A/N: Look, it's not Friday :) I guess its a bit too long but I hope you don't mind.

This chapter- at the end- is T! Well T enough orz.

Disclaimer: I don't own, okay. Nothing. Nada. Grrr. I do not own 'My Apocalypse' by Escape the Fate. Wow. That is just so incredibly fitting to the next chapter or so. The video was, um, oh yeah- 'The Beast and the Harlot' from Avenged Sevenfold.


The answer was a rude awakening.

In the form of a steel toed boot to the stomach and an irritated 'get up, τεμπέλης κώλο '. Moaning and clutching my middle I opened blurry eyes to see Thalia standing over me in full battle gear. My eyes were half open and clouded but I hoped they conveyed all the contempt I was currently feeling.

"What happened to the caring older sister act from yesterday?" I rasped. Thalia smirked.

"What happened to waking up before five in the evening?"

I bolted upright and looked around. I took note of Annabeth, polishing a shield on the couch and I looked out the window. There was too much pollution. Light and otherwise but I could tell it was getting late. I stretched, my joints making 'pop'ing noises. I turned to Thalia and asked,

"Why didn't you wake me up earlier? How did I sleep so long?"

"You were out cold," Annabeth answered, "we shook you and turned on the television and everything but you didn't even flinch. It was...creepy. Like you were dead."

I bit my lip, trying hold back a shiver at her words. I hadn't felt a thing. Literally. I didn't dream, I didn't kick in my sleep. I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and excused myself. In the bathroom I turned the shower to the coldest it could get and stepped in fully clothed. Hey, I was off to battle. I didn't really need a shower. The freezing water that ran down my back and curled my hair did little to wake me up. Even when I faced the spray of water head on I couldn't shake a heavy, and if I admit, ominous feeling.

A knock on the door snapped me out of my lapse.

"Aline?" Annabeth called from the other side. I didn't answer. "Are you alright?" I just blinked. There was a loud sigh and a frustrated 'I'm coming in'. When I didn't answer the door opened and gave me peek of Annabeth in her gray armor. Her eyes, the same color, were confused but calculating, "What are you doing?"

I lifted one shoulder and dropped it again. Annabeth took a step towards me, hesitant, as if I'd spring any moment. When I didn't she finally walked over. She turned off the tap and wrapped a fluffy white towel around my shoulders.

"Are you okay?" she asked carefully.

I shrugged again.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she said in a way that made it obvious 'talking about it' wasn't something she did very often. The fact she offered to me made me chuckle slightly.

"I would if I knew what was wrong."

She thought, "Are you scared?"

It was my turn to think. A 'yes' almost slipped from my lips. I was...scared. Just not of what the other two would think I was scared of. I wasn't frightened about the remainder the quest. Not at all. But I was scared. Something dark was settling in the back of my mind, slowly but surely drving me towards an edge I couldn't see. But of course I didn't say any of that.

"I'm fine," I pulled the corners of my mouth into a convincing smile. My mom would really be disappointed in how much I was lying lately, "Now get out so I can take a bath, okay?"

Annabeth obliged. I showered and pulled on the clothes Thalia had set aside for me: a light shirt and a worn pair of jeans I'd always borrowed back at Darkwoud. I stepped back into the room, holding my still damp hair in a towel. I raised an eyebrow when Thalia gushed, "Look ay my little sister, all ready to go kick some bad guys butts! Here, let me fix that birds nest of hair..."

I couldn't object as she plopped me on a bed and pulled a brush off the dresser. Annabeth was fiddling with the remote.

"The channel won't change..." she stated. She kept pressing the button but it remained on one of those music video stations. We'd picked up at the end. Something smoky and black twisted through the video girl's body. She didn't even wither in pain as it overtook her, turning her hazel eyes into inky depths.

"Thalia..." I squeaked. But she didn't hear me. She hummed as she worked the brush through my hair.

'In a garden surrounded
By fire and trees
Through the smoke a silhouette I can barely see
There's a man with an axe
Standing in the rain'

"The hel-" I began, as sparks flew from the electrical socket. Something was slithering its way out, not quite a solid or a gas. It was like a vine, working its way towards me. I stuttered to a stop as it wrapped around my ankle. It was like a lightning shock in the rain. It was in my veins. I threw my head back and grasped for my throat which I was sure was filling with smoke. On the insides of my eyelids- when had I shut my eyes- there was a silhouette. Someone was trying to speak to me.

'Looked me straight in the eyes
This is what he had to say'

Trying to warn me. But I couldn't hear them over the terrible screams and hollers...

'Never fall asleep
You won't wake up
Destroy the guillotine
Before he does'

Before he does. Before he does. Before he does. Before he does. I clutched at my ears, trying to keep out the sounds. But how could I when the noise was in my own head?

"Shut it off," I whimpered. The grating, pounding clamor continued, "Shut it off!," I said, again. Only much, much louder. And just like that it was gone. All that was left was white noise and white light and Annabeth and Thalia looking at me like I was crazy. Because, really, maybe I was. Thalia gently pried my hands off my ears all while saying, "It's okay, Aline. You're fine. The music is off. You are fine."

"Am I," I slurred.

"Is she?" Annabeth piped up.

Thalia didn't offer an answer. Instead she laid my head on a pillow and pulled Annabeth aside. They converged in hushed voices that I didn't have the energy to try and understand. I picked up things here and there:

"-the Hades is wrong with her?"

