I doubt anyone reads this particular story anymore. But here's an update anyways. I know I have no one to blame but myself for my lack of readers because of my bad update schedule. but here it is anyway. This time the delay was caused by wrist surgery meaning I couldn't type. My health sucks. I am not sure how I feel about this chapter... it feels rushed. What do you think?
"Feel what?" Cassandra asked.
"I thought I felt shaking..." Meg answered, suddenly feeling foolish, realizing she wasn't feeling anything anymore. She tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders, feeling unsettled.
"Must be the wind," Cassandra mumbled, and the cosmos replied with sudden violent shaking. Megara and Cassandra let out startled shouts, Icarus being jolted form his sleep,
"What's happening?" he shouted, his voice drowned in a sea of noise. The great tremor was causing a deafening roar. Dust from the ceiling fell onto the trio, the sound of crumbling stone joining the roaring cacophony. Icarus tried to run to his friends, the violent shaking knocking him off his feet.
"We have to get out of here!" Cassandra screamed, in sudden panic. She stood, struggling to retain her foot and jerked Meg to her feet. She looked at Icarus and gestured madly at the door. Seeming to get the message he tried to make his way to the door. The sounds of cracking and the roar of the tremor surrounded them, and the trio feared they wouldn't make it out in time. They reached the door, but it wouldn't move. "It's frozen" Cassandra's panic was infecting the other two, who were lost at what to do. Megara grabbed the door handle, pulling it with as much force as she could muster. The effort of pulling at the frozen door left her dizzy, and she fell to the floor with the room spinning around her.
"The window!" Icarus suggested. His voice was near impossible to discern, but his frantic pointing helped. Cassandra picked up a very dazed Megara, and stumbled to the window.
"Help me get her through!"
"Guys! I think I can manage to climb through a window!" Meg defended, but was unceremoniously shoved through the window anyway, landing in the thick layer of snow sending a poof of white into the air. Cassandra and Icarus were not far behind. Meg staggered to her feet, finding that fighting the snow and the constantly moving ground made it impossible to move with how weak she felt. Damnit legs, now is not the time to be failing me! Before she fell again she felt Cassandra's arm wrap around her waist, supporting her weight.
"I got you. Stop being stubborn!" Icarus quickly caught up, supporting Megara as best he could on the other side, considering the woman was taller than him. Together Icarus and Cassandra trudged through the nearly waist-deep snow to all but drag their impaired friend as far from danger as they could. And as suddenly as the shaking started, it stopped. The sudden silence was as jarring as the onset of the noise had been. All three found their ears ringing, and the sudden stillness causing them to stumble and lose their balance.
When they turned around the sight broke Meg's heart. The southern half of the villa was partially collapsed. Large cracks spidered across much of what still stood, and most of the support columns had fallen. Hercules worked so hard on this place, and to see it destroyed so fast brought tears to her eyes. She shook her head, a building could be rebuilt. She looked at her friends and thanked them, knowing that despite her own insistence she never would have been able to get herself out of that villa on her own.
"You really think we'd run off to leave you to fend for yourself?" Cassandra insisted, getting back up from the ground and pulling Megara to her feet as well, letting the woman rest her weight on her once more.
"That doesn't mean I won't thank you," she quipped back. "And while that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life... panicking isn't like you," Meg prodded.
"This is the beginning of what Amara must have seen. I only hope Hercules found her, so we can try and make sense of her visions. So we can known more of what happened," Meg was skeptical, but didn't push further. "But what are we gonna do now? We'll freeze to death out here." Meg tried to look through the snow, for the stable where Pegasus usally slept. Hercules had installed a fireplace so the stable would provide enough shelter until they had a better solution.
"If the stable didn't fall apart that's our best bet," Meg shouted over the wind. They tried to look through the whiteout, and saw an indistinct gray block a short distance away. Meg pointed to the gray blob, it was in the right direction so they began to trudge for it. By the time they had traversed the short distance to the stable all of their extremities were white, the toes buried in snow taking on a pale purple hue. The structure looked mostly intact, but they had little choice.
"How do we get in?" Cassandra asked, the doors and windows frozen shut.
"Over there, part of the stable collapsed. We can probably get in through there," Meg pointed out. Icarus bounded quickly, and began pulling at some of the collapsed debris,
"Be careful!" both women shouted, worried about further collapse rendering the only safe shelter a pile of splinters. He stopped, startled at the scolding, and began to pull more carefully and strategically.
"Here, if I lift this you might just be able to squeeze through," He was lifting one of the logs that once supported part of the roof, creating barely enough space for both women to squeeze through with a great amount of struggling. Cassandra held the log in palce so Icarus could squeeze in too. When she dropped the log the whole structure groaned, dust and snow falling from the weakened roof.
"Is this really much safer than the villa?" Icarus questioned.
"This is mostly wood and thatch, there is a chance we'd live if the rest of it collapsed. Literally half of the villa is rubble. Including the half we were once in. If the rest of it went, not sure how much our skulls would enjoy playing catch with hundreds of kilograms of marble and stone," Cassandra replied sarcastically.
"Gods it's so cold... We were so cozy in the den I forgot how cold it had gotten," Meg was shivering violently. Like the others, the pale purple at her toes had spread to her hands feet and ears. The structure groaned with the wind, and all three looked anxiously at the gently shifting walls and roof.
"I hope we don't have to test your we-might-survive-a-wood-collapse theory," Icarus stated.
"We need to warm up, fast," Cassandra interjected, changing subjects; recognizing the first stages of frostbite. "You said there was a fireplace?" Meg nodded, and then sighed heavily.
"Unfortunately it's over there, where the roof partially caved in,"
"We still need to start a fire. Maybe if we lay down a layer of snow before firewood the snow will melt, soaking the wood, making it harder for the floor to catch?" Meg shrugged, just feeling tired.
"We don't have a lot of options, do we?" Cassandra nodded and began gathering some snow that had come in through the partially collapsed part of the stable.
"Does anyone have the flint on them?" Meg asked, and the other two froze and frantically began patting at their sides.
"I left it by the fireplace," Icarus stated, frowning. "Didn't think-" He was interrupted by a second bout of violent tremors.
I know this is short, but I liked where I cut it off because I am evil and enjoy cliffhangers. I hope you enjoyed.