Chapter 33

Clarisse.

Clarisse had a pungent smell of feces and dirty, muddy water.

She had been searching for four hours. Four long, painful, stinky hours in the sewers. Annabeth’s notes said sewers were one of the easier places! This was not living up to her notes.

The graffiti had stopped long ago. It came at times under main roads where teenagers had probably found an entrance. Then it would stop, then start again near another main road. Now, she hadn’t seen graffiti in the past two hours. No cars riding over her from above. No birds tweeting from outside grates, because there weren’t any grates now. If it started to rain heavy… Clarisse didn’t want to think about that.

It was like walking in circles. Same walls, same smell, same brown-coloured water a centimeter away from soaking through into her socks.

Clarisse rolled her shoulders, her thin leather armour groaning in protest. Not the best armour for trying to get into the Labyrinth with, but she didn’t exactly want a broken back with iron armour before she had even found an entrance. Even the familiar sound of the protesting armour felt wrong down here. Too swallowed. It was like the ground itself didn’t want her to move forwards, with the sluggish pull from the water. It was thick, like slime.

Clarisse tried to focus on direction; only left turns. Easier to escape just incase. She had been marking the walls with the tip of her spear occasionally- a habit she picked up from wilderness exams back at camp. Don’t get lost. Except twice- three times now- she could have sworn she’d past the same marking. The one she had scraped vertically besides an old pipe.

“That’s not possible.” She muttered under her breath. Her own words barely met her ears.

Clarisse stopped in her tracks, the water around her feet settled far too slowly.

She walked around, tested the ground with a few stomps. The floor felt solid. Normal. Clarisse swallowed and flexed he fingers, tightening her grip on her spear and readying it as if something would attack. The familiar stance grounded her just enough to push the fear away.

Wearily, she started to walk again. This time- even though she was certain she already walked this way- the ceiling dipped the further she walked, to a point she had to lower her head. The walls narrowed just enough to be irritating, too. It wasn’t something to panic over, she was okay. Probably just bad structure collapsing inwards.

The smell of feces and urine dimmed down as the water below her feet got more shallow. It smelt chalky, like old paint. That plus urine wasn’t… the best. Sort of like an old charity shop if it belonged to animals. Huh.

The walls started to open up again as the roof became higher once more. She passed a rusty lader bolted into the wall. Sewer maintenance, probably. She gave it no second mind.

Until- hang on… where was the small speck of light that usually shone from the grates above when there were ladders? And she hadn’t seen a ladder in- how long had it been again?

Clarisse glanced back over her shoulder to the ladder. She gave it a dirty, odd look, before turning her head back foward.

The same rusty ladder appeared infront of her, bolted to the left side of the wall once again.

“Cute,” She muttered. “Real cute. Bingo.”

Clarisse looked over her shoulder one last time. She had turned to look back at the dark tunnel, yet she let out a gasp as the ladder appeared there like it had never left.

She turned her head back foward. Again, the ladder was infront. It was where ever she looked. “Sly entrance, huh.”

Clarisse made a confident stride towards the ladder. There would have been a grin on her face if she wasn’t so secretly terrified on how smart the Labyrinth already seemed. It was like drifting gently into another, more terryfying reality. It liked to play games.

As she reached the second step, a voice called out. Her own? Or was that-

“Where are you? I saw you come in.”

Was that her- her mother? It couldn’t be. Kayla? Her aunt? It sounded like so many people at once. A distinct female voice, yet as distinct as it was, her brain told her it was someone else every few seconds.

She descended the steps in a swift motion. No, she wasn’t dumb enough for it to fool her. But where was that coming from. Her head? Her left? Right? Her boots met the shallow puddle as they squelched in the sewer water once more.

“There you are.”

She turned in a full 360 in confusion. So quiet, so distinct, but not. Like voices in a dream. She slowed her breathing to listen closely.

Nothing.

Not even a drip of water dropping from the ceiling. Not the squeak of a rat.

“There you are!”

That was not any of the women she had heard before. That was infact a loud, monotone cyclops voice. It didn’t even come out of the shadows. Clarisse swore it just… appeared. Running faster than any cyclops she had ever ran into before.