"-don't know. Do you think-"

"-that'd be safest. For us-"

"-and her."

It sounded like they had reached a decision. Thalia sat beside me on the bed and patted my forehead.

"Aline," she said in the voice that meant she'd lost my batteries or I wasn't getting a doughnut, "we need to finish the quest. It's our obligation. But you're not well. Maybe you have a concussion, or a fever, or maybe it's like the time we were escaping to Camp Half Blood. So we think-"

I cut her off, "You guys think that it would be better if I stayed here and rested while you went and played hero," I tried to raise a hand and wave away any objections, "That's fine. I don't care. My head feels like its gone to Hades anyway. I wouldn't be much use."

"See? Even she knows it," Annabeth added. I glared weakly at the blonde. Ignoring her, Thalia asked once again if I was okay with it. I said yes.

"Okay," she sighed in relief. I watched them through a-maybe-possibly-could-have-been-fever induced haze as they prepared for battle. I only moved to ask if I could order room service.

The answer was a predictable no.

They were out of the door within minutes, a flurry of mother-like instructions and shining armor. I rested my head back against a pillow, relishing it cold touch on my flushed skin. My eyelids felt like a thousand pounds and I shut them with a sigh. The windows were closed and the TV was off; Annabeth made sure to switch off the lights as they left. All there was was the sheets around me and the steady drip, drip of the sink. But within a moment I couldn't feel even that.

Never fall asleep, he'd reminded me. Nico had...

I grunted, trying to open my eyes but they wouldn't budge.

I was on a beach, soft white sand shifting beneath my feet. Waves lapped at the sand only a few feet away but I didn't feel scared of the miles of clear blue water. I stood under the shade of a palm tree but the sun was shining brightly enough, reflecting off seashells and the rocky cliffs on either side of the beach. I took a deep breath, expecting to taste salt and sunlight in the air but there was nothing. I frowned.

There was a tap on my shoulder. With a start I turned around and light brown eyes meet green. I gasped and swept over every inch of the boy in front of me from the curly brunet hair, to the tanned limbs, to the board shorts and the shark tooth ankle bracelet. Tanner. I spoke the name but I didn't hear it. My first real best friend grinned like he heard me anyway; a surf god's pearly white grin because that's what Tanner was. I wrapped my arms around him but again something was wrong. Where was the could of coconut oil that followed him everywhere, or the constant heat radiating from skin that spent to much time in the sun and sea?

Tanner pulled away and patted my head, a frustratingly familiar gesture, then pointed back toward the sea. Playing in the ocean were a pair of boys I mistook for Connor and Travis. But the red hair gave it away. Griffin and Alec were little blazing dots in the stretch of blue ocean. They waved and I did too. I tried to call them over but they shook their heads and went back to splashing each other. Something tugged on my right arm. I took to the side and Mathias was smiling at me. Except his scars were gone. His eyes weren't as bright.

Then Nico appeared and took a hold of my left hand. I hissed at the sudden pain shooting through my scars. I tried to reclaim my hand but Nico wouldn't let go. He cocked his head and looked down at me with an innocent smile. It was... incorrect. The smile was off by half a cetimeter, no dimple. Sure, I'd only seen him smile- what- once? But I'd memorized it.

What are you doing, I tired to ask him.

What I was supposed to, he responded. He twisted my already bruised left arm behind my back, and there was the biting press of a dagger to my throat. Same place I'd been a little over two months ago. But it wasn't the same person.

I said that accusation aloud and he laughed, dropping the blade and stepping away, hands held up in mock surrender.

Someone finally figured it out. Too bad, it's a little too late.

I was deaf in this dream, one of the wost things I could imagine. So I didn't hear the roar of the toxic wave behind me. The ugly, oily monstrosity swept my twins out to sea but the acid ate away at them first. My stomach churned with the ocean. Some stray droplets hit my legs and I hit the ground, gasping in pain and panic. The water was like...

The River Styx, he said. Are you getting it yet?

Thalia- when had she appeared- stood in front of me and frowned into the distance. She was oblivious the the destruction behind and before her. I strained to look where she was. I only caught the brunet fall toward the embrace of the rocks below. I turned away, now glad I couldn't hear in this nightmare.

A hand jerked my head roughly toward Thalia.

Demigod. Hero. Ha. You couldn't save him. What makes you think you could ever save me...

And the hand disintegrated, turning into gold pine leaves blown away in an impromptu wind. Only he was left.

What are going to do with me, I asked defiantly.

A much too cold hand stroked my cheek. I flinched at the touch.

Whatever I want, he answered simply, leaning down to my height. And his lips were attacking mine and my back was forced against the sand and it raw cold and it felt wrong, wrong, wrong, and I couldn't fight back because my left arm as useless and he pinned my right arm above my head and I couldn't breathe, and where was the coca cola and chocolate and unexpected gentleness because this was just suffocating and brusing, like drowning, like falling, like wanting to jump and it finally made sense, I finally pieced it together but it was too late. But maybe it wasn't.

Because right then, the dream was over.

And right then, the nightmare was just beginning.


OH MY GOD(dess) . I wrote HET(ero). It's a frickin' miracle! Well, actually, it felt really gross :P I kind of wish I was a gay guy so I could just write yaoi *is shot*.

Tanner is tan .-. I feel lame. Griffin and Alec equal Hikaru and Kaoru in episode seven of Ouran o.O ? Meep...

This is the part where my story starts having something called a 'plot'.