Finding the Death's Door wasn't the hard part, Jason came to find out. The hard part was getting there. Nico had pretty much a good idea as to where they were going, always sure of himself and never really making a mistake. How he was able to know all of this, Jason didn't have a clue. They both agreed that it was far to dangerous for them to use their powers. Being this close to Tartarus and with the others about to face an army of monsters they didn't want to risk anything knowing they were there.
Luckily for them they did run into anything so far, Jason had to guess that all of the monsters would be with the others at the horde or scattered around the mountains. Climbing the mountain is what made this journey so difficult in the first place. There was no trail they could climb on so getting up the steep parts of the mountain itself was hard enough. Most of the time Nico didn't even say anything, Jason had just guessed that it was because he was trying to concentrate on the right path to take.
They had been walking of only about three hours or so, but it still looked like they had such a farther way to go. Jason started to think that they would be climbing this thing for days.
"Say Nico, do you know how much further we have to go?" Jason asked, this had to be the tenth time he asked. He expected the same answer he got every time, Nothing. Being ADHD, Jason was starting to get real annoyed with nothing. "Dude just answer me, are we even half way there?" Still no response, this was starting to get old, he didn't understand why he was like this. Sure Nico was a son of Hades, but did he really have to give the cold shoulder all the time?
Jason was getting pissed now, he hated not being in the dark, he almost always had to know what was going on.
"NICO!" He screamed as loud as he could, not carrying what monster heard him, he was kind of hoping something would, this walk was getting far to simple and easy.
"What?" Nico snapped at him, giving him a glare that would make anyone alive or dead as a matter of fact, scared enough that they might just through up their lunch, or what ever it is the dead eat.
"Are we even getting close, because I don't want have to camp out for the night, and it looks like it might get dark soon." Jason said, not that he was afraid, he was after all the son of Jupiter, he just really didn't want to have to camp on the side of a mountain in one of the most dangerous places a demi-god could be in.
"We are already here, didn't you notice we stopped walking for like ten minutes?" He said, giving Jason a look that made him feel like the dumbest person on the planet.
"Well I just thought that you were trying to find the right route, you have stopped before." Jason said, rubbing the back of his head, trying to make a good defensive statement. Unfortunately he didn't have the charm speak like Piper did, so that just made him feel even dumber.
"No, what we need to do now is find away to figure out how this door works." Nico said.
"What do you mean how it works? Can't we just close it and that be it?" Jason said, not really understanding what meant.
"Do you think you could close that?" Nico said pointing to the cliff wall.
Jason looked at the doors for the first time and he couldn't believe what he saw. He didn't really know what to expect about the whole Doors of Death thing, but it sure wasn't this.
The Doors them selves didn't even look like doors. They were around twenty feet tall, tall enough for most monsters to get though and a few giants if they needed to. The doors were a dark stony gray the same as the cliff they were imbedded in. That wasn't what made the doors so intimating, it was the markings on them. Jason thought they would have just skulls and monsters, thing you would think to see on something called the Doors of Death.
That wasn't it at all, what was on them, was carvings. The carvings were so detailed that at first they looked like actual photographs, but it took a moment for Jason to really see them. The carvings were moving. He saw waves knocking over entire naval fleets and drowning everyone on board, fires breaking out in the middle of cities, storms that caused so much damage it made sure now one was alive. Jason was sure he could hear the people screaming in the carvings.
"When did all of this happen, I don't remember ever reading about tragedies like these." Jason said, still not able to look away.
"Now, they are happing right now, from what I know, the doors don't show you what happened, they show you everyone in the world who is dying at the last moments of their life." Nico said in a sad, tone. Hearing that pushed Jason over the edge. His head was spinning he wanted to run to the doors and try his best to help those trapped inside of it.
But all he was able to do, was lean over and through up everything he had to eat the last few weeks. Jason was never afraid of death, and being praetor of camp Jupiter long enough he was almost use to it, but there was something different about watching hundreds if not thousands of people dying at the same time.
"Sorry, I didn't know it would be this bad either, lucky for me I am more use to dead people then alive so I am kind of use to it by now." He said, with a concerned tone for his cousin who almost passed out.
After Jason gathered himself up again he, tried his best not to look at the stone doors in front of him, "Its okay, I... I just need to know, what are we going to do now" He said, his knees still shaking from lousing all his food.
"Well, we cant close them, not until Percy gets back, so we are just going to have to wait until then. And, if anything comes out that isn't Percy, we are just going to have to send it right back." Nico said, putting his beck in the direction of the doors. Jason didn't really have a better idea, and he figured that Nico was the expert in this type of thing.
"Oh, and don't get to close to the doors. Even though we are in the world of the living I don't know how much power Tartarus has here." Nico said, that didn't really matter to Jason he wasn't planning on going any closer to those doors then he had too.
The sun was starting to go down and Jason and Nico had been sitting there for almost an hour. Occasionally a monster or two would come out of the gates, only to meet the two demi-gods at the doors. They would fight, the monsters would lose and be sent back into the dark pits of Tartarus.
Jason hated the idea of just sitting, he knew that he could be doing something far more important, like actually getting Percy back.
"Should we just go in there and get him?" Jason asked, not really knowing what to do.
"No we shouldn't, if he doesn't show up in the next day, then we will. But, if all three of us get lost in there, then there was not really a reason in coming here in the fist place." Nico, said almost in a yawn, Jason could tell he was getting tired, but they both needed to stay up for this one.
"Gods dammit I hate just waiting when I know I could really be helping..." Jason was cut off by the sound of something coming out of the doors. Both he and Nico stood up and grabbed their swords. They were prepared for another fight even if they were both getting tired. What ever it was coming out of the doors, had almost a human figure and didn't look much taller then Nico, it had what looked like a bag in one of its hands, and a book in the other.
As it stepped closer and closer to the fading sunlight, Jason and Nico started to see what it really was, or more correctly who it really was. What they saw almost made them both drop their weapons, as Percy stepped out of the gates of hell and into the sunlight.
He didn't look like Percy though, he looked like something that a hell hound would use as a chew toy. His shirt was all ripped and barley even hung on to his body, he had cuts and blood running all over his torso. He was barley able to walk only making a slow limp wile trying desperately not to fall over. In his hands he had the head of some monster that he was holding by the hair in the other hand was the laptop that Annabeth dropped in Tartarus a week ago.
Still none of those compared to look in his eyes. He had that far away look like he wasn't looking at you, but through you, like an animal that was a subject to abuse for years and now just became feral.
As he walked closer to them, both Nico and Jason ran towards him, he fell to his knees when his feet weren't able to support him any longer. When they got up to him, they both tried to grab him, but he didn't move, he just sat there, unresponsive.
"Its okay Percy, your going to be okay." Jason said, trying to comfort Percy.
That made Percy look up and look right at Jason, that far way look was gone. Now it was the look of a Lion about ready to attack its prey.
Before Jason or Nico could say another word to him, Percy jumped up and punched Jason so hard that he fell off the mountain they were on. Sending him spiraling right for the ground.
Hope you guys liked it. Like I said, Percy was going to be out of Tartarus in this chapter. If any of you are confused on how he ending up looking like such hell, don't worry I am going to write one more chapter in Tartarus that takes place when this one is going on. If some of you are waiting for some actual fights, sorry I know I haven't put any in here, but I plan on doing a big battle with huge army of monsters that Annabeth and the others are at right now. Don't forget to review on how you felt about it.