. "The Door of Orpheus."

He turned when he heard Sadie giggle. Even though the Egyptians weren't coming with them into the Underworld, they'd come along to the door to see them off.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I was just thinking," said Sadie. "This is right near where we met Nico for the first time."

"That seems like so long ago," said Carter.

"Yeah," said Percy. "And he was just coming out of the Underworld then. He'd used this very door. Persephone was driving him crazy. He'd just wandered out and was walking around, trying to figure out what to do and where to go –"

"When I jumped off those rocks and landed right on top of him," said Sadie.

"You didn't jump, you fell," Carter reminded her.