Artemis Child

Monster Earth Ch2

Red viscose material lay just below our chins, as we were being held captive. The logs that held us each afloat felt uncomfortable and irritating to the shoulders. My arms were getting that tingly feeling from being vertical for so long.
"Hey ya'll ever think about life after the monster killing and demigod camp?" I asked them looking up at the pale light the was coming down the well. "Yeah I always wanted to be a therapist." Max said pretty fast. "I never really thought about it." Andrew said seeming like he felt out of place. "Weapons and the camp has been all I've ever known." He added. "Same, I just cared about protecting my sister and rising up in rank at camp." Marc said being rather quiet. This dim well didn't provide much light on either the walls or my friends' faces. The stone walls of this well were cracked to the touch, almost rough enough to grate my skin off in thin layers if I wasn't cautious of where I would float.
"I wanted to become a cook. Because I'm really good at cooking. But then I thought about animals and how they would fell being eaten and my sister likes animals so like horses are her favorite. But then being a rancher would be a bad idea and I'm not actually a fan of farms or country music so I then thought about becoming a professional boxer like that floyd guy. Man he was quite the beast back on his time I mean he really would knock them out of the park, metaphorically I mean. Wait what if he could knock them out the park, like a dog park. But I'm wondering if I could bring my hawk to the park. Or are they not allowed at the park. What if they had..." his voice drained on as if he was talking to himself. "I wanted to be an architect at one point. But as I got older I wanted to do crime lab." I said trying to push the thoughts completely out of my head given the current situation. It was like this material was crawling at the back of our minds.
   "Oh my gods Toni, shut the fuck up." Max said expressing an extreme amount of emotions unlike ever before since meeting him. Toni had been talking our ears off still. Telling us this story, but each time he got to something specific and was unsure if we knew about it he would explain that and try to finish his story. This happened more when ever he mentioned someone he knew we didn't know. "My uncle Maestro was like: Chill lil cuz I got you. But Maestro I knew wouldn't lie to me  but the one time he did lie to me, not that he is a bad guy you know? But you don't he was a military guy born and raised in our.." he was going on and on. "Well we found out our teams weakness. Toni thinking." Andrew said shakinging his head with a sigh. "I'd drown myself if I could." Max said agreeing with Andrew. "Okay I have a plan." I said out loud. "Its not ready tho. I keep forgetting truth liquid is currently the broth we are in, which would make us the veggies."
  "Tell us what you got?" Toni asked stopping his story finally. "If two of is go back to back and press hard enough two of us at a time should be able to get out. It gets more narrow towards the top so the start would be our only problem. After we get out of this liquid Should be able to at least get his weapon out since its...?" I paused looking at him. "It was a gift from Kaylyn when she proposed." Max said but then started trying to drown himself again.
  "You two are engaged?!" Toni was basically shouting at this point. "But yes. It's my old sword. Unfortunately its dull from when we were in Tartarus." Max said looking at the way his arm was positioned, his tattoo barely breaching the viscose material. "Hey guys I just noticed something. Those weird symbols that were on the ends of the logs. I can read them now. They are simple words." Toni said almost going cross eyed as he would stare hard at Andrew's symbols. "That's cra..." Max stopped himself. He could read it as well. And so too could I. Whatever the material we were soaking in, it was having some side effects. "Scout" mine read. "Wall" Andrew's read. "Spear" Max's read. "Arrow" Toni's read. "Fang" Marc's read.
  "Here put your back to mine." I said to Andrew trying to get in position to start the climb. Suddenly war drums started ringing loud above us. "Yo what the fuck?" Max asked as he looked up towards the sound. They were getting louder like they were approaching us. High and low voices chanting in harmony a beat like an evil choir. The orange light of fire started to enclose on the opening of the well.
   "Let it empty skull. Now see our world." A voice called from the opening above us. The silhouette of someone started pouring things in the well. Beetles of some kind. They landed on us, the logs, and the red material like a thin layer of insect. The beetles swarmed us climbing up our faces and necks to get to the logs where they ate them extremely fast. The moment Andrew was no longer attached to the log he sunk below the deep red rather quickly.
  I was next. The cold material and Toni rambling made me unaware of the vine attached to my waist with a large rock. The log's buoyancy was the only thing keeping us afloat, those beetles making a quick snack of the wood sent me down to the depths of the dark cold red grip.