Chapter 35

-Cypress Hill.

Kayla

Unified. A word Luke spoke of constantly. Exactly like some corrupt president would ot their brainwashed followers.

Luke’s army is not unified. It’s held together by promises and fear.

Kayla stood in the queue for breakfast. Food for demigods and mortals down here was imported through some secret entrance only Luke knew about. Food for monsters was… anything. They still fought for who got first servings, though.

Threats were thrown left and right by the giants at eachother. Empousai waited stubbornly at the front in a gathering, talking about how women should eat first. And, they always did, too. Kayla wasn’t sure if the giants knew just yet that Empousai could charm their words to get what they wanted. Cyclops waited patiently at the back, too busy talking with eachother while occasional getting pushed by the giants. And Kayla stood right at the back, too tired to deal with all the pushing and fighting bullshit. She wasn’t strong enough to win anyway. Not anymore. All in all, it was… hectic in the mornings.

“Kayla,”

She turned, eyes wide in curiousity at the sulty female voice. Lyssa, the Empousa ordered to watch over her at times, especially now Ethan was gone for a bit on a Labyrinth safety check. He was supposed to come back a day ago, but he hadn’t. She stood as a beautiful tall woman with a long, bright red dress and curled ginger hair. The same empousa Kayla had seen when first waking in the cell a few weeks ago, just without any metal or donkey legs.

Lyssa was an old empousa, though she never looked it. She was always curious. Kayla learnt quickly to never mistake her quietness and curiousity for kindness. Lyssa was not kind; she was simply a mature empousa. Which was odd to think about. Who knew Empousai could mature to be so… un-blood thirsty?

Her hand was on the doorway of the lunch hall, an eyebrow slightly raised. “You were told to be quick.”

Kayla glanced back at the queue, then back up to Lyssa. “Well, I don’t feel like getting trampled.”

Lyssa sighed, shifting past Kayla to get to her other Empousai girls, who let her in the queue easily. She quickly got to the front for food, coming back over to Kayla with a bowl of fruit. “Fresh fruit, now eat up. Luke needs you with Kronos immeidately.”

Kayla swallowed. She walked with Lyssa back to her cell, but her spoon shook in her hands. “I can’t eat.”

“Not this again… get over it, will you? We don’t need a repeat of last time.”

“I can’t help it, he’s putting me with Kronos too much, my body is out of whack, I can’t eat without-“

Kayla covered her mouth, shaking her head to rid off a gag. She took her hand from her mouth and glanced at Lyssa like that summed it all up.

She sighed, staring down at her with a tilted head and crossed arms. Like a mother. “You didn’t eat yesterday either.”

“I couldn’t,” She explained simply. “Same reason.”

“Kayla, I really don’t feel like handing you over to Allison so she can do Luke’s dirty work of feeding you.” Lyssa rubbed her face.

“Well, Luke is going to kill me before he even gets the chance to rise Kronos if he keeps thinking i’m invincible.” Kayla muttered, taking the tiniest bite of a strawberry.

“I’ll have a word with him. But, I’m still taking you there in the next ten minutes.” Lyssa shrugged, dropping her arms and pacing around Kayla’s cell. As she did, she morphed her own features. Turning her hair black, then blonde, then back to ginger. Turning her dress navy blue, then black, then back to it’s silky red.

Kayla went to open her mouth after finishing off a single strawberry.

“Nope,” Lyssa ordered. “No more talking more on it. Not supposed to be in the first place.”

Kayla huffed, placing the bowl of fruit on her table. “Let’s go. Can I atleast have a pencil and paper while I’m in there?”

“I don’t have a pencil and paper, Kayla.”

“But Luke does, in his office. Please, I’m doing eight whole hours today, please.” She pleaded, unmoving as Lyssa made her way to the door.

Lyssa sighed, shaking her head. “I can ask for tomorrow. He isn’t around right now.” She replied. “Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?”

Kayla couldn’t help the sore throat that came from stuffing her tears down. She started to follow Lyssa.

