Chapter 42

-Echo & the Bunnymen/ Nouvelle Vague version.

Kayla woke up so sudden she scared herself half to death. Choking, spluttering up a mix of salf water and seaweed. It dribbled onto the cool ground below her, hydrating it into a deeper shade.

As soon as she was able to breathe from the water, she inhaled sharply- a mix of shock and a serious need for oxygen.

She coughed hard once again, so hard she doubled over in her sitting position on her hands and knees, her palms scraping against the floor in a need to ground herself. No, not this again.

She snapped her eye open after keeping them closed, trying to regain a decent breathing pattern for a minute. She dare not to look up.

She already knew where she was. That specific coolness. That specific feeling on her skin like no other. That temperature; so cool it made you break out into a sweat of cold water no matter what.

The Labyrinth breathed around her; walls shifting, debris falling from the ceiling.

No.

“No,” She breathed out, closing her eyes again and rubbing at them vigorously. This had to be a nightmare. Or a fever dream. Demigod nightmares could be pretty lucid. She pinched her arm to check, then, in a decision that her pinch wasn’t enough, she hit herself in the forehead. “No!”

The smell alone told her this must have been real, anyway. The dry, ancient smell of an old storing cupboard, mixed with an unusual amount of dust and sandstone debris. Labyrinth air.

“Well, I was very far off whatever my fate is before arriving here. So you’ll be doing me a big favour,”

This was her fate?

Kayla stared at the wall infront of her as she stayed doubled over on her hands and knees in a hunched position. Her mouth slightly agape, contorted into a helpless frown. Her eyebrows furrowed so deeply they could have matched a theatre mask. A tear dripped down her cheek in defeat.

This was her fate? To work for Kronos? To rise him? To die down here?

“No,” She whispered once again, sniffling and shuffling her back up to the nearest wall. Just hearing her own voice echo back like that; too loud yet not quite reaching her ears, was enough to send her in psychosis. She hadn’t quite reached that state yet, thankfully.

Now, what did Kayla remember?

She let out a shaky breath, holding her head in place with her hands tightly.

Sailing off on the raft, falling asleep, then waking up just as she got swallowed by a giant whirlpool. Then she passed out again.

When Calypso told her she would return closest to where her fate lay, Kayla didn’t know what to expect. At all. Fates could be big or small. She might have woken up just outside of camp borders, or maybe near her Aunt’s apartment. Not… the Labyrinth. Her fate resides in the Labyrinth.

Typical.

Why had she even bothered? Thinking she could sort this stupid loophole out, whatever Calypso was talking about. She should have decided to live her days out on that island until her inability to keep to her oath came to bite her back in the ass and give her a heart attack or something. Atleast then she would have died somewhere nice. And warm. And colourful. And with a loving girl by her side.

Not… here. Alone.

Kayla knew instantly why her fate resided down here: her fate had to do with Luke and Kronos.

What was better, dying due to Kronos, or dying because a monster ate her in the Labyrinth? Maybe she should seek one out right now. Just to get her death over and done with.

“Okay,” She breathed, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her wrist and dragging herself up. She combed a hand through her soggy hair and padded forward slowly, her feet kicking up debris at how lazy she moved. “Sorry Iris. Couldn’t let you out… on Calypso’s island. Sorry.”

Her wings ached, like the whirlpool she had been sucked into had twisted them around and pulled every single muscle around them possible. Every corner she turned pained her more and more.

She had half hoped she might wake up by now. But the more she kept her hand dragging along the wall, the more it grounded her into reality that this was real.

Just like Ogygia had been real. The warmth. Calypso’s voice. The sun. The sand. The flowers. The home. The raft. The sound of the waves. She had left- she had chosen to leave with a slither of hope and excitement.

And the world had laughed right in her face, and dragged her back in. The Fates must have found that one funny.

How can this be my fate? Kayla asked herself internally. Being the only child of the God of peaceful death, and her fate was to die at sixteen cause of a son of Hermes?

An argument sprouted in her head.

You know it means more than that.

You’re going to be the sole reason the war starts before anyone even has a chance to try and stop it.

