Chapter 27

Ben's P.O.V.

"So when did you start relying on hunting knives?" Natalie asked him as they made their way through the stony corridor, Bob marching ahead of them, humming a tune that horribly sounded like a funeral lament.

"After coming here. Now I realize what Lupa used to say. Knives will only become your friends once –,"

"–you let go of the fear of harming yourself with them," she finished, looking prideful as though glad that she still remembered it.

Ben didn't know which way they were going. Up above in Tartarus, he knew every nook and cranny of the place. But in these bottom layers, he was just as confused as a man walking with his eyes shut, banging off the walls.

Cold sweat beaded their forehead. They had been walking for about an hour now, but the corridors kept twisting and turning. Ben was almost half convinced they had lost their way, but he did not want to give up hope, especially for Natalie. He had to get her, Percy and Annabeth back up to the surface. And as for him… well that would be a different story.

Bob was not saying a word, but occasionally he would make a weird noise, which horribly made Ben think that perhaps he was getting his memory back again. He dreaded what would happen if that were true. But perhaps it was just because of Bob's presence that they felt safe. A Titan radiated power, and if that power was on their side, it was a luxury that he would not have expected, yet appreciated for however long it remained.

"Where do you think Percy and Annabeth are?" Natalie asked after a while.

"I do hope they've already reached the exit. Though I'm not entirely sure if they would be able to find it, I'm definitely positive enough they will,' he told her.

"Well, if that's the case, then they're better off than us, I guess. We don't even seem to be reaching the - woah!"

Bob sniffed. "This is wrong. Evil."

They had just walked into a huge stone chamber, covered with gruesome carvings. It had four entrances in total, all just like the ones they had walked through. And if that was true, then this was the centre of the maze.

"Bob, run!" he yelled. They had come the completely wrong way. The very place he had wanted to never see. He seized Natalie's hand.

"It's the heart of the maze. Come on, run, quick!" All of them started hurrying back. He wanted to get away from there as fast as he could. Panic was seizing every inch of his body. Just as they would have crossed the door, a sinister voice spoke from behind, "Stop."

The voice was calm, but deadly. It clearly indicated the speaker of the voice was evil to the nerves. A thick wall of black smoke appeared out of nowhere, and they all hit it and fell back. The smoke started swirling around the borders of the chamber, blocking off every exit.

They slowly got up and turned around.

"After a long time…humans. And, look who's here, Iapetus! What a pleasant surprise!" the voice rang out everywhere. The speaker was still, nowhere to be seen.

"Show yourself!" Natalie yelled into the chamber.

"Well, if you wish."

What Ben saw next was enough to make any normal person faint. What looked like a completely withered corpse was crawling from the top to the ground. But the strange thing was, the corpse, or that person had his body turned towards them. Only his elbows and knees were supporting him as he crawled from the wall and onto the ground, standing at an odd angle. His face, with long and decaying teeth and his eyeballs rolled up, looked so scary that for a moment Ben felt like he had jumped into the climax of a horror movie.

Natalie grasped his wrist tightly, and Bob moved back and forth, as though trying to find an exit just ahead of him.

"Yes, creepy, am I?" he laughed.

Getting a grip on himself, Ben finally found his voice. "Who are you?"

"I… am the Daemon timoris."

"The Demon of Fear?" Natalie whispered. She, too, felt like had lost her voice.

"Yes, and now let's see how long you resist your fear," he said, waving a hand. A part of the smoke that has circled around the chamber broke off instead and somehow got diffused into Bob. For a moment it looked as though he was in shock of what had happened. Then Bob fell on his knees, clutching his head.

"No!" he wailed. "Stop it! Stop!"

Ben immediately took out a hunting knife and threw it at the corpse. It went straight towards it's target and got embedded in his shoulder. For a moment he thought he would do something, but then suddenly, he felt weak as though someone had sapped a part of energy from him. A searing pain burned in his shoulder.

