I forced myself to keep going. Hand on the wall. Slow breaths. After an eternity, I found the second door. I got up and searched for the door handle. When I finally found and pressed it, I practically fell into the room. I landed on the floor. It was made out of tiles, meaning I was finally in the bathroom. All I had to do was get up and turn on the tap. But I couldn't. The smoke and heat had made me too weak. I rolled onto my back, ready to die.
I felt my surroundings getting hotter. The thing that was the most uncomfortable was riptide in my pocket. Riptide! Maybe my sword could help me. Above me I saw a sink and I knew what I had to do. I positioned riptide below the seam between the sink and the wall and took of the cap.
My pen transformed into a sword. Its blade grew until it hit the seam. The force was great enough to separate the sink from the wall. I was showered with porcelain shards, followed by droplets of water. Feeling them hit my skin felt incredibly good and gave me some of my strength back. I turned around and planted my face in a puddle. The water healed my eyes and when I took a deep breath, my lungs felt better too. After a good minute, I was able to get up. Then I remembered why I was here. I raised the water around me into a sort of shield that I used to step outside the bathroom. I realized I'd need more water, so I went back inside and quickly opened all faucets and showers. All this water made me fully aware of who I was; the son of Poseidon. With the water around me, I made my way down the hallway to the gym. Like that other guy had said, the last few meters were blocked by flames.
I commanded the water behind me to rush forwards, putting out the fire. When I tried to open the door, I almost burned myself on the hot handle, so I directed more water at it until it stopped sizzling, then opened the door properly. When I looked inside, I saw 24 9th graders and their teacher all standing in the middle of the room. I assumed that the heat was most bearable there. "Come to me" I shouted. "The path is clear" The class was probably too panicked to question anything, so they all rushed past me while I did my best to keep the fire under control while filling everything with fine mist. I didn't know how much mist I'd need to spray, so I gave it my all. When I heard the large door to the building fall shut, I collapsed once again.
When I woke up, I was not on fire. In fact, it wasn't even warm. Had the fire just been a dream? No, then I would be in my bed, not in a first floor corridor. A hallucination maybe, brought on by some mind controlling monster? No, the walls around me were clearly charred. I realized I should get out, the building was probably about to collapse. I stumbled down the staircase and out of the door. When I looked at the building from a few meters away, I saw neither smoke nor flames coming out of it. The fire was out. When I returned to the meeting point, I saw Mrs Smith. "Percy. You're alive" "It appears like it. How much time passed?" "Since you ran away? About an hour" "How come the building is no longer on fire?" "We don't know. When the fire department arrived, the fire was already put out" "Huh, weird. Is the 9c alright?" "From what I've heard, yes. Physically at least. They'll all have to get a psychological evaluation though. They all seem to agree that someone opened the door and told them that the path was clear, and it was. It appears there has been a leak in the restrooms, which must have released enough water to put out the fire, though we don't understand how this effect could have traveled upwards. The main water control has been turned off for now. All lessons for the day are canceled, you may go to your room.
A week later, the cause of the fire was made available to the public: A student had left a broken charger unattended, it had short circuited and caught fire from the heat.
And that is the story of how I saved my school from a fire" I concluded. "How come you've never told me about this" "Now that you mention it, I think I did bring it up once, shortly after it happened. Maybe you just weren't at the front at that point" "That could be. I haven't really considered it, but my alters have obviously been coming out before my diagnosis, I just didn't know what to look for" "I wonder if Jason has any stories of that kind that I don't know of. Well, he hasn't left camp Jupiter since he was like two, so it's rather unlikely. I wonder what the guys at camp Jupiter are up to right now" "I've tried calling them a few days ago, but I couldn't get a connection" I told Piper. "Okay then. I think I'll be going back now, I still have a few things to do at my school" "Okay, see you later"
Annabeth and I went back to my room. "Regarding what you said about camp Jupiter, I wonder if I'll still be able to call my dad. You know, I'm starting to heal our relationship. I guess Hera kind of helped with that" "How? How the Hades did Hera help you?" "Well, once Jason came back from his first quest, it became clear that Hera had hidden you somewhere in the bay area, so I searched there. The only kind of outpost I had there is my dad's house, so, uh, thanks for that" "Well, she is the goddess of family after all" "She is, though I doubt she had that responsibility in mind when kidnapping you. I'll ask her the next time I visit the gods, though that hasn't happened in about nine months, meaning that it might take a while" "But when you do, you'll have a lot to present. Hey, I'll be right back" I said as I left to go to the toilet.
