_Annabeth Chase _

_Unknown Date and Time, Tartarus _

Once the light was gone and we were cast into total darkness, Percy somehow gravitated below me. The wind caught in my wings, pushing me up. Our hands nearly slipped apart. I whimpered, barely audibly against the rush of the wind. Somehow, someway, Percy had grabbed my upper arm, pulling me to him. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and my own around his neck.

We'd been falling for a long time. Time was hard to tell, without a clock or the sun. It felt like an eternity. My wings felt like they'd separate from my body at any minute. For the first part, all I did was cry; I thought I'd fry until we reached the ground, imagining there was a ground. Just thinking about it, Percy and I, splattered at the bottom of this dark chasm, was enough to make me cry harder.

Eventually I ran out of tears. Concentrating was hard. It was always hard, but now, with all the wind blowing wildly around me. I'd managed to remember what Sage had told me, how our world and the other dimensions and worlds reflected the Greek Mythology. This was a tunnel to Tartarus, where monster go to die. I thought about Hesiod, the old Greek poet who'd speculated it would take nine days to fall from earth to Tartarus.

I'd be impossible to survive a nine day trip to hell. Dehydration, malnutrition, anything could happen. Yet, it felt like we'd been falling for longer. Percy held me tight to him, his fingers bruising my hips like I'd fly away if he let go. I probably would, to be honest. Occasionally, I'd black out from pain. When I came, I'd only be able to hear Percy calming breath, his fingers drawing mindlessly on my back.

It'd been an eternity. The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. I could see Percy's hair as I hugged him. The whistling in my ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below, I could see the bottom. For a moment I was too stunned to think properly. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern – and the full extent was still hidden. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To the left, the ground dropped away in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

The stench of sulphur made it hard to concentrate, but I was able to focus on the ground directly below and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid – a river. "Percy!" I yelled in his ear. "Water!"

Hoping to get his attention, I gestured frantically. Percy's face was hard to read in the dim red light. He looked shell-shocked and terrified, but he nodded as if he understood.

Percy could control water – assuming that was water below us. He might be able to cushion our fall somehow. Of course I had heard horrible stories about the rivers of the Underworld. They could take away your memories, or burn your body and soul to ashes. But I could not to think about that now. This was my—er, our— only chance.

The river hurtled towards us. At the last second, Percy yelled defiantly. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed us whole. The impact was worse then belly flopping into water from the top of a really high cliff. Freezing water shocked the air right out of my lungs. Everything turned rigid, and I lost my grip on Percy. I began to sink.

Strange wailing sounds filled my ears – millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed me down and made my body numb.

What's the point of struggling?

You're dead anyway.

You'll never leave this place.

I could just die. I was already halfway there.

Death.

Peaceful.

No one will miss you.

Percy gripped my hand and jolted me back to reality. It was impossible to see him in the murky water, but suddenly I didn't want to die. Together, we kicked upward and broke the surface.I gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulphurous. The water swirled around us, and I realized Percy was creating a whirlpool to buoy us up.

Though I couldn't see, I knew this was a river. Rivers had shores. "Land," I croaked. "Go sideways."

Life is despair. Everything is pointless, then you die.

"Pointless," Percy murmured, his eyes drooping. The whirlpool slowed, nearly to a stop as Percy began sinking.

I hooked my arm around his waist, grunting as I pulled us to shore. "Percy!" I shouted. ""The river is messing with your mind. It's the Cocytus – the River of Lamentation. It's made of pure misery!"

"Misery," he agreed, his teeth chattering.

"No, no, no!" I cried, struggling against the water.

Inevitable.

Death.

"Death," Percy muttered. His body went nearly limp as he began to black out.

Not on my watch, I thought.

I turned my head to him, pressing my lips against his own. It took like six seconds for him to respond, shocked at that. I pulled back, pushing his wet bangs away from his forehead. With renewed energy, we made our way to the riverbank. I pulled the two of us onto the dark sand, my legs wobbling before I collapsed in it.

Instead of soft mush, it was painful. Like—I rolled onto my side, looking at my hands: they had pieces of broken glass stuck in them. Great, just great. The air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Fighting might just be pointless. We'd would be dead within the hour.

"This place is literally going to kill us." I muttered.

Percy coughed. "This place smells like my ex-stepfather."

I couldn't help but crack a weak smile. I moved into a sitting position, making sure that I hadn't broken anything in my legs or arms. Once making sure the bleed was just from cuts and not actual bones, I went over out supply list. No food, no water … basically no supplies at all. Yep. Off to a promising start.

I looked over to Percy. He looked pretty bad. His dark hair was plastered across his forehead. His fingers were scraped raw from holding on to that ledge before we fell. Most worrisome of all, he was shivering and his lips were blue.

"We should keep moving or we'll get hypothermia," I stated. "Can you stand?"