The corpse, or whatever it was, took out the knife with ease and threw it away. Natalie was now near Bob, trying to shake some sense into him, but Bob seemed far too immersed in whatever was happening to him to even notice or feel anything. He was howling as if being tortured by thousands hot needles.

"Weak mortals. I was cursed by Nyx, but somehow, it has turned a boon to me in her maze. You see, the more anyone hurts me, the more energy is sapped out of them, and if they kill me, the energy required would kill them too. But nobody has ever gotten to that point."

He laughed. "Oh yes, did I forget to mention that people's fear and pain makes me stronger. See, my hands are slowly getting back to normal, and so, I expect, is my face."

He was not wrong. His body was no longer a complete corpse, it was getting back to being human.

"Now why don't we speed up the process a little by toying with your sister's brains?" he asked playfully.

"No!" Ben yelled. But it was too late, the next second, she had fallen down on all fours, eyes scrunched up in pain, her hands boring into the ground. Ben immediately bent down in front of her.

"Hey, hey, hey! Look at me! Whatever he's showing you is not real. Snap out of it!"

"Not fast enough," a voice growled. "Looks like I'll have to drag you into this too, son of Neptune."

Just as Ben realized what was happening, everything turned black. A pain as though every part of his body was being pierced shone him from head to toe. He was standing on the surface above, but it was nothing like that at all. With the pain, it was hard to focus. But everywhere he went he saw fires, destruction and debris. And then he spotted them. Natalie, Percy, Annabeth, Jason and Reyna were lying hither and thither on the ground, covered in blood, eyes focused on the sky. They were… dead.

"No!" he screamed. He ran to all of them, shook them, even tried to slap them awake, but their pupils never looked anywhere but the sky, their body as lifeless as a rag doll. And then be heard scraping. He turned behind to see Gaea, walking towards him. But it was not how she had appeared to him before. Not the beautiful face, the closed eyelids, the green hair adorned with flower petals, covered with the beauty of nature. She looked maniacal, blood was dripping from her mouth, and the sword she was scraping across the ground was smeared red.

"I killed them!" she laughed maniacally. "I killed them!"

Her laughter rang into his ears, boring into his skin with the maximum amount of pain any person could suffer without dying. And then Gaea took the sword, and plunged it into her stomach, still laughing. Blood seeped, staining her green robes red, but she kept laughing. Ben's head was spinning. He wanted the pain to end. He wanted everything to end.

And then a voice rang into his ears. A voice that had the breeze and feel of the sea. A voice of the sea itself. This is not real, Ben. Come out of it. Overcome it!

The voice was enough to provoke him. He closed his eyes, determined to beat whatever trick the demon's mind was playing on him.

"No!" he yelled defiantly.

Ben was back in the room, panting as though he had just run twenty miles. His whole body ached from the top to bottom, but he saw something that made him plop himself up on his feet.

Natalie was on her feet, her right hand at her shoulder level, clenched as though she was holding something in her fist. And the corpse, or the former corpse, because now there stood a human in its face, was clawing at his neck, but laughing.

"Kill me," he croaked, laughing maniacally. "And you shall meet the same fate. Even now you are losing your energy."

Ben felt Bob stand up beside him. "No," he whispered.

"I don't care what happens to me, but you - will - die!" Natalie yelled at him. And for the first time, Ben heard her anger. Not the usual one she had on Octavian or enemies, but the anger of pure hatred. The anger that concerned him more than the corpse turned human.

"Natalie, let go of him!" Ben yelled, standing up. "Leave him!"

But she kept her fist out. And then Ben understood what she was doing. Becoming a human meant the demon had blood now, and she was controlling it. A chill spread through his veins. This was not good. Not at all good.

The demon was fading. Fading away, and then suddenly, it was gone. For a few moments, Ben watched with bated breath if he would reappear again. And then what happened next cleared his doubts. Natalie collapsed backwards, completely limp. He caught her before she hit the ground, and Bob rushed towards him.

"No," Ben whispered. "No, no, no. Hey, wake up!"

