Hello all.
First off, I got to say that I love all of your reviews. Please continue to give me feedback! It helps me write the story.\
Oh and a reply to an anonymous reviewer: I would honestly be more afraid of Loki if he knew my secrets because that way, he would know my weakness.
So now, this is chapter 19. I honestly didn't think I would get this far, but somehow, I did. This chapter is after the other Half Bloods go to sleep after having Nico come back from the dead!
Have fun reading!
Thalia
"Hey, wake up. We have to leave now!"
Someone was shaking me. Who was it? I slowly opened my eyes to come face to face with Nico's wide, cornered eyes.
"What?" I asked groggily.
"We have to leave!"
There was a sense of urgency in his voice and that snapped me out of my sleep deprived mind. It was still dark around me, with just a few hints of a rising sun. I got up off the ground and saw that everyone else was already awake. They were gathering their things as quickly as they could. I picked up my bows and arrows as well as my spear quickly.
I soon realized why we were in such a hurry.
I heard an ominous sound. It sounded almost like hissing. I squinted my eyes, trying to find out where it was coming from.
That was when I saw trees topple down in the distance from a foreign force. The strange thing was that I couldn't see anything but a strange-looking fog.
"What is that?" I asked.
Nico answered. "The thing that we're running away from! Come on, it's destroying everything in its path!"
I didn't need to be told twice. I ran after Nico thinking that we had to outrun this fog. It was burning right through everything in its path like it was acid. I had a feeling that if it touched us, it would do the same and burn through our skin.
"let's go!" I shouted at the others.
No one needed my warning. They had already started running.
We all ran as fast we could away from the menacing gas but it was catching up too quickly. I heard trees toppling down behind us. I could almost feel it licking the sides of my arms, but I tried to tell myself that it was just my imagination.
"It's not slowing down!" I heard Clarrise's voice as we whizzed through the forest.
"Kind of noticed." I muttered to myself.
In the distance, I heard all kinds of animals and birds screeching from inside the forest, trying to get away from the gas. It would be a lot easier for the birds, I thought.
My breath was coming in gasps by now. We had ran for at least ten minutes and the gas was still not slowing down. I wondered if it ever was going to slow down. My legs yelled at me in pain, telling, no, begging me to stop. Finally, I caved in, slowing down for a fraction of a second for I was sure I was going to drop.
It was a bad idea.
I felt the gas lick the sides of my body and this time I wasn't imagining it. I felt hot pain shoot up my arm because of the gas.
"Ah!" I exclaimed in pain.
The gas was ebbing away at my skin-I could feel it. I didn't want to look at it. I had a feeling it looked horrible.
The others were now well ahead of me. I sped up, willing my legs to go as fast as they could. I wasn't seeing a way out of this mess. I could barely keep myself from passing out because of the pain in my arm. We couldn't keep running forever.
Black spots span in and out of my vision. I couldn't keep going any longer, I was sure of it.
Two minutes later I barely heard someone shout, "We have to climb down this cliff!"
What the hell? Where the hell did a cliff come from? By now, I was running to the far left of everyone so I wasn't seeing what everyone else was seeing.
I turned back to the scene in front of me and that was when I saw it. A drop in elevation that I knew could only mean one thing. The cliff.
I almost froze on the spot. The only thing that kept me going was the menacing gas behind me. I saw a brief glance of Rachel and Clarrise to my far right through the trees. The cliff in front of them was far less steep than what I was facing. Running to them would take far too long. That way, the gas would take me as its prisoner for sure. I had only one choice and that was going head on toward the steep rock face.
Holy shit. I'm going to fall off this cliff and die and nobody is going to be there to save me.
I'm going to die.
But I had no other choice. It was either die by the acid gas where I had no chance of at all of surviving, or falling down the cliff where I had a slim chance of surviving. The last choice seemed a bit better than the first because there I had a chance of surviving, no matter how slim. I had to go down this cliff.
My mind was seizing up. I couldn't think anymore. I was getting tunnel vision. I couldn't do this. I felt the blood drain from my face.
In no time at all, I saw the cliff right in front of me, barely a few steps away. I had a moment's hesitation before stepping off the cliff.
Then I almost forgot to breathe.
As I took my next step, my foot met air. I vaguely saw the others at the bottom of the cliff. They had noticed me and were shouting something, but I couldn't make out the words. I actually couldn't hear anything-not even the gas. All I could hear was the air whizzing past my ears.
Time slowed down as I tumbled through the air. I saw the ground approaching at an impossible speed. I scrunched my eyes shut to avoid watching. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die.
