Title: epitaph
Summary: Bianca di Angelo's sacrifice, from her point of view.
The giant lifted its foot and she grabbed the door and wrenched it open. As fast as she could, she swung herself into the giant's foot just in time and the door slammed shut behind her as his foot came down again.
He continued lurching forward, but slowly enough that she could keep her balance by holding onto the walls. Just the giant's foot was tall enough that she could stand up without banging her head. She breathed hard. That was scary.
It was dark. She blinked uncomfortably, though she usually didn't panic in the dark, and reached out, groping blindly for the other wall. Instead, she felt two metal poles...with another pole between them...and more in both directions.
A ladder! Her eyes began to adjust, but she didn't really need them to to climb. The giant lurched unexpectedly, sending her to the floor, but she leapt up again with one hand on the wall and started up the ladder, gripping the bars tightly and feeling with her feet.
The ladder was tall. She wasn't sure how tall, but she estimated she was about twenty feet up when she started to worry about falling down, trying to keep with the slow rhythm of his walk. The giant jerked again and she fell back, her sweaty hands only barely keeping their grip.
She kept climbing as quickly as she could. She didn't have much time. It wasn't until she stopped squinting in the dark when she realized her face was contorted with crying. Her hands were shaking.
Bianca di Angelo had caused this. She had a job to do. And she was terrified.
She kept climbing.
She was going to die. She was going to die. She couldn't remember a time when she had ever viewed death romantically, but if there was she regretted it, because all there was was fear.
But she had to do this. She was the one who did things when they needed to be done—a trait she had always had to adopt, because she had always been looking out for herself and Nico, always had to be the mature one, the parent, the person in charge—
It had been exhausting, stifling, hard—some days she had hated it.
Now she had to take that role again, because she had put everyone else in danger. It was her fault—she had to be the fixer.
She missed a rung on the ladder and almost slipped again, and this time she could feel a tear working down the side of her face. She was going to diegoingtodiegoingtodie—
Mio dio, Nico. Her baby brother—what was he going to do now? She had left him on his own by joining the Hunters and now she was leaving him all on his own by dying—
Oh God, she going to die and she was terrified! She had to this is. She had to do it. Had to.
If she kept reminding herself, maybe she would believe it, or at least stop being petrified.
There was a light that she could faintly see at what must have been the end of the ladder and she clambered up as fast as she could. She wasn't sure how high up she must have been—one hundred feet, maybe higher. She stepped onto a flat surface, like a room in the center of a robot. A light—one that didn't appear to be a lightbulb, or fire—illuminated the room and a set of controls on the far side, with a small slit above it.
Yes!
Bianca rushed over, hope seizing in her chest although she was still crying a little. Maybe there was a way to save the others still, maybe even herself. She peered through the slit to see the world outside. It took a moment for her eyes to focus.
She could feel him sway slightly, like he was moving his arms. The image cleared. He bore down on Grover, poised to end him with one swing. Panic gripped her. Left. Left. His arm needed to go left.
Bianca had only barely realized that the panel of levels in front of her said Arms in Greek before she grabbed the nearest lever that faced the right and pulled. It was rusty and hard to move. She braced her feet against the wall. It got all the way down. Her hands shook.
She could feel the robot moving its limbs. She wasn't sure what it was doing, but she pulled and pushed anything she could move. She heard a loud clang that vibrated the floor and shook the robot precariously. Had it just punched itself in the face?
What was it going to do now? Could she really survive this? How would she get out? She stood on her toes to try and look out the slit again, but the robot jerked and she stumbled.
The robot continued to walk, but in a more erratic manner then before. She had to hold onto the control panel for support, and she gripped it tightly, the other hand on the wall.
Another clang, another vibration. A shudder ran through the giant's body. She pulled something else, held tightly to the wall, and realized the sobbing sound was coming from herself. Dios, she was being pathetic, but she didn't want to die and she would never see Nico again and dios she—she was so scared—
Horrible pain shot through her. The robot lit up blue. It was both awful and it felt like it was happening to someone else, since suddenly her mind seemed ten thousand years away. The agony was inescapable and every flamingly, searingly pained nerve in her body screamed to be relieved of it.
Abruptly it faded slightly. Bianca felt like she was going to pass out.
Vaguely, she felt herself drop to her knees. Her thoughts crumbled to nothing but the faraway yet still intense sensation of pain.