Do you want to do that?

Kayla rubbed her eyes, her feet coming to a stop.

You can give in and help, and see how the world plays out that way, or find a monster now and put an end to your own fate.

Somewhere around her, voices came into distance, causing Kayla to snap her head up.

…Monster it is, then.

“Mary!” A male voice called out. Sobbing followed, along with lazy sounding footsteps that could have resembled a zombie. She wouldn’t be surprised if there somehow were zombies down here.

“Chris!” Another voice called out from behind her. It echoed around ten times before settling on the walls of the Labyrinth. Kayla flinched, her throat tightening. Cyclops?

“Mary?! You’re not Mary!”

Her head whipped to the sound of the male voice. In the distance, a faint shadow became outlined by a torch on one of the walls. It limped like an injured animal… or a zombie, onto a different hallway.

“Yeah, sure! I’m Mary! Follow my voice!”

Again, Kayla swerved her body around and flinched. She hesitated in snagging her necklace off from around her neck. How bad did being eaten by a cyclops hurt? Oh fuck… or would it take her back to Luke’s army? Scary. She gulped.

“He’s down here, it’s healing him!” The voice sobbed. It was a heartbreaking sob. Imagine someone on the brink of sanity, at a dead end in life, and something has just tipped them over the edge. Kayla imagined it sounded alot like that.

“Stop running, I will find you! I don’t care what hears my voice!”

“It hears you,” He sobbed. Kayla was frozen in place. From the corridor Chris had just passed, he limped back into eyesight, pausing at the end. Just enough for his outline to be visible.

“I bet it hears me, it can come and get me.” The corresponding voice growled.

Kayla was stuck staring at Chris staring right back at her from so far away. Chris, as in, the Chris from camp? Her eyes squinted to try and focus, that hunched over form, staring back at her like a deer in headlights… yeah, definitely not big enough to be a cyclops.

But that focus was very short lived when her body was overcome with a weight like no other- like a giant bullet had ricocheted off her back, sending her plummeting to the ground. Her head failed to keep up with her body, giving her some serious whiplash.

She was straddled at first, unable to breathe for a split second before being ragged around onto her back, facing the culprit. Her wings had been manhandled easily. Shoved both to one size angrily until they had Kayla flat on her back with her wings under her. Like they had been handled by someone who knew how to handle them. She was being strangled before she knew it, but then they let out a shaky yell, taking off their hands like Kayla’s skin had scolded them.

No… that’s not a cyclops. Cyclops don’t shapeshift. And empousai won’t recoil from their prey like that.

“Clarisse?”

“You’re not real,” Clarisse gasped, shaking her head and gasping for breath. “And you’re not Chris. Show your true form before I give you the worst death, you sick little thing.” Clarisse was up from straddling Kayla in an instant, a cruel face on her like she was debating to kick her like you would a football.

“I don’t have time for this,” She pulled her dagger out, kneeling down.

Okay, okay, say something, you idiot!

“Wait, wait! It’s me! I swear on the River Styx!”

Kayla saved herself just before a celestial bronze dagger was shoved right into her chest. She grimaced dat her own words. Too much swearing. Clarisse looked… not like Clarisse. But then again, Kayla didn’t look like herself either.

She thought at first her words might have caused some freeze in reality. Clarisse, kneeling besides her, ready to pierce her in the heart. Frozen. Clarisse? Clarisse. Okay, maybe this wasn’t the worst way to go out, if this was the monster.

“Kayla?” Her voice cracked. Behind them both, Chris set off running after standing still for the past three minutes. He let off a few wails and sobs, limping off down another corridor and screaming bloody murder.

The spear dropped from Clarisse’s hands by the side of her. Instead, one of her rough hands squeezed her arm, pulling her into an upright position. Kayla gasped for air desperately. She had been winded badly.

“What- what are you doing? How are you-“

“Are you real?”

“What- what? Y-yeah, yeah I’m real. I swear on the River Styx, too.”