I hated this feeling. The feeling of weightlessness. I scrunched my eyes shut harder. I couldn't bare this. My heart beat was going a mile a minute. This had to stop. I couldn't stand it anymore. This was torture. It would be better if I just hit the ground already instead of this.
No. This had to stop.
As soon as I thought that, I felt a sudden change around me. I was standing on something. What was it? I couldn't have already hit the ground. I didn't feel any impact.
Was I dead? No, that couldn't be possible. I was still breathing and I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my head. That was when I realized that my eyes were still closed. I slowly opened one eye, then the other.
What I saw was nothing short of a miracle.
I was in mid-air, standing on…something.
It felt like a cushion of air. It was the strangest feeling. I turned around full circle in wonder and awe.
But then I though about where I was. I was in the air. Standing on nothing.
My breath caught in my throat out of fear. I was facing my greatest fear. My heartbeat raced even faster than it was before if that was even possible.
I had to get down. I didn't want to be here anymore.
I collected all of my remaining strength and put it into trying to descend down as gently as I could. I was already about half way down the cliff so I only had a bit left to go.
I felt beads of sweat roll down my forehead. My movements were jerky and out of control. I almost fell all the way to the bottom because of that. It would only be a matter of time before I fell all the way to the bottom.
And of course, I was right.
Just as I was a quarter of the way down, I lost all of my concentration. I tumbled all the way down to the forest floor. I felt white-hot pain shoot up my right leg as I hit the ground forcefully.
The pain of that, along with the pain from the gas on my arm was enough to send me into the endless darkness.
…..
I woke to searing pain in both my right leg and arm. I groaned as I slowly opened my eyes. I was met with the concerned faces of my friends.
"What the hell happened?" I asked with another groan.
"Well, you kind of…fell?" Grover said.
That was when it all came back to me.
I remembered that there was that gas and I had no choice but to fall off that cliff. And I actually flew?!
I sat up quickly but was met with a bout of nausea. I noticed my obviously broken foot and the raging red spot on my right arm. I placed a finger on it tentatively but quickly took it away when fresh pain shot up it.
I finally looked up at the my friends. They were looking at me with apprehensive expressions on their faces.
Finally, Rachel spoke up. "So…what exactly happened?"
I looked at her tiredly. It seemed that little flying stunt had not gone unnoticed. And that it had really sapped my energy.
"Well, I think that I just flew." I replied. I was still shaken by what I had just seen and done. Knowing that I could fly wasn't going to rid me of my fear of heights any time soon.
"Just flew?" Nico asked, bewilderment lacing his voice. "You fell from a 40 foot cliff, actually flew and lived to tell the tale. And you're saying that you just flew?"
I frowned at him. "It's not like I planned that to happen."
He ignored me. "How come you've never done that before? That was amazing!"
I sighed. I had to tell them about my fear of heights some time or another. I couldn't keep it a secret for all my life. If I wanted to trust them with my life, they needed to trust me.
"Guys, I have a confession to make." I hesitated again. Was this the right decision? But I couldn't back down now. It was already too late.
"I'm afraid of heights."
I paused, waiting for the information to sink in. I looked up at their faces and saw that they had pure shock written all over them.
"Wait, a daughter of Zeus, afraid of heights?" Nico finally asked.
"That what Percy said." I muttered. "And yes I am afraid of heights. You guys got a problem with that?" I demanded.
"No, no," Clarrise started. "It's just that, could that become a problem for us?"
"Don't worry about that." I snapped. I could take care of myself in a fight without worrying about my fear of heights. I had already promised myself that I wouldn't use my power of flying again.
I tried to get up but almost fell as I put weight on my broken foot. I gritted my teeth as Rachel steadied me.
"Hey, take it easy. You hurt your foot pretty bad when you fell."
I bit the inside of my mouth. This wasn't good. We wouldn't be able to go anywhere with my broken ankle.
"Here, I can make you a splint." Clarrise said. "I have some experience in making these things."
Just as Clarrise was about to leave to look for some good pieces of bark to use for the splint, I heard something. It sounded like…beeping? Where was it coming from?
"Guys, look over there." I turned my head to see Grover point to something in the distance. He was pointing at a strange looking parachute and a small gray sphere attached to it. The parachute continued to give off an annoying beeping sound as it gently floated down to rest on the forest floor a few ways away from us. As it landed, the beeping stopped and it grew quiet once again.
We all stared at it in silence.
"You think we should touch it?" Nico asked out of the blue.
