PJO Hunger Games au

Chocolate

Annabeth was starting to dread waking up. Each day presented a new horror she had to experience and she was getting tired. So she laid on the floor, immobilized, watching Reyna make notes on a pad of paper. Reyna who apparently had a little sister, who killed Clarisse like it was nothing, and could easily kill Piper and Annabeth too. But she didn't. At least not yet. After they heard the explosion yesterday, they watched the sky. The faces of Clarisse, Frank, and Rachel blinked in and out. It made her think of Percy, who was alive somewhere. It felt like a million years ago when they shook hands in front of district 12.

It was Piper's arrival that forced Annabeth to move.

"Look what I found!" she said, brandishing three brown sticks.

Piper had gone and explored some of the other floors in the building earlier that morning.

"Wax?" Annabeth guessed.

Piper rolled her eyes. "It's called chocolate! It tastes really good. We have it on really rare occasions in my district."

Reyna came over to inspect it. "You're right. What floor did it come from?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might. What if it's poison?"

Annabeth frowned. "That wouldn't be very entertaining. Dying from poisoned chocolate."

The thought made her laugh.
Piper and Reyna looked at her like she'd lost it. Maybe she had.

"Well, I'm gonna eat it," Piper said, tossing a bar to Reyna and a bar to Annabeth. "You two can do whatever."

Annabeth bit into it and her mouth exploded with the sweet flavor. She closed her eyes and chewed. "This is incredible, Piper," she said.

Even Reyna grudging nodded. They sat there eating their chocolate and watching the sun creep across the sky for a while. Annabeth laid down again, resting her head on her pack. She was almost asleep when she heard a thump above her head.

Instantly all three of them shot to their feet.

"I just want one day," Annabeth muttered, "one day without a crisis."

"Shhh," Reyna whispered harshly.

The thumping continued, heavier than a human unless they were jumping.

"How did someone get up there?" Piper said, "we would have heard or seen them come up the stairs."

Reyna turned to them, face white as a ghost. "That's not a person."

A mutt, thought Annabeth. She was surprised the games had gone on this long without them. The girls sprang into action, pausing only long enough to pick up their weapons. As they sprinted towards the stairs, a chunk of ceiling collapsed in front of them.

Annabeth shielded her face, and when she lowered her arm, a white hot bolt of adrenaline surged through her and she turned and ran with no thought of anything else. A wolf had been her first thought, but it was more than that. Lips raised in a snarl, rows of gleaming white teeth, coarse black fur, beefy front paws with razor sharp claws. Maybe a cross between a wolf, bear, and panther, but Annabeth had no time to dwell on it.

The three girls scattered, even Reyna had no desire to fight it. It's howl shook the room as it thundered after Annabeth.

As she ran, bouncing through the halls and weaving around furniture, she desperately tried to wrack her brain for a way out. I have two advantages, she thought, I'm smaller and I'm smarter. At least she hoped she was smarter, maybe some gamemaker was controlling the mutt. If that was the case, Annabeth was already dead.

Her legs began to burn as she rounded another corner. The mutt was gaining on her, she could feel the pounding of its footsteps in her bones. C'mon, she thought, just a little further. She remembered something Piper mentioned when she went exploring. It was a stupid plan, but it could save her life.

She turned a corner and spotted it. A small room with a metal hatch imbedded in the wall. She ripped the hatch open and slipped in, her lags dangling freely and hands gripping the edge. She breathed out. She could do this. It didn't matter that she could slip and fall ten stories. She brought her legs up to her chest and pressed them against the side of the chute while resting her back against the opposite side. She carefully released her hands and let the hatch close.

Her entire weight rested on the strength of her legs and she prayed they wouldn't give out. She'd been up and down the butcher's chimney a few times like this with slices of dried meat up her shirt. Annabeth heard the mutt growling and pacing outside the chute, pausing only to howl. She felt a drop of sweat trickle down her back. She wouldn't last much longer. If there was a gamemaker controlling it, all they had to do was wait a little longer and Annabeth would fall to her death.

But after another minute of pacing it turned and left. Annabeth listened to the scrape of its claws fade, waiting as long as she could before she hauled herself out of the chute. She collapsed on the floor, legs trembling. The question now was to stay or to go. She hoped Reyna and Piper had enough time to get out the building but she couldn't be sure. On one hand, it was safe by the chute, but the mutt knew where she was. Annabeth was sure it would come back.

"Then I have to get out of here," Annabeth murmured. She stood up, squared her shoulders, and jogged to the stairs.

She soundlessly descended the stairs, barely daring to breathe, listening intently for thumps or howls. She thought she heard a scream but it was so faint she wasn't sure. A light breeze lifted the hair out of her face and made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Her jaw was clenched so tight she was afraid it would shatter if she fell. But her journey down the stairs was uneventful. When she finally reached the last step her nerves were shot, but the outline of Reyna at the doorway filled her with relief.

"Reyna! Thank god. Did you see..." her voice trailed off in horror as Reyna turned to face her.

The side of her face was so badly torn up, Annabeth thought she saw her cheek bone through the blood. Where her right arm should have been was strips of skin hanging off an empty shoulder socket and in her remaining hand was her right eyeball. Blood streamed from the empty socket.

Annabeth would have screamed if there was any air left in her lungs. Reyna smiled coldly, seemingly immune to the pain of her massive injuries.

"You should run, Annabeth," she said, letting her eye slip out of her palm. "He'll be back soon." Behind Reyna she saw two glowing eyes emerge as the mutt crept forward, nails scraping the floor.

Annabeth stumbled out the door, legs like lead. She heard the piercing howl of the mutt again, Reyna's scream. Maybe her last scream. Annabeth ran and ran with no direction, stopping only to throw up on the side walk. It was just bile that scalded her throat. Up and running again, a cannon firing, her feet slapping the pavement. She kept running until the gray pavement of the sidewalk blurred with the gray buildings and Annabeth's mind was empty.