Chapter 21: I come face to face with my amnesia

[3rd Person's Pov]

The throne room of the castle Tantails was in pitch darkness. Not even the torch holders on the side of the walls were lit, and the shimmering lights of the sun and moon that hung high in the air didn't even hope to reach inside.

In that darkness, Rose Pamadala worked hard. Her mouth was constantly moving, chanting several silent spells as her hands skipped along the statue positioned on the throne.

The statue had a feminine outlook completed with a tattered Greek tunic wrapped around its body.

"[…magna mater sinet te iterum ambulare. excito!]"

With those final words, the spell was complete. The statue was enveloped in a ghostly shade of green light, and Rose stepped back a few paces. The entire throne room trembled ominously before…the light died down.

Along the walls, torches were lit ablaze and Rose let out a feeble groan, crumbling down to her knees and nearly stumbled down the stairs.

Something shot out from the shadow beneath her feet and caught her before that actually happened.

"You should watch where you put your feet."

The young-looking Opacusima(Shadow spirit) softly chided her. Rose only frowned deeply and shrugged its hands off from her shoulders.

"I don't have time for your allegorical morality lessons, David. Get lost!"

She waved her hand furiously, and the spirit dissolved back into the darkness. Rose stood back up and straightened her dress just to notice that the statue of the queen was looking at her with two glowing green eyes, which looked very much amused.

"That boy looked familiar…wasn't he the one I've met in a dream?"

"None of your business." Rose snapped.

Her breath was still uneven; the spell had taken a lot out of her, especially since this was her 7th time casting it. Raising the dead was one thing, putting the raised soul into an inanimate object was an entire task on its own.

"You'd better remember your contract." Rose said. "You and your daughters get a physical form."

"In return, we get rid of those pesky heroes."

Niobe nodded slightly, trickles of dust trailing down from her stone neck. She slowly raised her arm, clenched her fingers into a fist, and vice versa a few times before rising to her feet.

She reached out her right hand, and a pitch-black javelin rose from the ground into her grasp.

"And if we succeed, our…' great mother' shall grant us a truly new body for us to inhabit."

Rose nodded as consent. The earth itself seemed to shake ever so slightly, but Niobe's green eyes flashed in new light-cruel excitement.

"I'll enjoy the look of that pesky goddess when I throw her daughter's corpse under her feet."

Niobe marched along, each step she took echoed along the empty hallway before she left the throne room.

Rose let out another sigh as she gathered herself by the top stairs right beneath the throne. She spared a glance up at the window, where both the sun and the moon were hanging in mid-air with a malicious glint in their light.

The pair of lights reminded her of someone else.

A ghastly woman in a black dress, in her hands she held a torch each.

Her voice rang inside her ears.

"My child or not, I do not make decisions for others."

The lines were spoken to her all those years ago, but it never failed to bother her either awake or dead.

"The boy had made his choice: to forget everything.

Now, you'd have to make your own."

Rose clapped her ears once. The ringing voice inside the ears died down, but she didn't feel any better.

At least she'd get to meet him, after all those years.

[Line Break]

[David's Pov]

I never expected having to walk past tens of petrified people would be the most cumbersome thing when I walked across an ancient dead city.

"Are you sure that Niobe had nothing to do with Aunty M?" Percy muttered.

He poked at one of the shopkeeper's outstretched arms. The stone apple he was holding fell and it smashed into million pieces. Annabeth sighed out of exasperation.

"No, Percy. The entire townspeople got turned to stone after…"

Her voice trailed off.

Zoë was looking around the silent city with her back turned to everyone, but her fingertip was grasped tightly around her bow. So tightly, in fact, I was worried that she'd either break the bow or her finger at any moment.

"…I still can't believe it," Luna whispered under her breath.

She was looking horror-struck as well. She was holding her little metal horse close to her chest with one hand, while the other had a tight grip on the hem of my shirt.

That was how much Zoë was 'occupied' by the sight of the city. And, well, of the story of Niobe; she didn't even notice one of her hunters getting close as possible to a male.

Maybe I should've kept the story to myself…

A sudden tugging pulled me out of my thoughts.

The young huntress was looking up, her grey eyes mixed with terror and disbelief.

"Did, Lady Artemis really-"

"I don't know."

I lied through my teeth. But I was never really good at making up stories.

"You said, the reason why all the townspeople were turned to stone was so that they can't bury the bodies of her kids after they were all-all-"

She gulped out loud as if a giant spider was crawling up her throat.