“Wings out, too. You know what Luke would s-“

Kayla popped her wings out in a second, a few stray feathers going askew at how fast she did it. Lyssa glanced back and hummed in approval. Most of the clothing she worse consisted of army cargos, and for Kayla especially for her wings; thick army tank tops with two holes cut in the back just big enough for them to sprout through at any given moment. Her arms were always cold, though.

As much as Kayla tried to go in the easy way when they got to Kronos’ room, she couldn’t help the defiance. The thought of being stuck for eight hours or more, nothing to do.

Luke had been kind to her at first- but she showed the smallest sign of defiance a few weeks ago, and he hadn’t thought twice about his intentions to use her after that. Kronos was more important than anything, that was the message.

Her defiance hadn’t lasted long; as soon as Lyssa saw it coming she shoved her in and locked the door. Lyssa had a special way of doing things. Like the fact no matter what she did, her intention wasn’t to hurt. She followed orders, kept herself almost invisible, despite standing out with her gorgeous looks and confident attitude.

Kayla didn’t think Lyssa was horrible at heart, but that’s probably because Kayla is a girl. Empousai are much less violent towards girls.

Kayla was sure if she was a boy, Lyssa was much more likely to be salivating at the mouth with protruding fangs peeking through.

That didn’t mean Lyssa didn’t want to eat her, too. Kayla had seen Lyssa have to remind herself of Luke’s rules many times.

Like before, Lyssa had a special way of doing things- an odd way. Empousai were known for madness, after all. She worked in smart ways. Got into your head by acting just nice enough for you to not question anything else.

She was also very see through with her actions. If you ever questioned her on the fact she was looking at you like a chicken tender- which Kayla had- she would simply tell the truth. ‘Im hungry,” She would explain. “You look ravishing.”

A lovely compliment, Kayla supposed.

It made it very hard to make your mind up on whether to like her or not. Especially in the Labyrinth, where Lyssa was the kindest person she had come across. And that was saying alot.

“Please,” She pleaded, giving a helpless, quiet bang on the door. “I’m losing my mind.”

Kayla recieved no answer. She didn’t know if Lyssa was stood guarding, refusing to answer like she was supposed to do.

Each session was worse that the last. Kronos was getting used to taking her energy, learning how to do it just right, despite if that meant making her feel sick or not. He took more energy every single day, his fragments becoming stronger, more put together.

He had started speaking to her. Usually, Kayla was able to gather just enough power to force him out. Sometimes, she couldn’t. Like today.

“Your intentions are wrong, child.”

“Get out.” She grumbled, closing her eyes. God, what a headache.

“You can live better, Kayla.”

“What, like Luke? Yeah. I bet,” She huffed, grunting as another sharp pain shot through her head. “Get… out!”

“You could have everything once I have risen.”

“Go- shove it, you old man!” She argued, dragging herself up off the floor. She made her way to the sarcophagus in a hurried manner, hitting it uselessly. It made Kronos shut up, atleast.

“Shut up!” She bashed it once again, then again, and again. Her hands hurt.

Clarisse.

It was all of two hours on her wrist watch before Clarisse made a run for it. She was quite ashamed that she ran, actually.

The two hours were surprising, she couldn’t grumble at that. Yet the Labyrinth certainly did.

She woke from a psychopathic style nightmare to voices in the distance that Clarisse immediately knew weren’t real. Still, it was like being trapped in a nightmare even after she had just woken up from one.

How did she know they weren’t real? It was her own voice, then her mothers. Her own tiny baby voice. The Labyrinth got the nostalgic beat just right to it.

It was terrifying how much the Labyrinth knew just based on her actions so far. Like it so desperately sought truth just to mess with her.

“Clarisse, darling, why have you killed the worm?”

Her mother’s voice. A rare time when she was home instead of in the army. She was always home for summer. Her auntie looked after her in the meantime.

“It was wiggling in my hand, mommy.” Tiny Clarisse replied. It had Clarisse stood up instantly, but slower than expected. She was more shocked than scared. How it knew so much. “Don’t go there, you..”

“Well, darling, you can’t kill the worm with a stick. Worms are supposed to wiggle. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to move.”

