The Shortcut
"I found a shortcut! It's a shortcut! You guys! Come see!" Annabeth, a little girl of seven, ran ahead of them. She had a brilliant smile on her face as she bounded towards the front gate, her long blonde hair flying behind her like a cape. She was happy. She thought she finally did something to help. "Look! Look!" She pointed up at the wooden sign, loosely hanging on the gate, that read, in big black letters, SHORTCUT. The T's were smeared and runny at the ends. The others came closer and read the sign.
"Annabeth…" Luke said, cautiously. "How did you find this place?" He said gazing up at the huge house behind the front gate. Behind the house was a trail that led into the distance behind some trees.
"I went exploring." She said simply. Even though she was visibly happy and smiling, her hope and joy was slowly diminishing inside her when she saw their faces. "You guys..." She sighed, whining. "We need to get to New York, right?" She looked at Grover but didn't wait for an answer. "Well, look! It even says it's a shortcut. Talk about fate! Please? If we go the long way the monsters will just catch up. Thalia. Do you want that?" She looked at Thalia, pleadingly.
Thalia wasn't so sure about this shortcut. Annabeth's big gray eyes were getting to her, though. But she still wasn't too sure. She looked at Grover. "What do you think, goat-boy?"
The satyr was nervous. That was clear because he was twitching around and glancing up at the house, as if waiting for something. Something bad. The house looked old and deserted, with its barded up windows and chain-locked side doors. The property reeked of... something. Something he couldn't quite put a finger on. He started to shake his head.
"No! Please!" Annabeth looked about ready to cry. "You guys! It-"
"Annabeth." Thalia said. "Why do you want to go through there so bad?" She knew something was up. Annabeth knew better than to trust any stupid sign that said SHORTCUT and looked hand-written. Thalia knew that. There was something Annabeth wasn't telling them.
Annabeth looked down at her feet and stuttered out, "It...it says, sh-shortcut...and..."
"Oh. Right. Lovely. Now what's the real reason?" Thalia asked the little girl.
The little girl wasn't telling them something. She was afraid they knew that too. Of course, being the daughter of Athena, she was just as smart (if not smarter) than them, so did they really think she'd follow a mediocre sign that was handwritten - what? Maybe a hour before? - without a reason? Did she even think that? No. Of course not. Annabeth is seven, not stupid.
"Well-" Annabeth was interrupted by the sound of howling. Howls they knew all too well. They all turned and saw the pack of hellhounds that had been following them for two days now, turn the corner of a street about a mile away. They howled louder and ran faster when they smelled the scent of half-blood. Three half-bloods, to be exact.
"You can't be frickin' serious!" Luke muttered, drawing his sword and backing up a few feet. He looked scared and tired. They all were. They'd been fighting monsters for two days straight. They didn't have time to rest let alone be scared. What little time they found was used to run away. They're resourceful like that.
Annabeth gasped and opened the gate. The creaking made her grimace but whatever was calling her from the house couldn't be worse than a hungry pack of hellhounds. "Well, I don't know about you guys but I'm gonna take the shortcut!" She drew her knife and ran down the walkway towards the front door of the house.
"Annabeth! Wait!" Thalia screamed after her. She glanced back at the hellhounds which were only getting closer and then at Luke. She shook her head at him and ran after the little blonde girl, through the gate.
"Thalia!" Luke and Grover sighed exasperated before disappearing into dark house after the daughter of Zeus.
"Annabeth! Where are you?" Thalia ran through the pitch black hallway, only moving because she saw a faint yellow light at the end of it. And because Annabeth was in there. Somewhere.
"Thalia!" Annabeth's scream was faint and it echoed throughout the house, making it hard to locate where it came from. Thalia ran faster towards the yellow light.
"Annabeth?" Breathing hard, Thalia stumbled into the light. Blinking, she found herself in the center of a round room. The light coming from variously old and dusty light bulbs that hung from the ceiling. Thalia was surrounded by narrow hallways and corridors. Each leading off to who knows where. It looked like an octopus. The huge center room with the arms spreading out into different directions. She turned in a circle, forgetting the way in which she came. She didn't know where to go next. The little girl was all she saw in her mind. She had to find her. "ANNABETH?" She yelled.
Then, a scream. Not a little girl's scream, though. A boy. Luke. Thalia zeroed in on a narrow hallway somewhere to her left, lit with flickering light bulbs. She briefly wondered how he ended up in another corridor when she made it to the center room first. She started forward towards her friend, anyway. "LUKE!"
