Disclaimer: I do not own Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson books, characters, series, movies, or anything else you may recognize.

Chapter Twenty

Let's Play a Game

I was surrounded by a burning forest, human beings the cause behind it. You could see their silhouettes along the outskirts of the woods holding containers of kerosene and spreading it all over the place, throwing in matches to burn it all up. There was litter all over the ground, and different woodland creatures were running away, trying to escape death by smoke inhalation or being burned to a crisp.

I found Grover in the middle of it all, huddled on his knees as he cried over the burnt body of another satyr. He was crying his eyes out, devastated by what happening and by the death of one of his own.

"Grover!" I yelled above all the other sounds, trying to get his attention. When I looked closer at the satyr's body that Grover was weeping over, I knew it wasn't just any satyr – it was Pan. The God of Nature. The same god that Grover was supposed to be searching for to prove that he was still alive. And here he was – dead.

"Percy?" Grover whimpered, looking up at me in clear confusion. He started wiping at his eyes, trying to hide the fact that he was crying. Not like I'd never seen him cry before. But I wasn't judging him – I knew this was his greatest fear, just like mine was seeing my loved ones die. And I had probably cried my body weight in tears. "Look at what the humans have done – they've ruined everything!" He looked like he was going to start crying again.

"No, Grover, this is a nightmare – you just have to wake up!" I told him.

"You're right –this is a nightmare. I wish I could wake up from this…if only they knew what they were doing. If only they knew they were just killing themselves!" he shouted at the people lighting the forest on fire, tears freely falling down his face. They all began to laugh at him.

"Grover, this is literally a nightmare. We are stuck in this weird maze, but this isn't real. You have to wake yourself up!" I said, and I was suddenly thrown out of the nightmare, Grover beside me. I brought Riptide up to see that Grover looked absolutely devastated.

He was staring at the ground and when I pointed the light from my sword at the ground, I saw that Pan was still there, burned, and most importantly, dead. That hadn't just been part of the nightmare, it had been real.

Pan started fading in and out, before finally fading out for good, disappearing completely. Grover stared at the spot where Pan had once been. "I have to spread the message."

"What message?"

"Before he died, Pan gave me his wisdom. I have to tell the other satyrs of his passing, that Pan is no longer with us," Grover said, his voice heavy. I suddenly wrapped my arms around him, giving him a hug.

"I love you, man," I said.

"I love you too, Percy," Grover said warily, patting me on the back a bit. When I finally let him go, he asked, "Where is everyone else?"

"I don't know," I said quietly.

"We'd better find them – and soon." I heard what he was implying. If Pan could have really been killed in the dream-state, there was no telling what could happen to Annabeth and Andee.

"Well, you've found one. Congratulations! Just two more to go," the female voice said.

"You know, you're really annoying," I said and Grover looked at me, sniffing the air a bit.

"Three gods are here – minor gods, but gods nonetheless," Grover whispered.

"Very good, satyr! More than your friend could figure out," the female voice said for the two male voices to start laughing again. "Now where is that daughter of Athena, hmm? Oh wait, she's not having such a fun time playing the game either. I have no idea why though – oh well, maybe you can find her before she ends up like that corpse you earlier, Jackson."

"Corpse?" Grover asked and as much as I didn't want to, I had to think back to my nightmare. I was trying to block it out, but honestly, it was all I could think about. The images of everyone dead kept playing over and over. Annabeth had been bitten by a black widow spider…oh gods.

"She's being attacked by spiders," I said before bolting off in a random direction. I didn't know where to go so I just went wherever. I hoped Andee would be with Annabeth, but I doubted it. It took all of my energy and willpower to break out of my own nightmare, so I doubted that they would be able to get out of theirs enough to find each other.

I tripped and went flying, falling flat on my face just as Grover shouted, "Annabeth!" Yeah, I'm fine, Grover. Just fine. A son of Poseidon flying through the air and crashing to the ground was perfectly normal.

"Annabeth, are you okay?" I asked, crouching down beside her. I shook her shoulders a bit, but it didn't seem to do anything. She was curled in a ball in a corner, rocking back and forth with a blank look on her face. She looked a bit like she belonged in a mental institution.

"Spiders," she mumbled, her eyes widening as she stared at the ground in front of her. I turned around and was suddenly thrown into Annabeth's nightmare. Grover was there too. Annabeth was in the same position as she had been in reality, her eyes wide as she stared at the creepy crawlies. She didn't seem to notice Grover and me, which I could understand. There were about a hundred spiders of varying sizes, all scuttling towards her. "Oh no, please no."

Now, I'm not someone who is afraid of spiders – or any other kind of bug for that matter – but this was some freaky stuff. Even someone who wasn't afraid of anything would get freaked out by hundreds, maybe thousands, of spiders crawling towards Annabeth.

"Annabeth," Grover said, shaking her and trying to get her attention, but it was useless. She was too focused on the spiders approaching her, faster and faster the closer they got.

I held out Riptide and put on a brave face for her before starting to slash the spiders. It seemed like I was actually getting somewhere until Grover pointed out that every time I killed one, it split off into five smaller ones.

"Andee's in trouble!" I finally shouted and that seemed to snap Annabeth out of it, sending all of us tumbling back into the maze. Using Riptide's glow, I could see Annabeth shaking and shivering, scratching her skin as if the spiders were still crawling on her. I grabbed her face – a bit roughly – and made her look me in the yes. "You're okay, Annabeth. The spiders are gone and you're safe. Well, somewhat safe."

"They were everywhere…" she mumbled, looking everywhere, afraid they'd come back at any second. I had never seen her this vulnerable before – she was always the one telling me to toughen up and keep it together.

