Percy Jackson - The House of Hades

Chapter 5 - Annabeth

Annabeth trusted Percy with a lot of things. She definitely trusted him with her life and protecting the both of them until she could get the whole of herself healed.

Driving? Not really. Driving when he was terrified, angry, and scarred? Not at all.

Percy had driven Annabeth around on plenty of occasions. None of them had been particularly pleasant. When they had just started going out, Percy always insisted on driving to places and walking wasn't an option. Once, Percy had almost wrecked Paul, Percy's step dad's ( Percy's real dad is Poseidon ) new Prius by driving out into traffic at the wrong time.

Another time, they had been going to Coney Island, and while they were driving, Percy drived off the road and verged onto the opposite lane. With a scream, Annabeth had lunged across the consol and grabbed the wheel, safely steering them back onto their lane before any cars played whack-the-demigods with them.

This time was another one of those cases.

Annabeth had seen everything that had happened from far. She remembered the Pegasus hitting their car. And the voice of Gaia taunting both of them to die early. And the Pegasus dying right in front of Percy.

It was like a terrible joke. Annabeth didn't say it out loud, but she knew that Gaia had possessed the Pegasus because it was a sacred animal of Poseidon. She wasn't sure if Percy had realized that, but he was grieving too much for her to say anything.

Anything that was in their way, Percy was seems to hit it. He took his anger out on everything. The normal, stupid Seaweed Brain Percy had been left behind with the dead winged horse, and the fuming, no bluff Percy had appeared. Annabeth rarely ever saw this side of Percy, for a matter of fact, no one ever saw it. But this was just one of those times.

Percy was hardly paying attention anymore to where he was driving. The radio was off, and Annabeth was still in incredible pain. She hissed  as softly as possible so the no-so-in-a-good-mood Percy wouldn't notice.

He noticed.

"Is it still irritating you?"

Well, that's a stupid question! Annabeth wanted to scream at him. Of course it was still irritating her. But she bit her lips. "Just a little bit," she answered.

He groaned. "We need to find some place to get medical attention." He was looking at her now, not even bothering to look at the road. "Maybe there are some friendly people that somehow got stuck down here in Tartarus that would be willing to help us." It was wishful thinking, but Annabeth smiled. They could only hope now.

Annabeth looked at the road, and gasped. "What?" asked Percy, still looking at her.

Annabeth pointed at the road, unable to form words from the momentary shock. Then she screamed, "BREAK!"

Still not bothering to look ahead, Percy slammed down on the breaks, and they stopped.

"What's going - Holy Poseidon!" he said in disbelief.

The barren wasteland and merged into a thriving jungle.

Large leafed, hundred meter tall trees made the entrance. On the "floor" of the jungle, they were spaced apart. Plants were supposed to be colorful and refreshing. But these plants and trees were dark and lost of colour, and not just because of the nighttime sky.

Annabeth realized she was mistaken. It was not refreshing. It wasn't a normal rain forest. "It's all dead," whispered Percy.

And he was most certainly right. It was all dead. Most of the plants were brown, burned and crumbled. It was as if a giant raging fire had blown through the forest and killed all forms of light. It was so quiet.