Watch out for blood, sweat, and tear stains on this chapter:

1) Like I said the last chapter the disclaimer is in the previous chapters

2) I love all you beautiful strangers who read my stories and review and all that good stuff!

3) By the way, who's loving the little Horizontal Line down there, pretty awesome if I do say so myself (this is me hinting you to read!)

Chapter 11:

"Um… Annabeth, I really need you to get up now…" I slightly shook her shoulder trying not to alert Skeleton Guy. I looked to see that he was using a familiar bronze knife to slit his wrist, blood poured out of the wound as he held it over a small bowl on a pedestal in the middle of the room. The blood slowly disappeared from the bowl leaving a clingy metallic smell in the air. Once all the blood was gone a circular outcrop in the wall began to unfold itself from the middle to reveal a door into a small room only containing a spiral staircase.

I quickly diverted my attention back to Annabeth and grabbed her wrist to check her pulse. She had one but it was faint, I leaned closer to hear her breathing evenly almost as if she were sleeping. "Bad time for a nap, Annabeth," I bent down and gently lifted her onto my shoulders firefighter style; this way I could carry Annabeth and still be able to move around fairly easily. I crossed the room to the stairs when I heard Annabeth muttering in her "sleep".

"No… no, no, no, no… t-take me… I can't- no, no, stop…" She sobbed silently and buried her face into my shoulder. I could feel the wetness from her tears soak through my shirt and touch my skin; for some reason this rejuvenated me. I was ready to level this entire place and mercilessly annihilate everyone who stood in my path; starting with Skeleton Guy. I half jogged up the stairs taking them two at a time.

I climbed on and on and on for what felt like hours, it seemed like with every step I gained ten pounds. Gravity was kicking my butt as I slowed to a steady trudge. Step, step, step, step, step… step, step… step… Suddenly Annabeth gave an enormous jerk and I thought we were both going to topple down the stairs. I quickly caught on to the railing on the stairs as Annabeth clung to my shirt like it was her life line. Who knows? Maybe it was… No, I can't think like that… she's okay, Percy, she'll wake up and tell you how stupid you are any minute now…

I heaved a shaky breath and leaned my head on to Annabeth's, "Annabeth, you have to be okay… please, don't leave me." I regained what little composure I had left and began my assent again. With every step I had to convince myself to keep going, right now the only thing that kept me going was keeping Annabeth safe. She had saved my sorry butt too many times today for me to just lie down and quit on her in her time of need.

The climb up the worn stone steps was agonizingly painful and monotonous. The only eventful things that happened was noticing that the room got slightly lighter the higher I climbed and Annabeth talking in her sleep. She said some pretty crazy stuff… but the thing that really got my attention was that my name was thrown in there a couple of times, along with some guy named Luke. I gently stroked her arm soothingly with my right hand as I held onto the railing with my left. Whenever she would thrash or get scared I whispered calming things to her. Honestly, I really didn't know what to do except carry her up the stairs and occasionally try to comfort her. Right now I felt like she was all I had and I was going to protect her with my life. It ripped my heart apart whenever she cried; I wanted to help her, I wanted to take away the pain.

I took a deep breath and looked up above my head to see that I was almost to the top. I looked over at Annabeth just in time to see her shudder and press both hands tightly to her head in pain; the entire staircase shook violently causing some of the older clay supports to collapse. I leaned over the railing to see the stairs on the lower levels begin disintegrating; my eyes must've been as big as plates. I ran like my pants were on fire up the stairs occasionally checking on the condition of the crumbling stairs below. I was shocked to find that it had almost caught up with me. This motivated me and I hastily quickened my pace up the stairs. I was breathing heavily as I shot up the stairs three at a time.

When I finally reached the top I realized there was no door, it was just a landing with a dome shaped roof that was lined with skylights. There's got to be a way out… I felt the wall and examined every bump and crack in it desperately trying to find a way out; eventually I gave in and decided that I was just going to have to force it open because there wasn't much time left before the entire landing would collapse beneath me. I stepped back and kicked the wall as hard as I possibly could, a sickening crack filled the air as the wall broke open and my foot cried out in pain. My foot was probably broken but I ignored the agonizing pain as I limped down the long hallway and barreled out of a small opening at the end of it. Suddenly, sunlight hit my face and I fell to my knees out of both pain and exhaustion. I realized I was in some kind of field so I laid Annabeth down and flopped down beside her. Every muscle in my body moaned as I laid there completely motionless, it hurt to breathe. Finally, I mustered up enough strength to gently take Annabeth's hand in mine and gave it a firm squeeze, "Please… I'm begging you, wake up Annabeth."

I saw her shiver and her eyes fluttered open revealing her scared grey eyes, "P-Percy…" I coughed and nodded my head weakly, the emotion in her eyes quickly changed from fear to worry as my eyes began to close and the world around me went black.

How was it? I decided to do this chapter in Percy's POV just to shake things up. By the way the Battle of the Labyrinth reference in Chapter 10 was "Deductive Reasoning". Also, I'm trying to get at least 30 reviews so please review! I really need to know whether you guys like it or not to see if I should focus on one of my other stories instead. Just as a challenge let's see if I can get 25 reviews before I upload Chapter 12. Who else is pumped for the Hunger Games?