I hugged her tight, Grover coming in to make it a group hug.

"It was a nightmare, Annabeth. All of us were trapped in one," Grover said as we parted and she nodded. "Something weird is happening."

"Weird? Oh darn, you guys really aren't getting how fun this is!" the female voice said. Annabeth gave Grover and I a questioning look before Grover mouthed 'minor gods'. "Three out of four…not too shabby, I must say. Just one more person to find…but she's going to be the hardest to find, the hardest to fix, and she'll take the longest to save – if you can even manage that. And the odds aren't looking good seeing as how little time you have left…"

"We're on a time limit?" I asked.

"They have Andee?" Annabeth whispered. She closed her eyes and scrunched her face, trying hard to do something. From this end, it kind of looked like she needed to use the washroom. "The connection's gone…I can't talk to her…" Annabeth was now officially freaking out. And it was making me panic to see her like this. As much as we fought and argued, and no matter how hard or impossible something seemed, she was my rock. She's the one who kept me steady and on track. Seeing her like this made me feel like giving up any hope of finding Andee and completing this quest.

"As a child of Athena, you should know that you can't cheat when you play a game! That's just not fair!" the voice said cheerfully.

"Neither is making the players play in the dark," I muttered angrily.

"That's part of the game, silly! Geez, you'd think you half-bloods never played games – oh wait, they don't. Just train, train, train all day for no reason," the voice said. "And they definitely don't play games like this. Have fun finding your girlfriend! Although, I'll warn you – she might not want to be your girlfriend any more by the time you find her."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I yelled, but of course the lady had stopped talking. Very nice. I was starting to figure out that gods and other people and creatures that didn't like us stopped being polite. Manners would be a nice change every once in a while.

So we started walking, trying to find out way through the maze and trying to find Andee. It would've been a lot more effective if there was some actual light. Or if Annabeth could talk to Andee so we at least knew where to look. Or if Andee was just here.

"I'm hungry," Grover moaned, breaking the silence.

"If Andee were here, she'd probably have something for all of us to eat in her bag – she sure as Hades had everything else in that bag," Annabeth commented, smiling a little at the thought before frowning. "If we thought we had it bad, imagine what she's probably going through now. This is her quest and she's the one who's supposed to show the way – they must be out to get her more than any of us."

I hadn't even thought of that – probably because I didn't even want to consider it. Andee was tough and we all knew that – she could kick anyone's ass, any day, any time. But even the strongest people had to break. And seeing as we had all broken down, and she probably had it twice as bad…I didn't want to think about it anymore.

"Damn it, I just want to find her!" I shouted, punching the dead end we had just come up to. Oh, that really didn't feel good. I looked at my hand to see my knuckles bleeding.

"We will, Percy, but punching walls isn't going to help," Annabeth said. "None of us want to see her hurt. She's been through enough as it is – we all have."

"It's not the same! I saw her…she was…she was…dead. You guys were too, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn't stop thinking about all the things I wanted to say to her that I never got the chance to," I said, leaning against one of the walls and collapsing to the ground. "I don't want anything to happen before I get the chance to tell her I love her – not that I want anything to happen to her after I tell her, but I would just feel a lot better if she knew how I felt."

"So you do love her," Annabeth said with a small smile.

"I've loved her since the moment I met her, Annabeth," I told her honestly and her eyebrows shot into her hair, as did Grover's. "I don't know or care if it's too soon to tell her that but I know that's what I feel for her."

"She definitely knows how you feel about her, so let's find her so you can tell her yourself," Annabeth said, offering me a hand up. She smiled at me once I stood up, and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

"I love you, Wise Girl. I really do. You're the sister I never had," I said, embracing her tightly.

"I love you too, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth said, before pulling back and ruffling my hair. "Your nightmare must have been pretty bad, huh?"

I just nodded as we continued on our way. It was always good to know that no matter what, Grover and Annabeth would always be there.

We kept walking through the pitch black maze. There were more dead ends than I could count. After what felt like hours, we ran into someone. My sword was out in seconds, pointed at the person who now had their sword aimed at me as well. The sword in front of me was made of Stygian Iron. I only knew one person with a sword like that…

"Nico?" I asked, trying to see him through the darkness. I could just barely make out the outline of his face from the glow of my sword.

"Percy?" he asked, lowering his sword. I did the same. "Annabeth? Grover? What are you all doing here?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Nico said frustratedly. "I was at some weird guy's ranch to sort some things out and when I tried to shadow-travel away, I ended up here. It feels like I've been in this stupid maze for hours, and I can't even shadow-travel out. Why are you guys here?"

We gave him the basic run-down of our quest so far, and how we still hadn't found Andee yet and we were very worried. "We need to find her fast, then."

We stayed as a group, wandering through the maze when I had to address the elephant in the room. "Are you still mad at us?" I asked him. On our last quest, we had been sent to get Nico and his sister Bianca from their school to bring them to camp. His sister became a Hunter of Artemis, and while he was at Camp and the rest of us were on a quest, his sister tried to take a Mythomagic figure she knew her brother would like and ended up awakening the defective Talos. She ended up sacrificing herself as she destroyed the automaton.

I had promised to protect Bianca. I told Nico to stay at Camp because I would protect his sister. And I had tried, but when I came back to camp and had to tell him, he blamed me. He didn't need to, because I already blamed myself.

Nico stopped and shook his head, and in the glow of Riptide, it looked like he was actually embarrassed with himself. "I talked to my sister in the Underworld, and she told me what happened. I know you did your best to protect her."

"We are still so sorry about what happened," Annabeth said, her voice full of sorrow.

"Me too," Nico said solemnly. "We should get moving."