Sucked In

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & the Olympians or anything else you see, really.

Rating: T for cursing, violence, and maybe suggestive themes.

Genre: Adventure/Humor

Summary: Percy and Thalia have been friends ever since they were kids. One day, they find a book hidden in her attic and open it, only to be sucked into it. When they open their eyes, they find themselves inside the book, where monsters, gods, and all sorts of mythical creatures exist.

Chapter One: The Book in her Attic

"Hurry!" Thalia whispers, nearly shaking with excitement. Percy sprints through the door, somehow not tripping over his feet for once. "Go, go, go!"

The two friends leap up the steps, being careful not to wake Thalia's mother, who is sleeping on the couch in the living room. The black-haired girl quickly ushers him down the hallway and to the ladder leading to the attic.

"What, exactly, did you want to show me?" Percy asks in an amused voice, swiftly climbing the ladder with Thalia on his heels.

"I found this chest," she explains once they reach the top of the ladder and are safely kneeling on her attic floor, "and I... I don't know. I have this... feeling, you know? Like there's something special and exciting inside."

Percy raises his eyebrow at her. "Really? You think there's something exciting in a chest that's probably from the 1980s?"

Thalia blushes bright red and swats him on the arm, irritated. "Oh, shut up. My mom isn't that old."

Percy narrows his eyes at her, saying in an unsure tone, "I don't know, Thals. I think she might be. You sure you're only six- Oof!" He grunts as her fist collides with his arm.

"Shut up!" She groans. "Yes, I'm only sixteen, and that, unfortunately, means that you're still older than me."

He glares at her as he rubs the sore spot on his arm. "You may be sixteen, but you have the arm strength of a boxer." She rolls her eyes at him.

"Yeah, yeah, we know; I have more muscles than you. Now, can we open the chest?" She ignores the shocked look on his face at her jab and stands up, walking over to the old wooden chest hidden underneath a blanket.

He stalks after her angrily and spins her around. "No, you don't!" He exclaims, insulted.

She sighs and gently takes his hand off her shoulder, frowning at him. "Right. Well, look, I'll say you have more muscles than me just to appease your huge ego. Now, can we open this chest?"

He scowls at the totally casual and innocent look on her face as she says those words and glances around. "Fine. So, where is this thing?"

Thalia finally cracks a smile- probably the first one she's had all day. "Over here. Come on." She leads him over to the chest and uncovers it, revealing the large antique.

He squats next to it and examines it. It's a classic design, and if he hadn't known better, then he would have thought that it was straight from the movie set of a pirate movie. "Cool. You got the key?" He asks, gesturing to the keyhole. She smirks and drops down onto the floor next to him, producing a hairpin from her pocket. She neatly unlocks the chest and pops it open, a musty smell rising from the inside.

"Yuck," she murmurs, peering inside along with Percy. Inside, an old looking leather-bound book resides, dust gathered on the blank cover. "A book?"

He sighs in disappointment, reaching in and grabbing the book. "Jeez, this was a huge let-down." She sighs, too, and leans over towards him, watching as he begins to open it.

"What do you th-" She's cut off when he opens it all the way, and a huge sucking noise emits from the book as it pretty much flings itself out of his grip and lands on the floor, pages aglow.

She shrieks and jumps back, and he scrambles back alongside her. The book suddenly starts sucking in everything in the room- along with the two teenagers occupying it. Percy, on instinct, lunges for Thalia and tries to stop them from being dragged in.

Unfortunately, luck is not on their side. The thing drags them in closer and closer until their feet touch the book... and then they get sucked in.

-PxT-

When Percy opens his eyes, he can only see pure blue sky. He groans and slowly sits up, gripping his head, which is pounding madly. He looks around and sees bright green shrubbery and trees, lush grass, and vivid flowers of all colors. He blinks, and then everything that happened rushes back to him.

"God! Thalia!" He shouts, jumping to his feet and turning in every direction but not seeing her anywhere. "Damn it!" He curses and runs off towards the forest, muttering under his breath. "I swear, if she's hurt-" He cuts off that flow of thought and shakes his head, focusing instead on trying to find her.

"Percy?" A soft voice asks, suddenly stopping him. He spins toward the voice and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds Thalia standing there. She frowns and shakily attempts to stand, but her leg buckles underneath her weight, causing her to fall back down.

"Thalia!" He runs towards her and falls to his knees, gripping her shoulders and helping her lean against a tree. "What the hell happened?"

She glares at him. "What do you think, idiot? I landed on my ankle and sprained it!" He scowls at her and moves down toward her feet, hand hesitantly hovering over her legs. "Right," she directs, voice dry.