"Is, Lady Artemis really-"

"Luna."

Zoë cut in abruptly. Luna jumped three feet into the air and stepped behind my back as her lieutenant walked over with the utmost cold expression ever.

"I will not allow thee to accuse our goddess."

"But-"

"I'll not say it twice."

Luna gulped again, then nodded with the smallest "Ok…".

I would've argued that it was a bit too harsh for what she just witnessed, but Zoë wasn't doing well herself. Against the bear twins, at least she had enough clearance in her mind to accept their story one way or another.

Currently, she was not believing any of what she was seeing. Nor the story I told about Niobe. Not with evidence or even confidence, but just because she couldn't take in the idea that Artemis broke one of her most core values.

A maiden's life.

"Let's just…keep moving." Annabeth suggested. "If we find the person who cast the spell, we could break the illusion."

Zoë nodded. Her face was darker than ever.

"Yes, let's."

We arrived at the front gate of the castle.

The door was shut, but the wall of the castle was shabby with several holes to look inside.

The plaza was filled with statues as well. Much more crowded than the city. I guess the people tried to take refuge at the shrine when they started to turn into stone.

Some of them were running, some were screaming out of terror, and some were on their knees praying to the two gods that must've loomed over their heads as the sun and the moon.

How could any of them ever have faith at that point, I have no idea.

I could feel Luna's small hand grasping on the back of my shirt. I wanted to turn around; give her a confident smile, or a hand squeeze, or anything that would soothe her. She was having a lot thrown at her at the moment.

Apart from the atrocity that would probably impact any loyal huntress to some degree, I also knew that Niobe was trying to reclaim her 'daughter'.

Annabeth had confirmed that reincarnated souls are not the same person from before, but that didn't change that a revenge-thirsty queen was after her. And there was a troupe of Spartoi on her tail as well.

'One would be lost in a land without rain.' The oracle's voice hissed inside of my head.

I shooed it away.

Not going to happen. Even if prophecies were self-fulfilling, they never pointed on who would be lost. If someone had to lay over that mine, I'd-

"I'll see you when…you're done with your work."

"Yeah. Pinky Promise."

…

"Someone's coming out."

Percy's voice snapped me out of my stupor. Indeed, the gate of the castle was slowly creaking open. We all instantly drew our weapons. Even Luna aimed her bow over my shoulder-even if the arrow tip was a bit too close to my ear.

3000 years of rusted metal grinding on metal made the most terrible sound you could imagine, but no one dared to muffle their ears.

And when the door cracked up just enough, someone came out.

"What the…"

6 maidens filed out. All dressed in a simple, yet elegant dress made of different colored silk. The oldest girl seemed to be in her mid-20s, whilst the youngest was not a year or over Luna.

They had enough different attributes, but the same shaded caramel hair had hazel eyes showed that they were siblings. All of them were beautiful on their rights, but I recalled the 6 ghosts that accompanied Niobe in my dream.

"Niobe's daughters." I said.

"I see we need not introduce ourselves."

The daughters all bowed in unison. It would've been impressive if it wasn't so creepy.

The oldest daughter straightened up and gave a faint smile. The rest of her sisters followed suit, their hazel eyes slid down to Luna, but Zoë stepped in between them.

"Begone. The dead should not be lingering on the mortal plane."

Their smiles melted off in an instant. The oldest daughter let out a hiss that sounded closer to a rattlesnake than anything humane, before turning to the rest of us with the same smile hitched on as if nothing happened.

"Our mother sends her regards. We are most delighted to invite all of you to enter our glorious palace; if you're done looking around the city."

We all exchanged glances.

On one hand, we were already trying to go inside. No reason to back out when the doors were being opened to welcome us. On the other hand, there is no chance in Zeus's underpants that this wasn't a trap.

A clap of distant thunder rumbled from afar. The entire sky wavered as if it was a giant TV screen with internet issues for a second.

"Alright," Annabeth said. "We'll accept the generous offer."

Niobids all beamed a smile. The youngest daughter bowed quickly before darting back inside to the castle, while the rest of them stood in front of us; one of them for one of us.

"Splendid! We'll lead you inside."

The inside of the castle was much blander than I expected. Though that might've been because more than half of the place was in pieces as if several missiles were fired from the sky.

"What happened here?" Percy asked.

One of the daughters sighed sadly. "It was the moon."