Until now, Clarisse had almost forgotten her mother’s voice. It was like honey. So soothing. So comforting.

“It’s still wiggling though, it’s okay.”

“Now that’s because worms have eight hearts. Did you know that? Ah-ah- don’t chop it up anymore. Put the stick down.”

Clarisse swallowed in remembrance and tightened her grip on her spear. There was nothing visual. But the voices… they wrapped around her head, despite coming from outside the room. She remembered how she dropped the stick, instead following her mother inside to bake an apple pie that day. That was three months before her mother died.

Then, the voices changed. Her aunt. Clarisse hated her aunt. She had always looked the same while growing up with her: black hair turning a stringy, dark grey, blood shot eyes, a resting snarl on her face that stated ‘I have no friends.’

“You get inside now! What do you think you’re doing?! Chasing hallucinations! Again! Expelled from school, again!”

“You can’t trick me, you psychotic stones!” Clarisse yelled as soon as her aunt’s scolding voice ended. Clarisse saw red immediately. Oh, if the Labyrinth was a person…

“I wasn’t chasing hallucinations, Cher! I have cuts from it! Look!”

Clarisse bristled, dipping down to pull Kayla’s backpack onto her shoulders in a swift motion.

The day Clarisse came home expelled from her fourth elementary school for apparently trying to beat an old lady up, was one of the many days little Clarisse had been ignored of her demigod side. Spoiler: it hadn’t been an old woman in Clarisse’s eyes. Granted, her aunt didn’t know about the demigod stuff any more than Clarisse had at that time. But nine year old Clarisse wished she had. Wished they both had.

“Don’t you back away from me, Clarisse La rue, I dare you!”

A few faint, echoed footsteps of her aunt were heard before a harsh, piercing sound of skin-on-skin contact was heard. Clarisse gasped as if it had happened infront of her eyes again for the second time. She quickly started pulling the workshop table away from the door and making a run for it. She knew there were no real threats. Just voices. The Labyrinth’s way of telling her to keep moving, that it was fed up of her presence. Well, it worked this time.

Clarisse didn’t know how far she ran. She didn’t care about the now familiar wall movements of each hallway she ran down. A good five minutes atleast, until the voices were out of reach. Which they had been for the past minute or so.

When she stopped running, she kept a fast paced stride up like she knew exactly where she was going. She didn’t, ofcourse. The mossy stone had turned into a dusty, dull sandstone, making the air smell faintly of a dusty basement and her lungs fill with debris.

This area of the Labyrinth seemed much more lively, unfortunately. The added sound of debris constantly falling from the ceiling might have made some weird difference in her head, but voices seemed much more common. So far away, Clarisse knew that.

Annabeth’s notes- and the notes in Kayla’s rucksack- stated there were texts written of the Labyrinth that said if voiced were near, they would sound like they were infront of you. If not, they would sound ages away. There was no proper sound barrier in the labyrinth. It was either near or close.
It was odd how much the Labyrinth changed just based on appearance. It was odd… just changing to sandstone, this part felt safer. Like it had been mapped out more. Not by Clarisse, because she didn’t have a clue where she was. But perhaps it had been mapped out.

Them voices had to be someones, right? Luke’s army had enough people for the amount of voices she could hear right now. That was a good start.

That would be good… and terrifying.

Please vote!!

Clarisse was definitely the kind of kid to pull legs off of spiders and try to make a worm stop moving by dissecting it with a stick idc😭

Also- many people actually theorise that it isn’t Ares that gives Clarisse the instict to flinch when he’s around, but her mom! I did a bunch of curious research and so many people think this- especially when it’s stated time and time again that Clarisse flinches in Ares presence yet pair this with the fact Clarisse canonically has a mom that is doing fine in Arizona but she never goes home, actually makes sense that her flinching is more of a response to past happenings with her mom and she never had a good relationship with her, and that Ares could be more of a verbally harming person.

Ofc in this Clarisse’s mother has passed, so here is her aunt.

Yeah, give our poor Clarisse a rest, right?😔