Sorry for taking so long. Physics and Chemistry control my life.

Chapter III: My Heart is Nearly Broken

His screams were more than I could bear. They had been torturing him for more than an hour. He kept calling my name, calling his mom, and praying to his dad for it to stop. I tried to get out of my shackles but they wouldn't budge. I have to think, what can I use to get out of here? Suddenly, the screaming stops, I see the chimeras come to my holding area and exit though a far door. "Percy?" I yell. "It's Annabeth. Percy, do you hear me?" I wait for a response. All I hear is his hard breathing until he starts to yell again. But this time, he yells a name I do not know.

"Carter!" he shouts, a sharp strain in his voice. "Carter, please. I need your help!"

Oh, no. He's gone mad. Oh, Percy! All of a sudden I hear a pop right behind me. I turn and see a boy, a couple years younger than me in linen clothes carrying a brown bag. He looks at me questioningly, "Where's Percy? What's going on? And who are you?"

"I'm Annabeth, his girlfriend. He's being held in there." I point to the next room. "The monsters have been torturing him. Who are you?"

"I'm Carter, a umm… friend. Let me get these shackles off you so we can get him." He unlocks the shackles and we run into the next room. I am unprepared for what I see. He's covered in his own blood. He has multiple slashes on his back, and cuts down his sides. His body is covered in bruises and he looks like he's about to lose consciousness. I immediately rush to take his shackles off and Carter helps me lay him on the floor as gently as possible.

"You came." He croaks looking at Carter. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. I have to get you out of here." "There!" I exclaim, "There's a ladder we can carry him on." We quickly rush out of the torture room, back through the way we came in and we don't stop until we are out of breath. Percy has now lost consciousness.

"I need to heal him now." Carter says, "It will be best while he is out." Carter opens his bag and gets out a bottle with what looked to be some sort of serum inside. He pours it into Percy's mouth and then speaks a word that sounds strangely like Egyptian. I see Percy's wounds immediately start to heal. I look at Carter, "What are you? You don't seem to be a demigod."

He sighs, "I'm not. I'm a magician from a long line of magicians. I follow the Egyptian gods."

I am utterly shocked. A magician who follows Egyptian gods? How is this possible?

"So what are you and Percy exactly?"

"We're ummm…we're demigods, the offspring of a human and a god." Now it was Carter's turn to be shocked, "Whoa, wait. You're part god?"

"Yes, my mother is Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Percy is the son of Poseidon, the sea god. We follow the Greek gods." Carter doesn't speak for a long time. "I don't know how to process this."

"Me neither," I say. I look down at Percy and see he's waking up. "Percy! How do you feel?"

"Terrible. But better than before. I think I can sit up." He's still covered in blood but his wounds are mostly healed, including his leg and shoulder. I give him half a square of ambrosia and eat the other half myself. "I'm sorry for summoning you here, Carter, but I was desperate."

"Don't be. You might have died. At the moment though, I'm worried about getting out of here. Where is here?"

"Welcome to Tartarus, my friend." Percy sighs, "The place where monsters come when they die."

"Sounds like paradise." Carter said sarcastically. "So how do we get out of here?"