He didn't ask further. With a frown, he looked around the wreckage of the palace and the statues of petrified citizens that were visible by the open holes.

I gripped the lighter in my pocket.

I had to keep my head straight.

Niobe and her daughters were the enemies. No matter the reasoning behind it, their current objective was to stop us from rescuing Artemis and taking Luna for themselves. Neither situation was up for taking nor for debate.

But as we walked across the hallways, the expression of the daughters was so genuinely heartbroken-so distraught, it was hard to keep that in mind.

This was their home, and it was stripped away from them. Even after their death, their bodies were not buried. Not allowed to move on to the underworld. The gods made sure of that by changing the entire city into sculpture.

I recalled how ma was nearly broken apart mentally when I was forced to move with machete. I wonder if the daughters felt the same way if they were always tethered to this place.

The place where they died begging for mercy, only to be shot dead by the very goddess who proclaimed to be the protector of maidens.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pinched my arm. I bit back a yelp and saw Annabeth with a stern expression.

"Snap out of it."

"Snap out of what?"

"This place is riddled with magic." Even as she spoke, I noticed that the back of her hand was reddened as well. She had been pinching herself as well.

"Someone is trying to manipulate our thoughts. Look."

Zoë had a huge frown on her forehead as she twisted her thigh in several directions, though I couldn't tell if she was biting her lips out of pain or frustration. Percy was also pinching himself hard, but he seemed to be the least rattled out of the bunch-just a mild discomfort at most.

Then my heart plunged down to Tartarus.

"Where is Luna?"

I turned around to Annabeth-only to realize that, she was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, an unfamiliar girl was glaring at me intensely. Her red eyes danced around like a forest fire. It was the witch Annabeth had described prior.

"Your friends are all separated."

"What? How-"

The girl clapped her hand once. The sound echoed across the entire hallway, and for a moment all the rest of the crew flickered in like a very badly received hologram before flickering out of interference.

I drew my sword. The girl only chuckled, not at all intimidated.

Something about that laugh tickled the wrong part of my brain…

I think I used to hear the very same laughs before…but that was impossible.

"Human brain is such a gullible thing." She mused. "It's so easy to trick it over, or convince it otherwise…or forget."

She spat out the last word like venom, before waving her hand off to the side. A very modern door appeared in the middle of the prehistoric stone wall, and it swung open to reveal a dark library with a singular candle as a light source.

The girl strode over to the door and beckoned at me to follow.

"Come in, David Lee. We need to talk."

Naturally, I didn't move an inch.

"Why should I follow anything you say?"

Instead of answering, Rose Pamadala poked at her shadow with the edge of her toes. It squiggled like a protesting child before something slid out from….

…from…

"That's…me."

A younger me. The 'me' that, well, no one should know about.

Because I murdered the only person in the world who did.

The girl curled her lips up into a cruel smile.

"Are you still having second thoughts?"

I hesitated for a second.

This was the witch who had just meddled with my brain prior and boasted about how easy it was to do so. For all I know, this just might be a trap within a trap to lure me away from the others.

But…something wasn't right, to begin with.

I had a dream about a young girl apologizing to me after machete was extra angry that one night. But that didn't make any sense, because I was the only child at the time.

"You, don't have any other family? Like a sister?"

Why did Annabeth ask specifically about me having a sister?

How did Rose Pamadala know my younger self-specifically, the time when machete was my father?

My throat was dry from anticipation. The craziest, ADHD part of my brain was slowly edging toward a horrifying possibility, but I was too afraid to face it.

That can't be true. It just, can't-

"Who…are you?"

My younger self answered on behalf of Rose Pamadala.

"Her name is Rose Pamadala.

And she is our sister."

First things First:

I'm sorry I'm late!

I didn't intend to, and I'll try my best to keep the uploads more consistent from now on.

The reason(a.k.a excuse) I abruptly went silent was because I had to apply to college.

It required all of my attention and more, and I barely made it in.

I still have lots to take care of; being an adult is much more pain in the a$# than I could've ever anticipated, a lot of things were and still is a jumbled pile of mess.

Still, writing is my favorite hobby.

I tried my best to keep up with the flow of the previous chapters.

I did my best, but something may be off to some of you readers.

Please, do not hesitate to tell me if you spot anything unnatural or disturbing. Maybe you can leave a review-it'll be a fascinating motivation for me to go further beyond.

Hope I see you all next chapter as well.

Take care, and good night(from my time zone)