Piper woke up to the same wind she had felt when Jason had been cooking. That cold breeze, her hairs rising on end. It made her feel like she wasn't alone, like she was in the presence of something she hadn't seen before. Immediately, she knew it wasn't Will, Nico, or Annabeth.
"Hello?" she crept from the bed, keeping her voice low. Tree branches banged against the windows. "Who's there?"
Jason moved in his sleep but didn't wake up. Again, the wind sent her hair up into the air.
"Nico?" she whispered. "Annabeth?"
No answer. The wind moved towards the door, was heard moving down the hallway. Without any other choice, Piper followed.
She followed it down the hall, passed her daughters' room. She followed it downstairs, followed it to the back door. There, she watched as the slim door opened by itself into the outside world.
"Who are you?" she asked again, this time louder. "What do you want?"
The wind shook the trees, the forest seemed to be laughing at her. In the distance, the barn door opened and closed repeatedly.
"Do you want me to go there?" she asked, slipping on some shoes. "What's in that barn?"
Without an answer or sign, Piper made her way into the backyard. The trees threatened to fall to the ground, the sky lit up in streaks of lightning. In her chest, she could feel the thunder rumble.
Piper got to the barn soon enough, her feet stopping her from going any further when she saw that the barn's door had fell shut. On its front, a padlock showed that it never should have been able to open.
"Damn..." Piper felt the chill hit her bones. "Who...whoever you are...show me what you want to show me."
A sudden sound caused her to look over, caused her to see that side door. The door was propped open, it's hinges broken and worn from years of Mother Nature's wrath. Through the small opening, Piper could see the beginnings of a staircase going into the earth.
"Woah..." she looked around her just in case she could catch sight of the ghost that had been leading her, but none seemed to be around. "Okay... I'm going to go down." She took a second to turn the flashlight on her phone on before shinning it down the staircase. "Is that safe...?"
Safe. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. She descended it anyway.
The wood creaked under her weight, the wind died down into silence. As she descended further and further below ground, all sounds disappeared besides the noises she made herself. Her breathing turned heavy, her skin scraped against the sides of the staircase.
She knew she wasn't alone.
Her phone's flashlight lit up the way, and along with the way showed her how many spiders were down there. They crawled around, crunched under her feet. She could only thank God that she had remembered to put shoes on, or she'd be picking the carcasses off from the bottom of her feet.
When she got to the bottom of the staircase, her sleepy mind finally registered the smell. It hit her full on, sent her eyes wide at the sight the smell was most definitely coming from.
At her feet, at the bottom of that staircase, human bones gleamed in her flashlight's beam.