Has anyone ever heard Clarisse La Rue scream in fear? No. Have they now? Maybe, maybe they heard that one all the way back at camp. Her feet flew up the ladder steps. This cyclops was not a usual fat, heavy beast. It was small and stubby. What was that… a cyclops height deficiency? Well, Clarisse knew one thing: it made the little shit alot faster.

“Strong scent even in the sewers! Strong flavour!”

Clarisse yelped, her shoulder barging into the grate at the top of the ladder. It didn’t budge. She kicked the cyclops gremlin combination in the head, yet it only knocked it down a few steps. “Get away, you ankle biter!”

“No escaping, my friends can hear you now!”

Clarisse shoved her shoulder into the grate once more. Ouch, that certainly cracked something.

Again, again, then again. God, her posture was going to resemble Quasimodo after this.

Finally, it burst open, a slight bash on her head as the grate popped off. Clarisse scrambled into the Labyrinth, kicking the cyclops gremlin in the head as it reached the top. It tumbled down the ladder with a loud thud back into the sewer water. She threw the grate top back on, securing it by stomping on it repeatedly.

“Stupid. Psycho. Dwarf. Cyclops.” Clarisse cursed, quickly picking her spear up and adjusting Kayla’s backpack on her shoulders.

She glanced upwards once regaining her breath. The Labyrinth, in all it’s glory. The same dusty, old smell she could sense earlier was full force now. The walls were made out of mossy brick. It was cold, colder than the sewers. She could already hear what she assumed to be walls shifting, grinding against eachother slowly and snapping into place.

This was scarier than any of her fathers visits.

One of those walls just so happened to be the one she was stood infront of. The sound of the wall grinding into the stone floor as it moved was deafening upclose. A giant, godknows how long wall, shifting in on her.

Oh, great.

Kayla.

“No, no! You can’t just-! Get off me, ow! My wings, hey-!”

The lock clicked behind her, her body skidding to the floor.

Kronos’ room where his ‘coffin’ lay was the most eerie room down in the Labyrinth so far. The coffin was fancy, golden. Sarcophagus. It was a strong vessel point for Kronos’ fragments to bind together, especially if rituals and offerings were made near it.

Or if someone like Kayla was shoved into a room where her magic was so close to Kronos fragments that it could be somewhat syphoned.

Hours at a time.

Kayla could sense the death, heavily. He had a strong link to it. She scurried to the back corner, pulling her knees up.

Imagine getting sucked into some early 2000s horror video game that had bad graphics which for some reason always made it ten times scarier.

That’s what Kayla’s take on it was.

It was silent. The only noises were the occasional sarcophagus creak, or the dust of the Labyrinth walls falling to the floor.

According to Luke, her mere presence made Kronos’ fragments draw together and anchor easier.

No longer being on the serum, she had a bit off sassiness back. Like telling Luke there was no way she was staying in a bland room for half a day or more at a time.

He hadn’t exactly liked that answer.

Yeah, she could tell with the way she had to hold a hand over her mouth to prevent puking that it was working. Her magic being stolen while the sense of lingering death draped over her body like a cloak.

Kayla had no clue how her dad coped with the sense. Maybe he got used to it? Any sort of deathly presence always showed itself through nausea and a feeling like someone had thrown a thick blanket over her body to try and suffocate her.

She couldn’t even use her powers to steal the life force back once again; when her magic was taken like it was being taken right now, it disappeared completely. Like it was being transferred to absolutely nothing. There was no body to link it to, or object. You would think the sarcophagus would be a good place to start, but no. Each time Kayla tried to steal her magical energy back, nothing happened.

Could it get any worse? Apparently, yes. Shadows in the wrong places were always common down in the Labyrinth. Like spirits that were never guided in time. Kayla couldn’t hear them, or interact, though. She didn’t know if that was better or worse than being able to hear them back at her cabin in camp.

Sometimes there would be a steady presence that showed itself through a shadow on the walls. Gliding along, like it had no awareness of the living. They would be at a steady pace. Some fast, some slow. They would either dissapear once they hit a corner, or slowly fade away.

That happened alot it this small room. Kayla was alone but not at the same time.

She had also learnt- from the first time she had been shoved in this room- that after a while of her energy being drained, golden Ichor from the sarcophagus would start to sweat.

The sarcophagus was pristine and smooth. The only marking was a small slither of a scratch on one bottom corner. It was vertical, definitely purposefully made.