"The important thing is that we stay together. Zeus knows if we can get lost in here." Grover said, meant for Luke to hear. He waited for the thunder. It never came but he dismissed it. He was running down the dark hallway, moving towards the a light that flickered ahead.
He didn't hear Luke reply. But, before he could look over, he ran into a round room, where light bulbs dimmed and brightened every few seconds. They swung ominously, without wind or air to move them.
Grover's senses were immediately assualted with the putrid, rotten scent of monster. He covered his nose and mouth with his shirt, knowing that wouldn't do any good. He knew they shouldn't have gone into the house. But now, he couldn't do anything about that. He had three powerful half-bloods lost somewhere in the dank, dark corridors. In the home of a horrible monster. He had to find them before it was too late.
A scream.
"Thalia?" Grover called after it. The same scream again. Grover ran down the corridor he thought the sream was coming from. "THALIA!"
"Annabeth!" A voice called.
The little girl stopped dead in her tracks. "Daddy?" She tilted her head to one side, bewildered.
"Annabeth! Sweety, come help! HURRY!"
"DADDY!" Annabeth took off down a corridor towards her father's voice.
She ignored the bones scattered on the floor all around her. Ignored the flickering fluorescent lights above her. Ignored the fact that running around unfamiliar halls gave her a bad feeling. Ignored that she was scared to death because of that feeling. "DADDY! HANG ON!" Ignored the fact that she hated her father.
It was like a maze. Each hallway and corridor led through a different labyrinth of stairs and sloped floor. When they opened up, they came upon the round center room; from a different corridor. Of course, no one knew where they had entered or where they'd end up. They'd get so confused. Too confused.
People get lost in these hallways. And they don't live to speak of it.
A monster lurks in these dark, dank hallways. He'd been waiting for this moment. Waiting impatiently - yet always sitting still - for the moment when these three half-bloods and their 'escort' would arrive. The Lord of the Dead himself, came and told him about how he'd herded them to him, in order to make sure a certain daughter of Zeus never breathed again. He waited anxiously for her arrival. He could smell them. Could sense them running around like headless chickens. Waiting to be devoured. His mouth watered. But he had to be still. He had to wait or else it wouldn't work.
He sat and waited for them to make the wrong turn - or was it the right one? - towards him. He sat in his large room, behind a certain door, in a certain hallway, that looked no different from the others.
It was so easy. A free meal. He smiled in wait. His one eye shining.
He barely had to do anything. He only had one job. One job that would lure them to him like moths to a flame.
He cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that wasn't his. "THALIA! HELP!" The boy-ish voice echoed throughout the entire house. After a second, he heard the reply he was waiting for.
"LUKE? WHERE ARE YOU?" He heard the patter of feet against the hard floor coming towards him. He smiled and rose from his spot on the ground. The floor and the moldy walls around him shook and quaked under his weight and sudden movement.
Suddenly, a girl dressed in black turned the corner and saw him. She stopped dead in her tracks and reflexively lifted up her shield. The shield held the most horrible image. The monster roared turning the other way. The girl's scream echoed throughout the house, when the monster grabbed her.
"Annabeth?" He screamed.
"LUKE!"
"Annabeth!" Sword drawn, Luke turned around a corner and looked around wildly for the little girl.
This house scared him. It wasn't even a house, it seemed. More like an enormous, abandoned hospital. The ones that are made to keep the patients in and get them lost in the sterile hallways if they ever try to escape. What were those called again? Oh right. Asylums. Mental Institutions. Nut Houses. Rehab.
Luke ran faster. "Annabeth!" He croaked, his voice breaking.
On the outside, it had looked like a regular old two-story home. What happened? This 'house' seemed to go on forever. No exit, no signs, no Thalia, no Grover, and no Annabeth, either. Nothing but hallways and corridors. And bones. Human bones scattered around the floor, right under the bright, flickering lights.
"Annabeth," He breathed. He was breathing too hard. He couldn't run forever. His run turned from a jog to a walk. He barely had any energy left when he turned a corner.
One huge eye looked into his blue eyes. Luke screamed at the sudden sight and, without thinking, slashed at the cyclops with his sword. But the monster was too quick.
Grover felt that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He could sense emotions. Some more than others. He knew what Thalia felt. She was scared and kind of loopy, like she was out of it. It was like... like, she wasn't thinking straight. It was weird.
"Thalia?" Grover called.