They stared at eachother for what seemed like an eternity. It was too good to be true. Too odd. Too coincidental. There was no way. Clarisse still had a familiar face. Even with puffy, choppy hair that resembled a bad haircut from the eighties. It was tied back with a red bandana, making the front of her hair stick up on the top of her head. She also had a prominent, new scar that sized from the bottom of her chin to the corner of her lip. That, and a bloodshot, black eye. Godknows what else.

Who was she kidding? If this wasn’t actually Clarisse, that meant it was a monster hovering besides her and she was most definitely dead. If it was Clarisse, well, it was Clarisse. And it had to be Clarisse.

Clarisse, who was bombarded with a hug in the blink of an eye. “Aphrodite said you were looking for me.”

“Aphro- um, yeah… yeah, I have been. For a while,” Clarisse mumbled back, easing into the huge gently. She winced, placing a hand on Kayla’s head hesitantly. “What happened to your hair?”

“What happened to yours?”

“Long story.” She whispered.

“Mine too.”

The two stayed like for all of a minute before having to move. The world seemed to slow down- for Kayla, personally. She wasn’t so sure about Clarisse. She didn’t quite know how to react. All she could feel was shock, and it seemed to overcome any other way she could react. Excitement? Relief? Yeah, no. Numbness, shock, insanity. Like she could do nothing but offer Clarisse a thousand yard stare. Which, obviously, didn’t even reach the girls eyes.

“Come- come on, get up,” Clarisse mumbled, clearing her throat. She tugged on Kayla’s arms, managing to stand the girl up and get her walking. She wiped her eyes, sniffled, then slipped a hand into Clarisse’s. “I need to find that boy, okay? Chris. He’s Uh, insane. As you saw.”

Clarisse.

“I’d really love to keep holding your hand, but we can’t.”

“No, I know. I know.” Kayla slipped her hand from Clarisse’s gently. She felt the tremble as it left contact with her skin. That shock, that overwhelming shock that sends a rush of adrenaline so big you might think you’re having a heart attack. It was exactly how Clarisse felt.

She couldn’t take her eyes off from Kayla. She looked so different with short hair. Her usual, brown, stubbornly fuzzy hair was now cut off, replaced by a soft, wavy pixie cut. It curled around her ears and swooped over her forehead. How it looked so nice, Clarisse was baffled. Kayla looked clean for how long she had been down in the Labyrinth, though she smelt faintly of salt water. Clarisse would have to try and find a room for them to rest in so she could ask about all that.

“This way,” She whispered, tapping Kayla’s arm. “Let’s get some rest. See what’s in that bag of yours, huh?”

Kayla glanced down at Clarisse’s hand, then to the bag on her shoulders. She must have noticed it was her bag.

“My bag. That’s my bag.”

“I know,” Clarisse sniffled, only just managing a smile. “We can swap when we find somehwere to rest, if you want.”

As they turned a corner, the walls shifted inwards. To Clarisse’s shock- which she probably shouldn’t have been- Kayla didn’t react. She wasn’t even sure Kayla noticed.

“But what about Chris? You said-“

“He’s not exactly hard to find. And I didn’t come for him. If we find him, we find him. I think something drove him mad.”

“Minos.” Kayla whispered. “He had- he had a room to himself, and I never saw him. They wouldn’t let me near…”

Ah, Well, that answered a few questions. “They? They, Luke and the army? You were with them, yeah?”

Kayla dragged out her answered slowly, like she was stuck in thought. A ‘yyyyyeahhh.’ Clarisse furrowed her eyebrows.

“Mh, thought so, heard so. Uh, listen, so, what are you doing here? I was trying to find Luke and his army, are they looking for you?”

“Probably.” Kayla replied once again in the same way.

“Hey,” Clarisse tapped her around the head. Like a little, hard nudge. “Where you going? You sure they didn’t let you near Minos? What happened?”

She watched as Kayla flinched and glanced back to Clarisse, shaking her head clean of thoughts. “I escaped,” a big pause. “And I returned.”

“Stop acting like the Sphinx, please. I don’t do riddles.”

“Ogygia. My fate is down here.”

“I said stop speaking in riddles, Kay.”

“My fate lies down here.”