He tapped her cheeks. She didn't stir. The colour had left her face, her breath was so shallow that she was barely alive. Killing that demon had sucked all the energy out of her. He had to do something, to help her.

"Bob, do something, please."

Bob looked at Natalie aghast. He seemed to be in shock himself. And then he heard a voice calling him.

"Natalie? Bob? Ben!"

It echoed through the corridors into the chamber. Ben recognised it. Percy.

He ran into the chamber. For a moment, he grinned, perhaps glad he had found them. Then he saw Natalie. He rushed past them straight beside her.

"Oh no, what happened?" he exclaimed. He immediately checked her pulse. It was faint, but still there. Ben told him about the demon and Natalie killing him.

"Bob do something. You can fix her," Percy said desperately.

"Bob cannot do anything."

"No you can, Bob. Only you can. You're a –,"

"No, Percy," Ben laid Natalie and pulled him aside. Bob was still staring at Natalie. He whispered to him. "If you tell him and he remembers... that's risking your life."

Ben was desperate to save his sister, almost on the verge of tears, but he couldn't let another person die.

"If that happens, it happens. I can't let her die."

"But you can't let yourself die too! What about the other?" he asked him.

"I promised you I'll keep her safe. It's my duty now."

"But–,"

"No, Ben!" Percy yelled.

"How many other people will have to die so that I can live, huh? How many other people are going to sacrifice their lives so I save the world? Luke, Beckendorf, Silena, everyone! How many more sacrifices are gonna be there? This time, if it has to be someone, it'll be me. I can't let anybody else die. I can't let her die!" he exclaimed, pointing to Natalie.

Ben stood in shock, looking at the person Gaea had made him hate. He stared at the face that so resembled his, the eyes that were the same shade as his own. And he saw in them something greater than any hero could have had.

Percy turned to Bob. "Bob, you're a Titan. You can heal her. You lost your memory because of me. Everything happened because of me."

Bob stared at Percy, dumbstruck.

"I remember now," he said slowly. Ben waited for him to lash out. He waited for him to yell. But Bob slowly kept his hand on Natalie's forehead. He closed his eyes, and his hand glowed. Natalie's breathing became normal. The colour returned to her face. Bob looked at Percy, who was even more surprised. He couldn't seem to find words.

"Bob, I –,"

"She will wake up in a few minutes," Bob slowly muttered. Then he got up and sat in a corner of the room, looking away. Percy looked at Ben.

"Thank you," Ben told him. "You risked your life to save hers."

"Don't mention it," he said, but he looked guilty.

"Listen, Percy, I need to tell you something…,"

And he told her how Natalie had controlled the demon's blood.

"She actually controlled his blood?" Percy asked.

"Yeah. And I don't think any demigod of Neptune or Poseidon has had that power for centuries. If she can control blood, she can do other liquids too."

"Can you do it too, then?" Percy asked.

"No. I can't. And we're twins, so that's what's making me worried. Bending blood is not a power someone would like. That makes her so much more powerful than she already is. She can literally kill any people by just controlling their blood. That's sinister."

Percy stared at Natalie for a moment. "But you know she won't–,"

"Use it that way," he finished. "Yes I do. But the more powerful a demigod is, the more the gods hate them."

"I can't argue with that," Percy muttered. "But don't worry. We'll keep it quiet."

"You will keep it quiet," Ben muttered.

"What do you mean?"

But just at the precise moment, Natalie groaned, and Ben was spared answering the question. She opened her eyes, looking dazed.

"What happened?" she asked. Then the realization dawned upon her. "Oh no, I didn't actually control his blood?" she asked weakly.

She looked from Ben to Percy, and then to Bob, who was still sitting in the corner. "What–,"

"We'll tell you on the way. Annabeth and Damasen are waiting for us near the exit. The lesser we stay in this place, the better."

"Damasen?" Ben asked.

"He came to help us," Percy explained. "Come on." He lent out his hand to Natalie, who took it and stood up, shivering slightly. She seemed to be in shock herself. Bob lumbered over, not speaking anything.

"Let's get out of this place, then."