No answer. He was kind of getting sick of no one answering him and-
"GROVER?" Thalia's voice screamed out from a corridor that was to Grover's right. "GROVER! COME, QUICK! HELP ME!"
"Thalia! HANG ON!" Grover ran forward. The scent of monster only getting stronger. But so was the scent of half-blood. "THA-"
A roar.
Turning a corner, Grover found the source of the roar. The cyclops made a wild grab for the 'escort'.
"Daddy?" Little Annabeth tested again, just to make sure. She found it odd that her father would be here, lost in this maze-of-a-house in Brooklyn. Just odd. Too odd.
No one answered. She heard nothing. She wasn't running anymore. It scared her to run because she'd only be getting closer, faster, to whatever it was that made her feel scared; watched. She didn't like it. She wanted to get out of there. She walked the barely lit hallways, cautiously turning corners and crawling up stairs without making a sound. After a few more minutes of mindless searching for something that might as well not be there, tears welled up in her eyes. She couldn't seem to find any way out. Her sobs echoed through the halls.
She came upon a long hallway, tears still running down her face. A hallway with a dead-end. She walked it nonetheless, a hopeless, empty feeling running through her body.
There was something different here, in this hallway, though. Was it the brighter lights? The thicker atmosphere...?
Or...?
Doors.
Doors faced each other on either side of the walls. After a second of awed staring, Annabeth immediately started to try opening them. Most of them wouldn't open but she didn't worry. There were many doors to try. Too many.
Her hope was quickly dwindling, though, as she reached the last three doors. One on her left and two on the right.
She tried the closer one on the right.
Stuck.
The other one next to it.
Locked.
Annabeth growled, something that scared her more than the place she was in. She slowly turned to the last one. She prayed to whoever on Olympus who wanted to listen. Prayed for it to open.
She only touched the knob when it slowly swung in. No creaking sounds attached. She was grateful for the silence when she peered in.
A hearth burned in the center of the large room. A... thing sat behind it, its back to Annabeth.
Facing Annabeth, although right next to it, were her three friends. They were tied up and gagged. What made the little girl gasp was the fact that they hung upside from the ceiling as if they were smoked hams or something.
The monster turned at the sound of her inhale. His huge brown eye stared down at her. He smiled with his green, moldy teeth gleaming.
"Annabeth." He said but it wasn't his voice. It was the little girl's father's voice. "Sweetheart, come here. Stay with me. You'll be safe here with me. We could stay here forever, together."
Her friends protested with muffled no's and screams, moving around and swinging. The monster's smile never wavered and he didn't move. His stare burned into her face. Into her soul. Her heart quickened and she felt like a helpless little bird staring into the face of a hungry snake.
Hands trembling, Annabeth slowly reached down to her waist, where her knife was hidden. She paused and after a second, everything was silent. The only sound was her friends' shallow breathing, her own heart doing 100 miles per second and the crackling fire.
Suddenly, she drew the knife and charged the cyclops. He didn't have time to react when she stabbed the cyclops hard in its huge ugly toe, yelling, "YOU'RE NOT MY DADDY!"
The cyclops bellowed a loud pain roar before trying, unsuccessfully, to knock Annabeth away with a swipe of his hand. She pulled out her knife and ran to her friends while the cyclops toppled over onto the floor. The roars and screams didn't stop as she cut Thalia free. Thalia hugged her quickly before touching her bracelet. A shield erupted and was, then, on her arm. A spear was in her other hand. She went to finish the cyclops off. Annabeth cut Luke and Grover free as well. They went to help Thalia finish it off. Annabeth didn't watch. She was scarred now. Scarred for life.
She thought it had been her father. She really thought her father might have come to help her, before while she was running around the halls, lost.
I'm so stupid... Annabeth thought to herself, still crying as Luke carried her out a door. She was too out of it to notice that they were finally out of the house. I'm so stupid. I dragged them all down here thinking I heard my dad... And almost got them killed. Almost got Thalia killed... I'm a horrible demigod. I'm a horrible friend. She cried harder.
"Shh, Annabeth." Luke tried to soothe the little girl. "It's okay... We're fine now." They were outside. Outside the gate, watching Thalia and Grover burn the whole 'house' down. The ashes of the cyclops along with it.
The hellhounds were all gone and the night air was still. Annabeth dug her face into Luke's shoulder and cried her eyes out.
"It's all my fault." She whimpered.
Never. Take. The. Short. Cut. O_O. But always Review! Hellz, yeah!
;D
~AwEsOmE_aDrIeNnE~