I thought about it for a few minutes. It seemed highly convenient to just appear out of nowhere when I was injured. It could be a trap…or it could be something highly helpful.
"Nico, take it."
Nico looked at me like he was about to object, but then simply walked over to the thing and picked it up apprehensively. He had his eyes closed and held the thing away from him like he was expecting it to blow up in his hand or something.
Thankfully it didn't.
Just as he was about to give it to me, there was ominous hiss as the container opened up. We all peered inside of it anxiously to find out what it is.
"Its…ambroisa!" Rachel exclaimed.
"What?" I muttered, confused. Where did ambrosia come from? It seemed like a horrible coincidence. What if it was poisoned?
Grover took the baggy of ambrosia out from inside of the container. He opened it and sniffed it.
"Well, it smells okay. No poison or anything at least."
Nico laughed nervously. "Well that's okay…right?"
I furrowed my eyebrows. I had learned over the years to trust Grover's nose and if he said it wasn't poisoned then I would have to trust him. So I did. I took the bag from Grover and opened it. I broke off a piece of ambrosia and put it in my mouth.
It tasted like the hot pea soup my mom used to make before…the entire mess happened. I closed my eyes and let the ambrosia do its work. I felt the pain ebb away from my arm and slowly the pain in my ankle transformed into a dull throb.
I finally opened my eyes and found that the wound on my arm had turned into a thin white line. My ankle wasn't fully healed though. I decided to eat just a bit more ambrosia-just enough to speed the healing. I had to save some just in case something happened to the others.
A few seconds later and the pain in my ankle was barely noticeable. I still had a bit of a limp, but I would have to make do for now.
I straightened myself and leaned off of Rachel.
I sighed and said, "We should keep moving. We don't want to see that gas again."
I heard Nico let out a breath of bewilderment. "You just flew and you're not even going to explain how you did it?"
I grimaced, feeling a bit annoyed and Nico being so nosy.
"What is there to explain? I flew and that's that. Now let's go."
I started walking away from the cliff. I was thankful Nico at least understood that I didn't want to talk about it as he left me to my own thoughts.
To say the truth, I was completely astonished. And even that was a huge understatement. I had just flew even when I was deathly afraid of heights. I never even knew Zeus's children could even do that. Maybe it was because I was too scared to try. I had never really given it much thought before. It had never occurred to me that a child of Zeus could do that.
And now that I could…what if something happened and I needed to save my friends and flying would be the only way to dot that? Could I do that? Would I chicken out?
Agh, so many unanswered questions. I hated that. I hated the uncertainty of the future. That was why I always thought minute to minute. I never thought about what could happen in the future. I only thought about the now. And the now was being able to fly.
It was a part of me was telling me that flying was a bad idea and the other half was telling me the complete opposite. I was having a battle with myself that I knew I would lose. I felt like I was being torn in half. It was the most horrible feeling.
When I had seen Nico almost die, I had felt horrible. I didn't even notice him touching that plant. I didn't and couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. I had felt so helpless. Ever since we had all gotten here, everyone looked up at me to lead. I felt responsible for getting them to safety. And now I felt like I had betrayed them.
I knew in the back of my mind that I couldn't have done anything. But that didn't stop me from feeling guilty.
"Hey, you okay?" I heard someone approach from behind me. It was Nico.
At first, I thought of snapping at him to go away, but soon realized that that wouldn't have been fair. So finally, I sighed and said, "No I'm not okay. When I saw you touch that tree, I thought you died and that it was my entire fault. I felt like I had betrayed you."
Nico looked at me with a worried expression on his face. "but you didn't. im still here."
"I know but you weren't breathing Nico. We were worried. I was worried."
Nico placed one of his cold hands on my shoulder. I looked down at his hand then at his face. He was smiling his usual sad smile.
"Hey, it'll be all right. We'll get out of here. I promise you."
I wished he hadn't promised me. That had made it sound official. Like he would do anything for the rest o fus to get out alive…
Just as I was about to say something back to him, I heard a rustling in the trees next to us.
It slowly grew louder as I signalled for the rest of my friends to stop. We circled around where the rustling was coming from. I notched an arrow in my bow and pointed it at the trees. The others followed my lead and got their weapons ready.
Just as I was about to shoot, I saw a figure of a person come out of the bushes.
"Whoa, watch where you point those things!"
Heheh…*nervous laugh*.
Sorry! I couldn't resist!
It was too tempting!
Don't worry, I'll update as soon as I can!
Please read and review! I love them!
-Detective DG