Isabella, Tartarus survivor

The Heart of Tartarus

Chapter 14

I wasn't aware that Percy was a son of Poseidon, but thank goodness he was. As we ran, I noticed Annabeth speed up. She was scared- heck, I was scared and I'd been down here a lifetime. It was as Annabeth sped up that Percy threw his arms out to stop us. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Annabeth tipped forward, falling, and she let out a yelp. I gasped and jumped forward, but Percy was closer. He grabbed her waist and tugged her back,pulling her into an embrace. "It's okay." Percy whispered soothingly, and I could see Annabeth visibly shaking. Percy stroked her hair and kissed her forehead as he whispered reassurance. After a few moments, Annabeth disentangled herself from Percy's arms.

"Thanks," she said. She took a breath to compose herself, then continued. "Can you tell what's in front of us?"

"Water," he replied. "I'm still not looking. I don't think it's safe yet. I can sense a river... or maybe it's a moat. It's blocking our path, flowing left to right through a channel cut in the rock. The opposite side is about twenty feet away."

I held up my hand to stop him. "How do you know all this?" I asked. He had to be just guessing.

"I can sense the water." He said in a confused tone, like it should be obvious. When I furrowed my brow, he looked even more confused. "I'm a son of Poseidon." He explained, and my eyes widened.

"Poseidon?" I asked, incredulously. "But isn't he one of the... come si chiama... ah, big three?"

Percy nodded. "Santo cielo, é fantastico!" I exclaimed. That would explain Polybotes yelling 'THE SEA GOD'S SON.' I could be dumb sometimes. Percy and Annabeth exchanged a glance, and I realised that I had slipped back into my native dialect, but I couldn't be bothered to explain myself. We were silent for a few moments, then Percy nodded and said:

"Yeah, it is pretty cool sometimes, I guess." I looked at him.

"You speak Italian?"

He nodded. "My ex-stepfather was Italian. I picked up a little bit of it. But we haven't got time for life stories now." He turned to start running, when he held up his hand again.

"Can you hear that? I think there's something wrong with the water." I listened hard, and heard it. Voices. Thousands of them, millions of them. It was an accident! They groaned. The Pain! Make it stop!

"Oh merda." I said under my breath. "The river Acheron. The fifth river of the underworld." I told them. "It's the river of pain," I explained, "The ultimate punishment for the souls of the damned- murderers, especially."

Murderers! I heard the voices wail. Like you! Join us. They wailed. Images flashed in my mind of all the monsters I'd killed. The voices wanted me to jump into the river, and I started wanting to myself. But I knew what to do. I had to ignore them. I grabbed Percy and Annabeth's arms.

"You can't listen to them." I said. "I know it's hard, I'm struggling too, but we have to get away."

Percy shook his head, like he was trying to shake the voices out. "I think this moat must be the border of Night's territory. If we get across, we should be okay. We'll have to jump."

I stepped back, my eyebrows raised. "You said it was twenty feet!" I argued.

"Yeah, you'll have to trust me. Grab onto my shoulders and hang on."

"How can you possibly-" I began, but was cut off by a voice behind us yelling;

"There! Kill the ungrateful tourists!" The children of Nyx had found us. I took a deep breath, grabbed Percy's shoulder, and readied myself. Annabeth was already gripping his other shoulder. He took a step back, took a run up, and jumped.

I don't know how he got us across. Maybe he used the river somehow, with him being the son of Poseidon, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that after a few seconds in mid air, I felt my feet hit the ground, and bent my knees to absorb the impact. Annabeth opened her eyes cautiously, and gasped as she took in her surroundings. I knew this was not good. Even Night's territory was better than this.

"The heart of Tartarus." I heard Annabeth murmur, and I nodded. I could see what looked like fuzzy black dots all over the horizon, and I realized that they were monsters. Thousands and thousands of monsters.

"The Doors of Death?" I asked, and Percy and Annabeth nodded. I swallowed hard. We stood there, in silence, when I heard a rockslide coming from the hills to our left. I grabbed my dagger, and out of the corner of my eye, saw Percy and Annabeth raising their swords. That was when I saw a shock of glowing white hair appear, then pure silver eyes. "Bob?" I asked, shocked.

"Friends!" Came the reply, and I smiled as the friendly Titan lumbered towards us. I noticed his slashed janitor's uniform, and his burned broom, but despite whatever he'd been through, he looked delighted to see us. He gathered all three of us into a hug that felt like it was going to crack my ribs as he said "I found you! You look like smoking dead people. That is good!"

"How did you get here? Through the mansion of Night?" Percy asked as Bob put us down.

"No, no." Bob shook his head hard. "That place is too scary. Another way- only good for Titans and such."

"Let me guess. You went sideways?" Annabeth asked, in a bantering tone. Bob scratched his chin.

"Hmm. No. More... diagonal. I laughed, and Annabeth joined in. She kissed Bob on his nose, and he went cross eyed, and blinked.

"We stay together now?" He asked.

"Yes." I agreed. "Time to see if this Death Mist works."

"And if it doesn't..." Percy began, then stopped himself. We all knew here was no point wondering about that. Despite everything, I looked around, and we all seemed to be smiling. We were facing almost certain death, with a Titan who had turned nice, and a massive, meowing, black cat. The outlook looked good.

"Doors of Death," Annabeth said, "Here we come."

A/N- Hello! Sorry that it's been so long since the last update. I've decided to set a realistic goal. I'm going to try to update at least once a month, but hopefully every two weeks. Shout out to my friend at school who's keeping me motivated to write this! You know who you are. Also, I realised that I've only done this on one chapter, but:

DISCLAIMER: All rights go to Rick Riordan. The only original character in this is Isabella, but everything else is based on Rick Riordan's work.

OK, until the next update, peace out!