Percy couldn't believe this. He had struggled desperately to keep his head above the murk, but the hands had finally gotten the best of him. He panicked when he found he couldn't breathe in the mud (although that should have been obvious). He thrashed and kicked. Punching round, slimy things that the hands seemed to belong to. Then suddenly he had felt cool air touch his face. He cautiously opened his mouth and cool, stagnant air entered his lungs, but he dared not open his eyes. The things still pulled his arm, but less urgently. Percy could feel something being pulled along next to him and a shoe scraped against his side, the next second, Nico was screaming next to him. Percy's eyes flew open and he shrieked too. The scene below him was enough to scare Hades himself. Percy was stuck waist down in the bog; Nico was hanging on a thick root. Below them stretched a fiery cavern. The bog somehow covered the top. Percy's eyes went to his arms where white slimy hands still clung to them; he made the mistake of looking at what was connected to the hands. Percy screamed again. The things pulling him down had been these white, faceless creatures with elongated skeletal arms and hands that connected to their humanoid torso, but instead of having legs, their bodies thinned and trailed off into wisps of smoke, like a cartoon ghost. The one's that weren't clutching at Percy or Nico hovered further down and reached their arms out to the boys. Screams of torture filled the air, but Percy had no idea where they were coming from, because he couldn't see any visible mouths.

"Nico!" Percy shouted, "What are these things?"

Nico looked down, three hands were wrapped around one of his legs and tugged half-heartedly. "Uhh… his eyes widened and he looked down again and uttered an audible gasp. "I'd only heard stories of this kind of thing. They're only spirits Percy, souls. Souls of the damned."

Yep, thought Percy, that cleared it up.

"And we destroy them how?" Percy prompted, worried that at any second his legs would become unstuck and he would fall into the soul ridden cavern.

Nico pursed his lips. "As far as I know, we can't. We'll have to escape. Percy, they can't be destroyed. They're souls…. Souls can never be destroyed. Basically, they've been damned… probably to rot. And then left here. That bog would have been a way to capture things, like us. They don't really want to harm us, just damn us with them. They hate anything that's not suffering like them."

Nico's words floated around Percy's head, nothing was making sense. Nico could probably tell that and shook his head. "Look, let's just focus on getting out. Details later."

Percy realised he would have been dead by now if it weren't for Nico… long dead… rotting in hell kind of dead. First it had been the berry, then he had got Hades to let him stay in Eberus, then he had stopped him from falling off a cliff during one of their morning adventures and now this. Percy was able to manoeuvre with both his hands, but having his legs stuck pretty firmly in mud constricted him a lot. Nico, on the other hand, was completely free. He jumped like a monkey from root to root, kicking up at the mud trying to find a softer, watered down section that they might escape through and, with a lot of luck, that Percy might be able to control.

"Here." Nico grunted hanging from a particularly thick root. He kicked down, shoving one of the souls away from his foot and swung back over to Percy. "Do you think you grab hold of this root and use it to pull yourself out."

Percy bit his lip, but took the thick root Nico offered him. He steadied himself then yanked hard and he slipped out. It was a scary thought knowing he'd just been hanging there confident he wasn't going to fall, but with one pull he had come out easily. He hung, a few meters from Nico, and looked at the scene below. After the first shock, Percy had realised the souls were more sad creatures than terrifying.

"Ok. You see that spot over there? Its dripping slightly." Nico said, nodding to a spot a few meters behind Percy. "That's where we'll escape." Percy looked over his shoulder.

"Ok, let's go." He used the root to swing him over and let go flying for a second in the air, then grabbed onto the next root and swung on, again and again, Nico behind him, until they were there.

Suddenly Percy was aware of how close they were. Him and Nico were both hanging from one thick root, Nico slightly above Percy, but so close they could count each other's eyelashes.

"Can you control it?" Nico asked, Percy blinked, he had been embarrassingly studying Nico's face and could now feel a blush creeping up his neck.

"Umm. I'll try." Percy closed his eyes, focusing on the moisture and waiting to feel the familiar tug in his belly. It was there, but faintly. "A little. But not much. I might be able to get us through, but not much more."

Percy steadied himself, ready to launch into the ceiling of mud. Nico laid a hand on his arm.

"Wait, Percy." He bit his lip nervously. "When we try escape, I have a feeling these things will attack." Percy paused and looked down at the souls still crying out to him.

"Then let's go fast." He grabbed Nico's hand and jumped head first into the bog. It didn't take long for hands to wrap around both of them tugging viciously. Percy put all his will into the mud, forcing it to become a solid wall behind them and pushing them forward. The liquid within the mud seemed to readily obey, but the sand particles, or whatever, rebelled with just as much force. The hands wrapped tighter and Percy heard the souls longing screams, fingers dug into his skin and raked his side, but all the while he could still feel Nico's hand in his and clutched tightly. After what seemed like forever of battling the mud and souls, Nico and Percy emerged out the surface, Nico was almost unconscious from lack of oxygen and Percy had to haul him out the swamp and onto the banks where they both flopped down, Nico on-top of Percy.

Percy lay there, breathing hard. Nico's head rested on his chest, he too was breathing heavily. Nico raised his head looking at Percy. Percy looked back, he opened his mouth to say something. But suddenly Nico lent forward, his lips brushing Percy's. He pulled back, a horrified expression on his face, then he pushed himself up to his feet and was running away.

"Wait, Nico!" Percy called, wanting an explanation. But Nico was already too far away.