Eventually, we reached a point where a corridor had two lines going into it, one connecting to the spool and the other one to another corridor.
"What's going on here?" Percy asked. "I found another exit and figured why not leave it marked" "Another exit you say? Where to?" "We didn't look at it too much, but if you want to, we can still check it out. It's only like a minute or two on foot"
We went into the corridor that had the two lines of nylon going into it. After around 100 meters, we reached a door. When I saw it, I instantly knew where I was: my school. "Let's keep this exit marked for later, OK?" "Sure, I'll just cut the line" Amy's sword made quick work of that task. We then followed the nylon back to where it had originally branched of and continued for another 80 meters or so until we reached the exit. "Never thought I'd be so glad to see my school, nor to smell a faint hint of beer and weed" "Who are you and what did you do to Percy? Yes, I trust it's actually you, don't worry" "I guess this is still better than the labyrinth" "And you're not bothered by the smell?" "A bit. Let's get out of here" Percy showed me the way through the cleaning closet into the official school area. "I guess I'll head home then. Piper is gonna kill me if I make her wait any longer than necessary" "Do you want me to call Mrs. O'Leary or…" "I'll take the labyrinth. It's like two minutes" "Way too dangerous" "You know that you're technically extremely overprotective by default and I am absolutely in the place to reject it?" "Sorry. But promise me to be careful" "I will" I kissed him good bye and we parted ways. "Oh, by the way, want to see my sword? I have it at my school" "Sure, why not" Amy turned around and followed me into the labyrinth.
We made it through without complications. The path had a few intersections, but the highlighter nylon made the correct way pretty clear. When we reached the door leading to my school, This time, I was able to open it with my knife. When we stepped into the building, Amy concealed her sword. I led her to my room and knocked on the door. "Come in" Piper said, so I opened the door and we entered the room. Piper leapt toward me and hugged me so quickly that it triggered my battle reflexes for just a moment before I gave into the hug. "Where have you been?" She asked. "Weren't you told?" "No, otherwise I wouldn't have asked" "Right. I found an open door and went through. Someone shut it behind me, so I was trapped" "Trapped where? The broom closet?" "The labyrinth" "Tell me everyth-" She then noticed Amy standing next to me.
The two girls looked at each other for a moment. Then raised their arms to a handshake only to have their wrists go limp at the last moment. "So, girl in red?" "Sweater weather, but I'm not that far" "Still cool with that. So, did you manage to get anyone or are you… bi yourself?" "I have a boyfriend. Also, she's basically my girlfriend at this point" Amy turned to me. "Wait, I thought Percy was your boyfriend" "He is, that's why she's not really my girlfriend, we just spent as much time together that she might as well be" "So, now that you know my sexuality and relationship status, you might be interested to know that my name is Piper" "Amy" "By the way, why are you here?" "Annabeth wanted to show me her sword"
I got it out from under my bed and gave it to Amy. "Here, it's made from real bones" "That's so cool" Her enthusiasm was contagious. "I know, right. Oh, and it feels amazing to use because it weights almost nothing while also being able to cut through some metals. In combination with a dagger, you're practically invincible" "Right, you're more of a dagger girl. Percy mentioned it" "He likes to say things without thinking first" "Does that get him in trouble a lot?" "Sometimes. I'm usually the one to save him" "He's lucky to have you" "I'm also lucky to have him. The amount of schist I've been through… I'd probably be having flashbacks back to back. Actually, I wouldn't because I'd be dead. He's genuinely the best boyfriend I could ask for" "Boyfriend… by the way, are you…" "Also sweater weather, but not so much on your side of the spectrum" "I can't say I relate to or even understand your experience, but if you're happy with him, so be it" "Am I understanding this correctly?" Piper asked. "You came here just to look at Annabeth's sword?" "Well, I like swords" "I also have one" Piper got out her own sword. "Love the design on that. Did you make it yourself?" "I stole it from someone I defeated" "Cool, I made mine myself" With a flick of her hand, Amy deployed her own sword once more. "You like it?" "I have to say, that looks amazing"
After talking for another few minutes, Amy decided to get back to her own school and said goodbye. "Okay, now you can tell me everything" "I'll do the short form: I was locked in the Labyrinth by someone who was probably possessed by an eidolon. I tried to open the door with my dagger, but there was a spider and I ran away, straight into Percy who had suffered a similar fate. We then looked for an exit together, but all we found were death traps. We had to spend the night in the Labyrinth and were woken up by a certain school principal. We dropped him in lava. After that, we found a massive underground arena where someone named NH was organizing battles between monsters and demigods, mostly campers that were presumed dead and are now probably on their way back to camp after we freed them. We then got some food from a dumpster that was in the Labyrinth for some reason, followed by… a huge memory gap. I didn't come back until the following evening" "The following evening. The evening after your first night in the Labyrinth is still a few hours from now" "Right, but the air had low oxygen or something, so we were already sleepy at like 2pm, so we thought it was evening. So, I was woken up by the Nemean lion attacking us. In that moment, three mortals showed up. From what I'd understood, Percy had saved all of them from bullies at some point, so they all owed him and decided to pay him back by saving him from the labyrinth. One of them was Amy and she killed the lion. They then showed us the way to Percy's school, which happens to only be a few minutes away from ours and the path between them is marked. That's actually how Amy and I got here"
"Pretty crazy story" "I know. Whatever you can imagine, it's probably in the Labyrinth. There was just one thing I didn't find until the very end" "what?" "A bathroom" "What did you do then? I'm assuming there weren't any trees to go behind" Piper joked. "Not a single tree. At least not in the portion that I remember. I just held it in" "But that would be almost twenty-four hours" "More like thirty-three" "Why thirty-three?" "Because when I got trapped, I was already at like nine hours" "Even more impressive" "At the end I felt just about ready to explode though" "You know what that tells me though?" "No?" "That, as Percy pointed out a while back, you need to drink more water" "Maybe" I got my water bottle from my backpack and chugged it completely. "Satisfied?" "I mean, you're not dead, so you're already doing above average by demigod standards"