Everything suddenly seemed to be floating very far away, or perhaps she was. Everything seemed to be fading to colorlessness. The world tilted and she distantly heard the side of her skull hit the floor. Pain flooded achingly into her head, but it was a pale echo of what had just happened.
Her eyelids dropped but then she brushed her hands together (suddenly the wall was extremely hot) and almost shrieked aloud at the pain, her eyes flying open. Had she screamed as the blue electric current arced up and down her body? Her throat was raw. She hadn't heard herself scream.
Burned. Her hands were burned. They looked almost inhuman. The flesh of her palms was bone white, with pale brown char marks, and they brought her back to reality somewhat. She felt like she was about to be sick.
Surely the giant wasn't still after the others. Maybe she could get out now, somehow.
Maybe. She wasn't sure if she could move. Hesitantly, she slightly shifted her neck. Bright white pain blotted out her vision. After a few long and horrible moments it faded slightly, the initial surprise gone.
She swore bloody oaths in her head and with great effort, turned her head—just her head, she wasn't sure how much more of her body she could move—to the doorway she had come from, to the ladder she had climbed.
It wasn't there, two broken off stubs of metal where it had been. The brittle bronze had probably snapped off after one use. She was trapped.
The giant swung back and Bianca rolled slightly, all thoughts clearing from her mind. Bracing herself for the pain, she tried to push herself back up without using her hands. They brushed the floor and sent a white hot flash of pain through her body. She fell back. Her shoulder screeched.
She wasn't sure how long she lay there, petrified and sobbing painfully, trying to remain as immobile as possible. Probably just moments. It felt like hours. Her pain retreated from the very forefront of her brain. At the same time it felt like her mind was being charred by blue electric fire.
There was another loud crashing sound. The giant swayed slightly, like it was unbalanced.
Another clang.
And then a horrible noise.
Bianca's throat closed. Her thoughts of pain died in her throat. The cracking noise repeated itself.
She chanced a look upward as more loud clangs could be heard. The giant swayed more precariously, but she didn't dare put her hands on the floor to help herself up.
Some bits of rust rained down on her head and into her eyes. She blinked but she was already crying hard enough to wash them away. The tears made it hard to see and the sobbing made it hard to breathe but she was so scared—
The metal that held the ceiling was breaking. The top of the machine would fall down on her. It was millines old and brittle. She was going to die.
The horrible sound grew louder.
Bianca squeezed her eyes shut. That hurt too.
All she could hear was the cracking of the ceiling and her own sobbing. Her chest heaved. It hurt to cry, which made her cry more.
She dimly considered throwing herself down the shaft where the ladder had been, into the robot's leg. But it wouldn't help. It was at least a hundred-foot drop onto a metal surface, even if she could manage to walk all the way to the door. She'd be dead for sure.
Besides, the blue flames that had ripped through her felt like they had charred everything inside of her. Her hands were inhuman. She could feel tiny rivers of blood running down the side of her palms from the cracked black skin. Even that was excruciating. A horrible, intrusive ache was creeping up her neck and the base of her skull. It felt as if her feet were no longer there.
Even if she did somehow escape the robot, how long could she live? She smelled a burnt smell though the staleness of rust and old paper. She didn't want to know what it was. Her stomach churned. Her fear felt like a shard of glass pressing into her abdomen.
The cracking grew louder. It felt as if the shard was being pushed further and further. The robot swayed forward so far she was sure they were about to tip over, and she slid across the floor, croaking at the pain at each point of contact.
It righted itself.
She was going to die here and leave her brother alone and oh dios she was so scared
But it was her fault. She had put the others in danger and this was her reward. An eye for an eye. This was what she had needed to do, and she had done it.
Nico. Her beautiful wonderful little brother who had never before seemed quite so beautiful or wonderful. How could she have done this to him? How could she have been so stupid? He was going to be all alone—she was leaving him all alone—she had failed—
Thinking of Nico made her cry all the harder, but behind her closed eyelids she tried to picture his face, his smile. The cracking grew deafening. Her chest shook with effort, and that brought pain. She wanted to die thinking of Nico.
Godly parent, don't let his smile go out, please, please, please let him understand, let him be okay, let them all be okay, let them all be okay, let them all be okay—
There was a single and piercing crack and everything tilted.
A second of agony, then black.