He nodded. Together, we managed to get to of feet. Percy looked at me, his eyes filled with sadness, and hope. "You've got a plan?" he asked.

Crawl in a hole and die. a voice inside my head said.

Great plan.

No more pain.

"Shut. Up." I gritted out. Percy looked at me more confused now.

"What?"

"Um, nothing." I covered quickly. "Let's…let's just keep walking."

After the first step, we both nearly collapsed. I moved closer to him, hooking an arm around his waist. He wrapped his own around mine, right under where my wings were folded. I supported him as he supported me, and we made our way more inland. There was a cliff, illuminated red by the fire below.

Fire.

Tartarus.

I gasped, taking in a horrid breath of the air. Big mistake. I started coughing immediately. "Beth, Beth. Beth breathe." Percy stated, patting my back.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." I said. "C'mon, I've got a plan."

"Thank god. Wise Girl's got another brilliant plan."

"Um, I wouldn't say brilliant." I said sheepishly. "But it's a plan. We need to find the River of Fire."

~Sleepless Saviors~

The cliff dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish version of the Grand Canyon: a river of fire cutting a path through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces.

"Uh …" Percy examined the cliff. He pointed to a tiny fissure running diagonally from the edge to the bottom. "We can try that ledge there. Might be able to climb down."

Percy went first. The ledge was barely wide enough to allow a toehold. His hands, along with mine, clawed for any crack in the glassy rock. I'd ripped off the sleeves of my leotard and used the cloth to wrap my bloody palms, but my fingers were still slippery and weak.

A few steps below, Percy grunted as he reached for another handhold. "So … what is this fire river called?"

"The Phlegethon," I said. "You should concentrate on going down."

"The Phlegethon?" He shinned along the ledge. We'd made it roughly a third of the way down the cliff – still high enough up to die if we were to fall. "Sounds like a marathon for hawking spitballs."

"Please don't make me laugh," I stated.

"Just trying to keep things light."

"Thanks," I grunted, nearly missing the ledge with my foot. "I'll have a smile on my face as I plummet to my death."

We kept going, one step at a time. My eyes stung with sweat, arms trembling. But, we finally made it to the bottom of the cliff. When I reached the ground, I stumbled. Percy caught me. His skin felt so feverish. Red boils had erupted on his face, so he looked like a smallpox victim.

Everything was getting blurry. My throat felt blistered, and my stomach was clenched tighter than a fist.

We have to hurry.

"Just to the river," I told Percy, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. "We can do this."

We staggered over slick glass ledges, around massive boulders, avoiding stalagmites that would've impaled us with any slip of the foot. We kept going until we crumpled to our knees at the banks of the Phlegethon.

"We have to drink," I said.

Percy swayed, his eyes half-closed. It took him three counts to respond. "Uh … drink fire?"

"In the stories, it says The Phlegethon flows from Hades's realm down into Tartarus." I explained. "The river is used to punish the wicked. But also … some legends call it the River of Healing."

Percy looked at me skeptically. "Some legends?"

"The Phle-Phle-the river keeps the wicked in one piece so that they can endure the torments of the Fields of Punishment. I think … it might be able to heal us."

Percy winced as cinders sprayed from the river. "But it's fire. How can we –"

"Like this." I thrusted my hands into the river.

On first contact, the fire wasn't painful. It felt cold, which probably meant it was so hot it was overloading my nerves. Before I could think clearly and realize how crazy this was, I cupped the fiery liquid in my hands and raised it to my mouth.

Drinking from the Phlegethon was like gulping down a ghost chilli smoothie. My sinuses filled with liquid flame; my mouth felt like it was being deep-fried; my eyes shed boiling tears, and every pore on my face popped. I collapsed, gagging and retching, my whole body shaking violently.

"Annabeth!" Percy grabbed my arms and just managed to stop me from rolling into the river.

A/N: So, although I did write a lot of this chapter, I did take some of the ending from the book.

Excerpt From: Riordan, Rick. "Heroes of Olympus 04 - The House of Hades." Penguin Books Ltd, 2013-10-07T16:00:00+00:00. iBooks.

This material may be protected by copyright.

When I copy and paste it, this copyright thing just pops up. Whatever, saves me time. I did take out a lot of it. I like the ending, nice and abrupt. So, here's some things for thought. What I think while reading Percy Jackson:

I wonder if Annabeth was on her period in Tartarus?

Since their clothes were in tatters, could Percy see her bra?

Was her bra in tatters too?

Does calypso get a monthly period on Ogygyia?

Does Nico ever secretly play mythomagic?

Did Percy ever get hard on that fall to Tartarus?

I wonder how often people got off on the Argo II?

Is it wrong to think about of fictional characters thought dirty thoughts about each other?

The end. So, is it just me who thinks like this? Lemme know. Read and review!

Xoxoxoxoxoxoxo