Last Man Standing: Chapter 22

XXII

Megan Snow

Hide in Plain Sight

“Are you ok,” I asked Rachel as we walked down a long stretch of black rock. I had noticed that she had been holding her head every so often ever since we split up.

“Ya, it is just a head arch. It feels like ever since we separated, there has been this bubble growing around me and someone on the outside is tapping on it, trying to get inside. That is the best I can describe it,” she said as we walked on.

I thought about this, trying to think if this bubble had anything to do with being down in the Underworld as Rachel was a daughter of Hades after all. Maybe someone really was trying to find their way in, but what could be inside the bubble she had created that could be so important? As I thought about this, Rachel shot her arm out in front of me and turned to face her, but she just had her finger pressed against her lips and used her other hand to point up. I followed her finger and saw the three kindly ones circling the roof of the room, but they looked different. Their eyes were this weird shade of yellow and their flying seemed off somehow, as if they needed to think of how to use their wings.

“Demigods!” one yelled, and the three started yelling in a chorus. “Demigods, demigods in the Underworld. Fresh meat, but cannot see them, why can we not see them?”

That sentence didn’t make any sense, the Furies were supposed to be able to see everything, but they couldn’t find a group of demigods in their own home. I then looked back at Rachel and saw that she was holding her head again. It then seemed to click in my mind.

“Rachel, you’re shielding us from their site,” I said and she looked at me confused. “That bubble, it is getting bigger because we are getting farther apart, it wasn’t a problem when we were together. I bet you didn’t even know you were doing it.”

“That is possible, but then what is that tapping feeling?” she asked me, and I thought of only one logical explanation.

“Someone is trying to get inside. They want to find us and most likely turn us into the undead. Can you sense the others?” I asked her and she took a few moments to concentrate.

“I am picking up most of them, but I can't find Jean and there seems to be other people as well, living people,” Rachel said and I wondered who the others were, but I was more worried about what had happened to Jean.

“Are any of them close by?” I asked her, and she nodded.

“This way,” Rachel said and we headed into another tunnel. We walked for what seemed like a long time, with very few passages leading away from the one we were on. If a large group of zombies came at us from both directions, we would be in deep trouble. As I looked in front of me, I heard some footsteps, but they were irregular. There was a step and then a dragging sound and I took out my swords when two shadowing figures appeared at the end of the hallway. I then heard a horrible moan and I knew we had company.

“Wait!” the figure on the left said and I stopped my attack right before I hit them. The other figure lifted his hand and a small ball of light flickered into view. It was Luke and Leyla, but she was carrying him on her shoulder and I noticed the cut on his leg.

“Where you bitten?” I asked. It seemed heartless that that would be the first thing I said to him, especially with a sword ready to attack, but it needed to be said.

“For your information, no I wasn’t,” he spat at me. “If you really must know, Jean cut me and then pushed me away before sacrificing herself!”

There was a very long silence that seemed to last forever until it was finally broken.

“I’m sorry,” Luke said.

“Me too,” I replied and lowered my sword before reattaching it to my charm bracelet.

“It’s ok, I know that these are hard times. Nico is on our trail, we need to escape the Underworld right now,” he said and tried to stand up, but collapsed on the ground when he tried to apply weight to his injured leg.

“You can’t walk on that leg until we find some way to heal it. For now let’s try and find our way back to the surface and pick up the others along the way,” Layla said. I pulled a small piece of ambrosia from my pocket and handed it to him.

“This is all I have left; I don’t think it is enough to heal you, but you should be able to at least walk,” I said. He took it from my hand and took a bite, which was all there was. The wound seemed to close for the most part, but it didn’t close all the way and was still bleeding.

“It will have to do,” he said before ripping some of his shirt off and wrapping the cut to prevent bleeding. “Come on, let’s go.”

We all turned to head down the tunnel the two had come down, but it was now filled with zombies that had found their way in.

“Ok, let’s head back the other way,” I said as I turned around and saw more zombies flooding in that way as well. I once again pulled out my twin swords and was ready to take down as many zombies as possible. Everyone else felt the same way as they drew their weapons as well. The zombies moved in and we stated hacking and slashing, while Luke started blasting fire balls at the advancing army, as he wasn’t able to move around a lot. I took down another zombie as a fireball shot past my ear. It illuminated the hall and I saw a hallway that I was sure wasn’t there a moment ago, but it was better than our current option.

“Everyone, down that way,” I pointed with my sword before slashing another zombie. Everyone saw the new hallway and headed down. As soon as everyone was in, the wall closed behind us and Luke created another ball of light.

“Ok, what just happened?” Layla asked, looking at the ball of black rock that closed up behind us.

“Erebus is the black walls of the Underworld and is a living thing. The walls change sometimes,” Rachel said. “But I’ve never seen them move that fast before.”

“But you said they move,” Luke said.

“Ya, like glaciers. I mean new hallways and exits from the Underworld sometimes appear, but they open up maybe once every few months before being closed. Most of the time they aren’t even found as they take months to even become big enough for a soul to get through. This hallway wasn’t here before, I’m sure of it. Something is different.”

“We shouldn’t think about this now, we have to regroup and get out of here,” I said and we started walking down the dark walls that I feared would close on us while we were still in them.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive