House of Forbiddens [COMPLETE NOVEL]

18: Misunderstandings Start the Worst Wars

Annabeth

My feet crushed the fresh grass beneath my feet. Surrounding me was a... baseball field. I stood next to the pitcher's mound, and the bleachers rose up high above me. Yet the setting was the least of it.

The air was thick with icor and blood, and all around me blades flashed. I was startled to realize that orange met orange and purple met purple; friends were turned to foes. Silver arrows made arches through the sky, and one coursed through me, only to plummet into its true target behind me. I looked down at myself, and found I was but a shimmering form, there but not there.

My eyes came back up to meet a steely-grey that matched my own in intensity and color, only a few inches away from me. I had met those eyes before.

"Eris is awakened, and you must be wise, daughter." My visioned broadened to reveal the landscape as she made a broad gesture to the battle surrounding us and within us. "This is what will come if you do not choose whom to trust, and choose correctly."

I yelped as I fell to the hard floor. Finding myself face to face with shag carpet, I felt a stab of betrayal from the twin sized bed. Getting up slowly and looking back at the bed, I noticed that there was a bit of drool on my pillow! Shaking my head I decided that it time to get some air and think for myself.

I exited the room and started walking down the long hallway. I had begun to realize something unusual about the house: it changed. I had never seen it happen in front of me, but I had noticed details that lead me to believe this, like the number of doors in a hallway changing each time I went through it, or how one instant a room may have two windows, but when I look down and then look back up again, it now has one. That, and the house was bigger on the inside, like the Tardis. From the street curb it looked like your regular ol' suburban house, with two stories and a plants versus zombies war in the front yard, but from within there seemed to be an endless array of corridors and rooms stretching out at impossible increments, and yet it wasn't boggling or obvious, either. The house managed to seem a normal size, too, as you went through it, yet it still managed to stretch great boundaries. In all honestly, it was amazing.

As I made my way to the stairs, I crossed an open door with light pouring through it. I peered in, and saw something I absolutely didn't believe. It was Will! He was lying on his stomach in a bed. A black ring sat on the nightstand, it had to be him. That Ian kid was leaning over him, grimly. Startlingly, I noticed Will was bleeding on his back, by the shoulder blade.

A burst of adrenaline ran through me and I hurtled myself through the doorway, wanting to help my friend on the other side, all while wondering while he was here... only I didn't quite make it. Where the door would I have been, I rammed into some kind of an invisible force, that pushed me back into the wall behind me.

Fear and confusion warped my brain. Will was inside that room, bleeding, next to Ian, who was doing nothing, and there was a forcefield that kept people out, and therefore, most likely, kept people in. Was Will... kidnapped by these people? Could Magnus be held captive here, too?

I drew the dagger that Sadie, my new friend, had made me, and whirled around to the sound at the end of the hallway. There Kaden stood, now my foe.

Kaden

With our new guests, we hadn't been able to bring Will home, but it's a good thing he didn't, because Jack's poison started acting up again. I hope it will stop being off and on like this soon. At the very least, I can hope that Audrey is far away and not experiencing any of this.

Jack woke us up in the middle of the night because of his poison. He seems to understand when it's a good time to mention things like this and when it isn't, unlike Audrey. Now Will and Ian have done what they can and are keeping watch on him through the rest of the night. I came to check up on them after a few hours, and found Annabeth standing before the open door, a dagger in her hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

She stared at me with an unreadable expression. "You're holding Will hostage."

"What?" I was so confused. What on the moon and stars had happened?

"He's injured!"

Before I could speak, she rammed herself into the doorway, but was stopped there.

The house was a gift from Hestia to my dad when I was born. In many ways, it's alive. The house seems to understand everything that's going on, and will do anything to protect those who live here. The house must have thought it was protecting Jack from this guest.

I tried to approach Annabeth, but she ran away. When I reached the room she and her friends had been staying in, they were gone, and the door was open.

Annabeth

Blitzen, Hearth, and I walked down the suburban roads in the dim night, soon to break into dawn. I don't even know how I got us out of there so quickly. It was almost like that house wanted us out. I felt guilty leaving Will and who knows who else there, but I had no choice.

I turned and lead the group into a driveway, where I grabbed the water hose and dragged it out into the light of the streetlamps.

Now I understood what Athena was telling me in my dream. I was trusting the wrong people. Those people and that houseㅡthey're our enemy, and they had me right in the palm of their hand. Now it was time to both camps of Greeks and Romans. War would be lead against Eris and her followers. Her followers that I had been lead so deftly by, and even given the golden apple, and item of power that plays to their advantage, by my own free will.

The war has begun.

Audrey

It was good that Christine had asked me to keep watch while she slept. I was drop-dead tired, but now that I had an opportunity to sleep, I couldn't bring myself to.

I leaned cross legged against the wall using the shoelace from my hiking boots and a pencil I found in my jacket pocket to mimic a stick and string to make different snares. It seemed the pencil was the only sharp object they had left me with, besides my bra wire, and I wasn't about to use that to start filing down the metal bars. Not with a male two cells down.

Speaking of...

"So, are you gonna talk, or what?" I asked. I had already tried to make communications with the foreign object (males are aliens), but he had merely grumbled in reply.

"My name's Magnus," he said.

"Ah, he speaks!" I cried sarcastically. Typically, I wouldn't act like this, but I'd had a rough few days. I saw him open up a little, and kept going. "I'm Audrey. So, why are you here, Magnus?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. The lady said something about me needing to be here to make friends silent foes, whatever that means... Oh, and she mentioned some prophecy, but none of it made any sense."

I recited it by heart and he gave me a weird look. That prophecy had haunted me from the day I first heard it. That prophecy was either mine of Christine's death sentence... but what did he have to do with it?

"Whoa... I don't know if I could memorize that." I was warming up to this guy. He was funny.

I snapped the snare down on my index finger, then pulled myself from it and began again. One thing was clear: We were gonna be in here a long time. But no matter how long Eris locks us up, the prophecy will be fulfilled. That's just what prophecies do.

By: Elizabeth Pallan