Heroes of Olympus (The Throne of Stone)

Chapter 11 Emma Gets A Personal Cot in the Hospital Wing

Chapter 11

Emma Gets a Personal Cot in the Hospital Wing

Emma

The sound of my own scream echoed in my ears. I remembered that I was standing outside the Zeus cabin spying-no-protecting the couple from eager eavesdroppers. I leaned up against one of the marble columns outside the door and waited for Piper to come out. Piper was great. She was the best friend anyone could ever ask for except for maybe Annabeth who welcomed me into this life and led me to Piper. I crossed my fingers hoping that I would have the chance to tell Annabeth how thankful I am  for her. I was humming a tune when it happened. My feet grew cold. Not like a cool breeze but like ice cold. I looked down at my sneakers and stifled a scream. The ground had literally started to swallow my feet! The dirt became alive as it slithered over my laces and across the tops of my feet. Gaea really was awakening. I struggled, but just like in all of those action movies I just sunk faster. My heart grew cold with despair and I let out  a scream. The world turned black.

I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It was really irritating. What if a monster leaped out of nowhere and swallowed me whole and I didn’t even get a glimpse of it? That would really, really suck. I spread out her hands gripping for a wall and I found that I was stuck in a cavern the size of a car. My own personal coffin. “Jason! Piper!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. There was no answer. I started to panic. What if this really was my coffin?

Maybe I could dig myself out! I scooted over to one of the sides of the cavern and scratched at the cold earth, “AHHH!!” I screamed. The earth was like acid under my nails. My hands burned like liquid fire had been poured over them. The burning spread all the way to my wrists. I desperately wanted to blackout. Of all the times I had blacked out I couldn’t blackout this time. Life is so unfair. I screamed in pain but no one came to my rescue with some magic pills that would knock me out.

I would be locked underground for the rest of my life, which would frankly be cut short. I began to worry about how much oxygen this little cavern could hold. I decided to breathe very shallowly so that I could ration my oxygen. I screamed Piper’s and Jason’s names so many times I lost count but there was always an empty response. I absentmindedly started counting my breaths so I could keep track of time. How long had I been down here? An hour? 30 minutes? A day? Time passed so slowly like it was running through molasses. After what I guessed was half an hour my lungs burned so badly it was almost like the acid on my hands. I let loose one last scream before I lost consciousness.

The beeping was what woke me up. Machines were everywhere making some kind of noise but all I wanted to do was sleep. If this was Hades I don’t like it at all. Maybe it was Eternal Punishment or something. Did I really deserve to be punished? I groaned,

“Yes the sedative is wearing off.” I opened my eyes to see a girl with caramel hair standing over her. She had a really warm smile and was attaching a needle to my forearm. To my right and left there were hideous sheets that served as makeshift walls. The sheets were ugly puke green and they didn’t exactly help my mood.

“Where am I?” I groaned. I had a scratchy voice like I had swallowed a bunch of gravel. It sounded like a smoker’s voice. Ew.

“The infirmary silly!” The girl with the caramel hair giggled. For an Apollo kid she was pretty giggly.

“Where are my friends?” I said in her smoker’s voice.

“Right over there!” The girl pointed at the curtain and grinned, “Right behind the curtain!” I felt bruised all over and my hands still burned but it was fainter, more tolerable. I glanced down at my hands to see that they were bandaged with so much gauze you could hardly tell that my hands were under there somewhere. The girl with the caramel hair wheeled a cart with some cloudy looking liquids all inside chrome like bottles. A dude walked over with a huge scringe and made me hide under my covers in terror. The surgeon looking dude poked me,