I heard voices as I faded in and out a consciousness, "Master what shall I do, in their current state they wont last five more hours much less the journey to your resting place…. Yes, I understand I'll give them more ambrosia to sustain their bodies till I arrive with them. … Yes I double checked the binds there's no way even if their brains aren't splattered against their skulls and they wake up that they could escape….
I began to wake more often and see things more clearly, but what I saw made me wish that my brain had smashed against my skull. We were in Tartarus now and it was a thousand times worse than the worst thing imaginable. The environment itself was constantly absorbing you, draining your very life, as if your soul was being ripped out of your body with a pair of red hot tongs, the constant whaling of monsters and those damned, from what I could see the roads were built from bones (not old and dusty ones, but rotting bones) and the walls were made of human skulls… some still fresh enough to have faces I prayed to the gods I wouldn't see any I recognized. When I finally came to all together, I realized that I had my hands bound and was lying in a wagon next to Annabeth. My first instinct was to try to see if she was ok but remembered what I heard earlier about my captor's belief we were beyond recovery, I could use that to my advantage. I risked looking towards the front of the wagon, I saw a good size giant pulling our wagon, it seemed to be paying me no attention so I gently nudged Annabeth. When I didn't get a response I instantly became worried, "what if she didn't make it" I thought, chills running down my spine I nudged her harder this time, again nothing. I pulled myself to together "Percy relax" I told myself "maybe she's just recovering slower then you, an hour ago you couldn't even count to three."
I began to get anxious, the longer I waited the closer we got to being sacrificed at Gaia's return party, but I wanted to make sure Annabeth was alright before trying anything and losing the advantage of surprise. I judged that I had to take action now and began to wiggle my legs to get Riptide free from my pocket.
"AAAAaaaAaNNghhHHHHH"?! Annabeth moaned to my right. The Wagon stopped abruptly and I went limb trying to look as dead as possible. The giant turned around and inspected the wagon. It began to inspect Annabeth, it decided it needed a closer look and picked her up. I took all my will power not to jump up and try to fight the giant with my hands bound behind my back. The giant poked her a few times with no response; it seemed satisfied and threw her back into the cart. Unfortunately for it Annabeth's face landed only inches away from mine. The wagon started to move again and I whispered to Annabeth "Annabeth can u hear me?"
She responded "yea, give me a second I can barely see straight, after a few minutes she continued "Percy did riptide follow you down here"?
"yea", I replied " I have it capped in my pants now, I tried to reach it but I can't your goanna have to try"
Silently Annabeth moved on top of me, she reached down into my pocket and pulled out the best gift my dad had ever given me. She looked at me and I nodded my head, this was it, we were going to risk all the cookies in the jar; I just hoped that the rope wasn't magically unbreakable.