"Great. I just realized we were so occupied with getting out of that labyrinth that I never asked Percy what I missed while I wasn't fronting. Speaking of stuff I missed, has anything happened here?" "You not being in class was probably the most interesting part. It actually changed the whole classroom atmosphere because the amount of students who understood the topic dropped from around five to zero percent" "So, how many percent did it decrease?" "I just told you. Five" "No, it decreased by 100 percent. When you determine by how many percent a number changed, you calculate it with respect to the original value, even if the original value is already in percent. The word you're looking for is percentage points" "Annabeth, with all due respect, shut the Hades up" "Fine. By the way, what did you tell the teachers?" "Only one of them asked me if I knew where you were. I mumbled something about a bad period. Always works on male teachers, especially if you have charm speak" "Imagine actually having a functioning reproductive system. Can't relate" Yeah, that sucks" "Um, what exactly is bad about not having to go through extreme pain and mood swings every few weeks?" "Fair point. But you can't have kids that way" "Free birth control. Not that I'd need it" "Don't you want children at some point?" "Totally. Actually, Percy and I have made an agreement to have kids right after Leo and I'm just hoping by then I'll be recovered from T…T…that place" "Weren't you able to say it a few days ago?" "It's kind of a day to day thing. Like, today I've experienced a lot of stuff already, so I'm probably easier to trigger than on a normal day. I'm probably severely undercuddled today. Maybe I'll go meet up with Percy again"
Percy
It had been about an hour since escaping the labyrinth. I was sitting in my room when someone knocked on my door. "Come in" I said. Annabeth was standing there and took a step inside. "What are you doing here again?" "Long story short, that place came up in a discussion, and the fact that I was unable to say the name showed me that I was seriously lacking in the emotional stability department and probably lacked the cuddles necessary to cope with the last two days, so I came here. Can I…?" I sat down on my bed. When she sat down next to me, I put an arm around her shoulder. "So, want to just… talk about everything" "Sure. By the way, are you feeling safe?" "Yeah, well, actually, I still need to recover a bit, so no?" Annabeth put her hand just where I liked it. "So" She started. "That was definitely an experience" "You could say that" "And I actually missed a large portion. So, what happened while I was gone?"
"A lot of stuff, actually. If I recall correctly, you were triggered while we were getting something to eat. Chris came out. After we finished eating, we continued through the labyrinth. Eventually, it got so boring/depressing that someone new came out" "Someone new? Like a new alter?" "Exactly. Her name is R" "Is that short for something?" "She wouldn't tell me. All I can tell you is that she is insanely optimistic and cheerful and also seems to have her own backstory that involves a maze built by someone named Lord De-something as well as a particularly boring place starting with t. She didn't reveal a lot about herself, but some things slipped out.
R and I went on exploring the labyrinth. It got a lot nicer, but then we were attacked by a centaur. We both saved each other's lives. After that, we found the heart of the labyrinth" "The heart?" "The section where the Minotaur used to live" "Continue" "We continued from there until we found water. We had to go for a bit through a water filled tunnel and ended up in this cave with really ambitious bioluminescent microorganisms. From that, we found a different cave. What we found in this cave might trigger you, so be prepared" Annabeth took my hand and I instinctively squeezed it. "Okay. Massive Cyclops" Annabeth flinched at the words, but she stayed right next to me. I continued. "We boated past a sort of forge. The Cyclops wanted to whack us with his hammer, but changed his mind when he found out I was his brother. We went back to land and found a corpse. Well, maybe that's an over exaggeration, it was more like one arm and a backpack" "One of our guys?" "Camp Jupiter. He had some food rations with him. We finished those and then continued looking for an exit until we got tired. We set up camp and then you came back"
"Let me get this straight" "You? Straight?" Annabeth rolled her eyes. "We found the heart of Daedalus's labyrinth and you didn't think I'd want to see that" "I did, I just didn't want to trigger you without your consent and also this was R's first time fronting and I didn't want to take that from her" "Those are understandable reasons and I forgive you" "Maybe we'll find it again someday" "You think I'm going into the labyrinth again?" "You did voluntarily do so twice today" "That's different. It's one clearly marked route. That's safe" "That's what you like" "What?" "Safety" "Oh, absolutely. By the way, I'm assuming you did not get R to introduce herself in a recording" "Yeah, sorry, we were kind of busy with not dying" "It's fine. I'm sure she'll come out again at some point" "Apparently she gets triggered out by you feeling bad about your current situation, which isn't exactly rare" "Definitely not" As we were talking, the dinner bell rung. "I guess that means I'll be staying here for dinner today" "When is Piper expecting you back?" "I didn't tell her how long I'd stay with you, she probably assumes I'll ask you about R, because that's what I told her I wanted to know, and then come back. But then again, she knows how much separation anxiety I have, so she probably won't be expecting me to come back right away, so I can stay a bit longer"
We went to dinner where we met our rescuers again. "Oh, hi Annabeth. What are you doing here?" Martin asked. "I just felt like talking to Percy and since it's not that far, I figured why not visit him. You know, go through everything we experienced together" "Just a bit of trauma processing. You know, what couples do" "You know, I've never really felt bad about being aro- well, I have, I was made to feel really schisty about it, but I never felt like it meant a direct disadvantage to me- but you're really challenging that idea" Annabeth gave me a kiss. "That did the trick, thanks"