That is where Luke must have gotten the Titan Ichor from for the serum, Kayla guessed. Shave some off, melt it down into a liquid. Deathly stuff for demigods and humans. Clearly, the Styx Ichor serum had been alot more powerful that they theorised, even watered down. They didn’t want to kill her. Not yet, atleast. If she didn’t start to comply fully.

It had been a week or so with Luke and his army so far. A week, a week and a half. Something like that. It had been okay at first; Luke gained her trust by having her complete little tasks. Albeit pointless ones. He took her off the serum and started to understand Kayla would not leave.

Yeah, only cause she couldn’t just run down a random potentially deathly corridor without any resources fit for the Labyrinth.

When she started to gain her sense of self back, and her brain managed to alter to the ways of the Labyrinth, her mind found its way around communicating a little bit better. For better or for worse.

That meant she said alot of things that made Luke alot less friendly. She didn’t think he was going to try and keep her alive when the day came that she had to use her blood to finalise the fusion of his fragments and essence just before Luke was used to complete his final form.

The only reason he had in the first place to keep her alive afterwards was because of how many enemies she would be able to kill effortlessly. And Kayla had a sneaking suspicion Luke had pieced together she was not going to do that if she wouldn’t even help to fuse Kronos’ fragments without force.

So this was her daily routine. She woke up, had breakfast- which was admittedly pretty good- did pointless orders, walk the corridors while her feathers gor plucked, reported back to Luke by force of Ethan, then got shoved in here for lunch. Except, the lunch part defeated the point, because there wasn’t any.

She then got let out around six PM, handed a meal, and was escorted back to the room with her cell in it. That room was hers now, thankfully.

Days felt like weeks. Or maybe they were… Kayla still wasn’t sure how the time difference worked down here. There was nowhere in the notes she read that specified the time difference the night she got kidnapped.

Her time in Kronos’ sarcophagus room could be considered that of what a rubber room must be like.

By the time her session was over, she had shared five stories, twenty odd conversations, six secrets and bitch talked around fifteen people to the wall infront of her.

She wondered if Kronos could hear all that just yet.

“Child of Death, your road is drawn,
Your essence may wake a god’s mourned song. Before the twisting halls, the shadows pry, a single drop may bind or fly,” Kayla scoffed, looking back up at the wall. “I mean- no ending. Clarisse’s had an ending. She would have failed if it weren’t for other people, it stated that. Why doesn’t mine? Am I that doomed, Janice? Maybe the ending is that bad it just didn’t want to tell me. Oh Gods… I really will be the reason for World War Three.”

“Times over, Graves.”

Kayla flinched, a female voice emitted from the outside, the door squeaking open with a giant tug. Female, high pitched. Luke’s little girlfriend. “Get up, Kayla.”

“Hang on, my ass is numb.”

She shoved herself up the wall slowly with a grunt, her knees cracking in protest. After completing her task, she limped towards Allison, being shoved infront. “Faster, I don’t have all day. You want food or not?”

Kayla sighed, speeding up her walk. She rubbed at a bruise on her hip to comfort the pain that accompanied the fast walk. “That’s right, you have all day being Luke’s little-“

The kick to the back she recieved cut her off with a grunt. “Shut up. You shouldn’t be joking in your condition, should you? Or you want another round? Ansel has bets this time, don’t push it.”

Kayla thinned her lips with a swallow, turning the corner into her room. She was handed a meal before the door was promptly shut behind her.

God, Luke, you are such a manipulative liar.

Kayla scowled at all her thoughts, dropping to the floor where the little desk was. With effort, she pulled out a brick, shoving the ketchup condiment she recieved inside the hole and closing it back up. Who knew you could store secret escape condiments in Labyrinth walls? Kayla did, as of a few days ago.

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FYI that the change in POVS between Kayla and Clarisse also change with dates. For example Kayla’s povs start on the 31st October and progresses while Clarisse’s will start in January and progress onwards obv.

but also keep in mind that Labyrinth time is faster than what is it in the real world. There is no time in the Labyrinth; someone could emerge from the labyrinth and find months have gone by while they’ve only been gone for a few hours or days, OR someone could emerge after being there for years and find only a few weeks or months have passed- depending on where you are in the labyrinth. Just giving this FYI for later chaps so we are not confused with dates and times, don’t focus on it too much lol