Hey, Everybody!

I meant to put this chapter up yesterday, but I got really busy and I didn't get to finish it, so I finished it up and I posted it today, as you can see.

Second thing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COUSIN!

I know you're reading this because you've always supported me, so I just wanted to say thanks for that, I love you so much, and have a happy, HAPPY birthday!

Enjoy!


Chapter 4

Annabeth

Annabeth had never imagined feeling so helpless before, but here it was, happening before her eyes. She was too weak, too jittery, too afraid, to be below the deck of the ship.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

She watched the sky as the ship moved along and remembered the horrible feeling she had just endured.

She knew Hazel's pain of seasickness now.

She had tried to prove to herself that she could get over her problem, and that she would relax in her cabin for a while. But that wasn't how it turned out at all, because Annabeth had gotten so fidgety, so nervous, but she had forced herself to stay.

And then she had thrown up in her bathroom toilet.

And then she ran up on deck, because she knew that was where she would be safest.

"Annabeth?" Piper's voice emanated from behind Annabeth, and she looked over her shoulder at the daughter of Aphrodite, one of her least favorite goddesses, but she wasn't relating Piper to her. Not truly.

"Hm?" she asked.

"Do you…um…have time to talk?" Piper asked, slightly tentatively.

Annabeth nodded and patted the railing next to her. "Sure." And then she looked back out at the open sky and blue water.

Water. Sky. It all felt so foreign to her. But wonderfully welcoming, all the same.

"So, I wanted to tell you something," Piper began, leaning on the rail next to her. "It's something that we've all noticed."

"Is it about me?" Annabeth asked. "My behavior? My weight? The lacking of my mind?" Annabeth laughed with no humor and shook her head at the clouds floating around. "I haven't been in the best conditions for a little while, but I'll get back into place. I think."

"You haven't slept since you got back on the ship, have you?" Piper asked.

It all came out in a rush; it took Annabeth a second to decipher what she said, and once she did, feeling ashamed of the slowness of her own mind yet again, she replied, "I haven't been tired."

"It's hard for me to believe that."

"It was for me, too. But it's happening. To Percy, too. We just haven't been tired. Or drowsy. The most exhausted either of us have been since we escaped was when Percy was fighting off Charybdis an hour ago!" Annabeth was slightly exasperated after that speech, and she noticed she was talking with her hands.

She calmly cleared her throat and pressed her hands back on the rail and stared at the sea, uncomfortable.

"You're remembering something," Piper said. "You still have that face."

"Charybdis was a monster Percy and I fought in the Sea of Monsters when we were thirteen," she stared at the water and suddenly felt a sinister pull to the waves lapping against the hull. "It's all the way in the Bermuda Triangle. It couldn't have gotten here that fast. She must have been planning this for a while."

"Annabeth?" Piper's voice was muddled and distant, like Annabeth was sinking in the dark water she was so fixated on.

"What else are we going to end up facing on the way to Athens this way?" Annabeth muttered, and then she snapped her head up and stared at Piper.

Piper's eyes were wide with fear. "Annabeth…"

"We have to change course. I need to see Leo, right now. We need to change course, and we need to get over land, now, soon, whenever, but now. The original plan won't work anymore."

Annabeth ran toward the stairs with Piper at her heels, and then Annabeth stopped when she reached them.

She couldn't go back down there. That wasn't happening. She turned to Piper. "Go tell Leo. Get him up here. We have to leave right now, before something else hits us that we can't handle, or-"

There was a sudden loud screeching sound, which was then echoed by four more deafening cries.

The rushing sound of gushing flame shot from nearby, and Annabeth drew her bone sword. "Piper. Get everyone on deck. Now. Before it arrives."

"But I can help-"

"Piper-"

"Let me fight with-"

"Before it arrives." Annabeth glared at her.

Piper shut her mouth and rushed downstairs, screaming, "GUYS!"

Annabeth lunged for the control panel and pressed the alarm button and listened to the sirens blare.

Percy busted onto the deck, his hair wet, Riptide drawn, breathing heavily. "What happened? What is it?"

Annabeth eyed him curiously. "Why are you wet?"

Percy's guard fell as he said to her, "I was taking a shower when you pressed the button. What's wrong?"

At that moment, the shrieking echoed again, and the gush of fire.

Percy looked straight at her with alarm.

"Hydra?"

"Hydra."


And they thought they were off of Monster Memory Lane when they left Tartarus...ppfftt, not while I'm in charge!

Thanks for Reading!