He carefully places his hand on her right ankle, making her flinch, which, in turn, makes him jump. "Gah! Sorry!"

She takes a deep breath and looks around. "Percy, can you, like, get me crutches or something? We need to figure out where we are, and I can't move around without support." She thinks about adding the fact that Percy won't be able to carry her for three steps (not that she's that heavy; he's just really weak), but opts not to because that would probably start an argument, and they don't need that right now.

He gives a quick nod of affirmation and takes off to go look for a suitable piece of word for a crutch. Thalia sighs to herself and takes off her jacket while digging her Swiss Army knife out of her pocket. She uses it to cut off one of the sleeves of her jacket and tightly ties the sleeve around her injured ankle. There. That's what people are supposed to do when they sprain their ankle while hiking, right?

"Oh, who am I kidding," she mutters. "I don't know anything about that because I've never read a book about first-aid or sprained my ankle while hiking." She sighs and leans back, pocketing her knife and folding her jacket across her lap.

"I need your knife," Percy mumbles as he reappears, walking out of the brush and holding two long branches. "I need to whittle this into a crutch-shape."

She takes her knife back out and hands it to him, rolling her electric blue eyes. "Whittle. What a stupid word."

He scoffs. "Yeah, yeah." As he sits down and starts whittling the branches, he smirks and snidely comments, "And you said being a Boy Scout was stupid."

She resists the urge to slap him and shoots back, "And you said that carrying a Swiss Army knife in my pocket was a bad idea." He shrugs as they come to a deadlock and continues carving.

Thalia begins to get unnerved by the silence. She breaks the silence by asking in a slightly scared voice, "Percy?"

He glances at her really quick, worry flashing across his face. "Yeah, Thals?" Her nickname calms her down a little, and she relaxes just a bit.

"Where are we?"

His head snaps up so that his eyes can meet hers, and once he sees how she looks- like a lost little kid- he forces himself to seem cool and collected. "I don't know. Probably got sucked inside that damn book, transported to some other universe where animals talk and plants are huge, and are now discussing how crazy a day we're having."

She manages a weak laugh and tries to put on her tough exterior again. "Yeah, I guess that sounds about right."

He grins to himself and nods. "Yeah, it does."

They're both not sure how long it takes, but they are sure that it takes him a while to carve her crutches. "Done," he announces at last, sighing in relief and handing over the crutches to her.

She smiles appreciatively as she admires the makeshift crutches. "Wow, these look pretty professional." Flashing him a bright grin, she sincerely says, "Thank you, Percy."

He forces down a blush and attempts to shrug it off. "No big deal. Don't sweat it."

She rolls her eyes at his typical man attitude and awkwardly stands, testing out her crutches. She smiles when they don't break and are able to support her weight. "Cool. Okay, so, what's our plan?"

Percy gets on his feet next to her and does a quick take of his surroundings. "Uh... We should look around and try to see if my crazy theory is right."

She sighs and shrugs, biting her lip. "Yeah, sure. We don't really have any other options right now."

They travel out of the forest and back to the field where Percy landed. He squints at the wide expanse of land and notices something moving. "Hey... What's that?"

Thalia looks in the direction he's looking and also sees the moving speck. "...Percy..." She begins in a warning tone. "It's coming towards us, and, um... I don't think it's human."

And that's when he finds that she's totally and completely right. It's way too big to be human.

His eyes widen in shock, and he slowly turns his gaze on Thalia, who is still staring at the figure. "Um, Percy? I hate to break this to you, but," her voice turns shrill, "I'm pretty sure that's not a normal animal!"

He raises his eyebrows and turns back to the thing. "What are you- Oh my God!" He actually screams and dodges to the side as a huge snake-like creature barrels past.

Thalia gasps and quickly gets out of the way, shocked at how fast the thing is. "I told you so!"

He glares at her and throws his hands in the air, exasperated. "Really, Thalia? Now?"

She glares right back before turning her attention to the thing that attacked them. It's long and has glittering black scales that resemble armor, and oh, no...

Damn. They were right.

They landed in a world full of magical creatures. The proof is right in front of her.

The drakon curls back around and fixes its glare on her while she wonders why the hell her mother had a magical book locked away in a chest in the attic.

As the drakon hisses, she starts to think that she won't make it back to find out the answer.


I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I think it has some potential. Some.

If I'm being completely honest here, this chapter seemed slow and boring. But I couldn't really figure out what to do about it, so I just decided to post it. I'll try better next time. Sorry.

~Hunter