The Gods 3: The Underworld

9 - Mattie

"Not right now, Mattie." Sam said. I let go of her arm, and looked down at the ground.

"Okay, maybe later." I said walking away, I looked back to watch her close the door to her cabin. I stopped when I saw Annabeth playing with her dagger and walking towards me.

Crap, crap, crap.  I thought to myself. Suddenly their was a loud scream coming from the Poseidon cabin.

"Samantha." I whispered before I took off towards the cabin with Annabeth close behind me. When I opened the door neither Percy or Sam were in sight, only a large crater in the floor. Annabeth stood beside me looking at the destruction.

"Do you think she did this?" Annabeth asked, looking around desperately for any sign that they were okay by any chance.

"No." I said. I wasn't sure how, but I could just sense that this wasn't Sam. It felt colder, and more sinister. 

"Matt, I can't lose him again." Annabeth said, looking into the hole.

"I know. We'll find them." I said, running a hand through my hair. Annabeth seemed to compose herself a bit.

"This probably goes to the underworld." Annabeth said examining the hole. "We should jump in."

"Wait, what?"

"We'll get some stuff first before we go obviously. We have to be prepared after all."

"Annabeth, we can't just jump into a giant hole. We don't know what's at the bottom." I argued. "We have to be here, what if they get out in a couple of hours, then they will try to go back in for us. It'll just be a continuous circle." Annabeth thought about it for a moment. 

"We can use another way to get in, it'll bring us closer to the palace."

"What's the other way to get in?" I asked.

"We'll use Orpheus's Passage." She said.

The plan sounded good eno so I agreed to go with her, we went back to our cabin and grabbed a few things we figured we'd need. Our only problem was that we would have to get past Chiron. We figured we could sneak out of the camp at night and make it to New york by morning.

We waited until our entire cabin was asleep. Annabeth sneaked over to my bed.

"Let's go." She whispered. We sneaked out of the cabin, and out of the cabin. Nothing bothered us along the way which seemed a bit out but we made it to the highway without getting lost. We followed along the highway, walking in the dark and tripping on the occasional branch.

"So you do know where this is right?" I asked.

"Yes, Matt I know where it is. Why do you always have to be so condescending?" I didn't have a good answer for her.

"It's been hard lately with Sam."

"Well, I know that. Considering you guy's are broken up. Is that why you're coming with me? You want her back?"

"Of course I want her back. It was a mistake listening to Percy."

"Well, he did have a point. It might be good for the two of you to have some time apart. You have been fighting a lot with her. What have you guy's been fighting about anyway?"

"Just little stuff mostly, things that are pointless or we've already dealt with. Its mostly just a vicious cycle at this point." I said answering honestly, they was really know point to our bickering, we just were. We walked for awhile in silence until we got close to New York. Annabeth lead me through the city, and towards the empire state building we stopped in a park close to it and Annabeth stopped by a giant rock.

"Here we are." Annabeth said pulling Sam's phone out of her bag.

"Why do you have that?" I asked eyeing Annabeth suspiciously.

"Cause we need music to open the passage, and I'm not about to start singing."

"Oh right." I said, I'd been so distracted, that I'd forgotten that we needed music.

"Any chance you know her passcode?" Annabeth asked handing the phone to me. I nodded and put in her code. 8734. The phone unlocked and I scrolled around until I found her music files. I clicked the first song on her playlist. The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy. I knew all the lyrics to this song. Not because i liked it, but because Sam had played it so many times when I was around that it was ingrained into my skull. The rock collapsed in on itself revealing a staircase that went down.

"Well this is going to take awhile." I said tucking Sam's phone into my bag. Annabeth shouldered her pack and went into the passage first, I quickly followed behind her and the doorway sealed up behind us.

***

"Percy?" Jacob asked giving Percy a small shake. Percy groaned and slowly sat up.

"What did I miss?" He mumbled. I laughed a little, I was still holding his sword with the tip of it stuck in the ground a little so I could lean against it. " Why do you have my sword?" He asked.

"Had to kill the monster somehow." I stated. Jacob helped him stand up, and I handed him my sword. 

"You feeling okay?" Jacob asked.

"Yeah I'm fine just a bit of a headache." Percy said, Jacob gave him a look, but didn't pester him. "We should get going the monsters know where we are now." Percy went to grab his backpack, but ended up almost falling over because he was dizzy. Jacob managed to catch him before he fell.

"Can I" Jacob asked. Percy nodded and Jake put his hand on Percy's head and closed his eyes. His hand glowed a little and Percy seemed to perk up. "It was just a minor concussion." He said to no one.

"How come you can fix his head but not my back?" I asked.

"His was a small injury, your's is a lot more drastic and tiring for me to fix, plus I'm not particularly good with open wounds, I'm not entirely sure why. I've been told that I'm the best healer but I can't do open wounds like that, something about I have to accept my destiny or whatever." He mumbled the last sentence. 

"We should get going." Percy said, Jacob and I both agreed and we continued on our way.