On my way back, I almost bumped into a girl. She was black with brown hair and golden- "Hazel?" "Hey Percy" "What are you doing here" "We're visiting you at camp and I was told I'd find you here" "And here I am. Annabeth is waiting for me" I continued on my way to the room. "I thought Annabeth was at a different school?" "Yeah, she's visiting" "Just visiting another school. Back in my day that would have been unimaginable" "You know, it's really funny to be told 'back in my day' by someone several years younger than you" "As if you're the age you're supposed to be" "You're right, I'm too young. But I'm only of by three weeks and not 80 years" "Fair" We'd reached the door to my room. "Guess who just came to visit us" I told Annabeth as I opened the door. "Hazel! What are you doing here?" "We're just visiting the Greek camp" "I knew Reyna was acting suspicious when I mentioned visiting her camp at some point" "It was supposed to be a surprise" "Well, consider me surprised. I knew something was up, but I had no idea you were going to visit us" "So we were successful. Good. How are you doing?" "Still recovering from my trauma" "Same, though I'd imagine down there was worse than, uh, being burped at by a cow" "What the Hades are you talking about?" Annabeth asked. "On our way to the House of Hades, we came across a herd of cows with terminally bad breath. I got a full load of the stuff and fell into some sort of coma. Trip agreed to help us, but then he found out who my dad is. He's not a huge fan of the guy since he, you know, kidnapped his sister, so he refused to heal me until Frank replaced a wheel on his chariot. He also turned Nico into a corn plant on account of his parentage, but he was also turned back when Frank fixed the chariot"
"Can we go back to the part where Nico was turned into a plant? How did I not know that?" "Because he threatened everyone except me. I'm guessing he didn't want people to know" "He kind of has a history with not wanting people to know stuff about him" "Are you talking about his sexuality?" "What else?" "I don't know. I understand why he didn't want people to know that. I'm probably the only one who understands what it was like back then. It also took me a while to figure out I was allowed to be seen together with white people, and it must have been similar for him" "I guess it would have been easier for him if he'd seen more queer people around him. I should have put up one of my flags in my room. Unfortunately, I didn't really have one back then. I didn't even find out my true sexuality until Tartarus, and after that it took another six weeks or so before Piper helped me figure out the specific labels" "What exactly are you, if you don't mind me asking?" "Bi-romantic and demi-bisexual" "What exactly does that mean?" Hazel asked. "I've never had a chance to learn this stuff" Annabeth explained that she could be romantically attracted to boys and girls and whatever else people chose to identify as and that she could probably also be sexually attracted to people of any gender once a sufficient emotional connection was present, though this had only ever happened with me, Percy. "What about you?" she finished "I've never really considered that" "If we have figuring out to do, we should probably consult Piper" "Good idea. Where is she?" "At her school. It's like twelve kilometers, but we found a shorter way" I showed Hazel the way through the old closet and into the labyrinth "Dam, this place is old" She said as soon as she set foot into the corridor. "Like, older than anything I've seen on this continent. Wait, is this the labyrinth?" "It is. Through here, it's only a few hundred meters to my school. The path is marked by this nylon string" Suddenly, I had an idea. "Hazel, have you ever tried to manipulate the labyrinth" "Well, I've only been there once and then it wasn't even the real thing, just a fake made from mist, so I've never had a chance to try. I'll try right now" She focused for a few seconds, but nothing happened. "I'd probably need help from Daedalus himself" "Well, he's dead, but I am his sister and heir, so maybe that helps" "Maybe" Hazel took Annabeth's hand and focused once again. After a few seconds, the walls began to move. First slowly, then faster and faster. Our surroundings changed too fast to see anything. When the walls came to a stop, we were standing in the doorway of an old wooden door that was located opposite of the back wall to the cleaning closet. The labyrinth was now the shape of a T bent, with us standing on the upper left corner. On the upper right corner, only about 10 meters away, was a door I recognized as the one leading from the labyrinth to Annabeth's school. The nylon line was still on the floor, but it was bunched together due to connecting two points being far closer together than before. "It appears that I can manipulate the labyrinth, though it is quite draining" Annabeth turned to me. "I've always wished we could attend the same school, but with this short of a connection, that is basically the case. Just that other corridor is a bit annoying" "I tried closing that off, but isolating parts of the labyrinth is impossible. There has to always be a connection between any two points. Sorry about that" "You don't have to say sorry. You did what you could and what you could was zeussing amazhang"
"Amazhang? As in my boyfriend's last name?" "Exactly. Did you seriously never hear that before?" "I don't think so. Well, I think I've heard it once before, but blamed it on linguistic drift or a weird accent. Do you have any jokes on my name?" "I'm pretty sure Leo once warned Frank about you because all hazels are nuts" I told her. "Other than that… I guess schist came from you. The greatest pun came from Zoë thought; when we were at the hoover dam, she suggested we find the dam snack bar" "So that's why Piper comparing the escaping souls to water leaking through a dam was so funny" "You remember that?" Annabeth asked. I admittedly didn't remember it. "Well, it confused me and when you don't understand something it's best to keep it in mind until you get the missing piece of information. Speaking of Piper, didn't we want to visit her?" "Right, we got kind of sidetracked with the labyrinth"
Annabeth opened the door to her school, from where we just had to go down a corridor to get to her room. Annabeth knocked on the door. "Come in" Piper said, so Annabeth opened the door. How's it going. Did you enjoy your date- Hazel! You're here?" Piper got up and hugged our visitor. "We're just visiting your camp and I figured I'd drop by your school and say hello" "That's so nice of you. I've missed you. I'm actually surprised how much the effect of bonding time are enhanced by being in life threatening situations. There's classmates I've known for a year or two that I've connected less with than I have with you after only like six weeks. Annabeth, your analytical thinking is infecting me" "Sorry not sorry"