Clarisse paused, huffing. Yeah, no Minos her ass. What was she supposed to do about this now? “Does it now? How so? Like Hell it does.”

“I went to Ogygia, and I left, and I got returned here. Ogygia returns you to the nears place of your fate.”

Huh. Oh.

“You went?” They turned another corner. In the very distance, another ‘Mary’ was sobbed out. “You mean, you almost died and got sent there? That’s how that legend works. And the Gods can’t reach us down here. So get out of your dreamland, please-“

“I escaped Luke and escaped this place, and landed on Ogygia, but it sent me back here after two weeks!” Kayla cried out. Clarisse was instantly swallowing some guilt that had risen for some unknown reason. She gently hushed Kayla.

“Wait, shh, shh, okay. Sorry. Didn’t… couldn’t piece your words together, alright? That’s… that’s uh, quite a story.”

Clarisse glanced to kayla, who had her arms crossed for warmth, and for what seemed to try and make herself smaller. She was sobbing quietly, still shaking.

…Oh, she had to find an exit. Forget Chris. “Here,” Clarisse took her arm, guiding her into a room. She tried to step over a bunch of broken mechanical pencils at first, but a slight glance at the rest of the room told her there wasn’t any point, as the entire room was full of pencils. It was eerie, and uncanny, but it would do. She used her foot to shift some out of the way, creating a little area for them to both sit.

“Alot of pencils.” Kayla sniffled. Clarisse huffed a smile, sitting down with a grunt as she plopped Kayla’s bag down. “How do you feel about putting your wings away? You’re cold, come sit here.” She spoke as she rummaged through Kayla’s bag, letting one of her legs open out loosely.

Kayla sat just inside of that leg, tucking her wings in, her knees up, and falling sideways into Clarisse.

Okay, don’t be a prissy now, Clarisse.

“Here-uh, huh- got some jar. I mean, I have jars of food. You hungry?” Clarisse pulled out a jar of pickled olives in a yellow-stained jar. She had found it in some old pantry room a few weeks ago.

But, Kayla had already pulled out a big bag of her own food from that leather bag she carried. Dried strawberries, mangoes, raisins. What the hell?

“Or… maybe not. That looks nice. If- if I give you an olive, can I have a s-“

“Share. Bigger bag than it looks. It’s okay,” Kayla popped a raisin in her mouth, sighing. “You’re real.”

“Yeah.” She took a handful of fruit, too hungry to apologise on how much she took. There didn’t even seem to be a difference in the bag once her hand left it, though.

“I’m sorry,” She smiled, closing her eyes. “If this is some sick dream, I…”

“You’ll what?”

“I don’t know,” She whispered. “I guess it’s not the worse dream ever.”

Her leg shifted some pencils as she extended the other one, wrapping her free arm around Kayla and rubbing her arms. They were covered in goose bumps. “I’d offer you my jacket, but you’ve already made yourself comfy, first of all. And second, I swear on the River Styx this is not a dream, Kayla. I’ve been searching here for months, and after all of it… I found you when I least expected to. I mean, I was making my way towards one of Luke’s bases because I was told you were held there. So the fact you were just… out,” she scoffed. “Wandering the place… I hope this isn’t some sick dream. Cause not only does that mean this isn’t real, but it also means I’ve lost my mind.” Clarisse nudged Kayla, trying to make her smile.

Thankfully, it worked. Kayla peeked her eye open and giggled silently. “I- I swear… on the River Styx. This isn’t a dream.” She stuttered.

Clarisse furrowed her brows, but smiled, peering down at her. “See?” She moved some wavy little curls from Kayla’s eyes. “Found you. No more hide and seek, Birdie. Now tell me everything, okay? We should be okay here for a few hours.”

Please vote!!

Hope you all enjoy the long awaited reuniting. I’m putting a poll here for my own interest and for future reference on if you think the plot for this book 3 so far was good, cus to me it was very creative and a good vision for Clarisse’s POV and the whole Kayla’s fate thing/Kronos thing.

Also, chap name is a song and the lyrics are pretty bang on. Am proud of thinking if it. Ty.