Last Man Standing: Chapter 23

XXIII

Rachel Hughes

Being a daughter of Hades sucks.

Monsters attack you more than other demigods, but that's a Big Three child thing. It happens to everyone, right!? There's also the Uncles-trying-to-kill-you-thing, but that didn't really apply anymore, and it still happens to us all! But Hades kids-we all end up going insane at some point in time, and everyone looks at you like just being around you is a horrible sign of death and to avoid us at all cost. Which, especially these days, could be very true.

But that's a stereotype, really. No, the worst thing about being a Hades kid is the head aches.

We all get them when a lot of people die at the same time, and that is horrible, and for some reason mine have always been worse than others. But trying to shield at least a dozen demigods from a bunch of flesh eating mutants without even knowing it?

Hell.

I scowled looked through my bag for something, anything, to try to make the head ache less painful-nothing. I sighed. Great. I didn't have much-Rule number seven, Travel Light. It came in handy a lot, but it could be quite annoying.

I looked up, staring down the dark hallway. I traced my hand against the wall, frowning. The Underworld was different-well, obviously, with the whole zombie thing, but the actual structure of it all was different. Maybe the walls moved so fast because so many people were dead-but it would make more sense for them to be the same or slower, so no souls would escape. Then again, they weren't exactly normal "souls" anymore.

Dear Daddy and Brother probably just wanted to give their precious minions better escape routes to a living human buffet.

"There's a light up ahead," Layla said. I nodded.

"Yeah, that's just the Underworld. Let's stop up there and wait for the others."

There wasn't much outside-a few rocks, some cave openings, and zombies in the far distance-to far to be any trouble. Hades' Palace was close, but we were at a safe distance.

Megan had grabbed the walkie talkie and began calling the others to meet us.

I leaned against the wall next to the entrance. I hoped they would get here soon-it could close any minute, and we would have to find another way into the walls of Erebus.

Malcolm Parker

"You sure this is the right way?" I muttered to Rachel, glancing down the dark hallway. "Seems kind of...."

"Empty? Abandoned? Cold? Extremely old compared to the others? I noticed. This is it though, I know it. We're close." she said, tracing her hand against the cold wall.

We had come across a fork in the road about ten minutes ago, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one starting to doubt the way we had chosen. But we couldn't go back, because the door had quickly closed before we could go back.

We walked in silence for a while, before Rachel froze, eyes wide.

"What?" Kelsey said.

"The walls-they're about to close in-we need to run! The exit is straight ahead! Come on!" She sprinted down the hallway, and almost at the same time the walls began to move, closing in.

We ran after her, soon seeing a light up ahead-torches, and past them were staires, and we were almost running in a single file line before we reached the staires, which, thank gods, were not moving at all.

Rachel was waiting a few steps up, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily. I looked up and saw that the staires seemed to go on forever.

"Well," I said, sighing. "This is going to be a very long trip."