The world around me was void of light. I couldn't see a horizon line, nor my hand I held out in front of me. I felt disoriented and vulnerable. If anything were to try and attack me, I'd be blind to it.

"Y/N?" A voice I knew very well called.

"Percy?" I yelled back.

"Y/N? Where are you?"

"I'm right here!"

"Just follow my voice. I'm going to get you out of this."

"What's going on?" I asked, turning towards the direction I thought his voice was coming from, but it felt like I was walking in aimless circles.

"You've... you've—" His voice started to cut out like a bad recording as a fuzzy white noise replaced it.

"Percy?" I called again.

The static fizzled out, and his voice returned. "You need to run. Hurry. Don't let it get you."

Panic rose in my chest, and adrenaline began coursing through my veins. "W-wait what?"

"Just run, Y/N," his voice like a muffled as if behind several walls.

"I'm trapped," I said. My feet were stuck to the ground and everything in me was paralyzed.

"Hurry back," Percy's voice was just above a whisper. "Please."

"I'm trying," I responded, miserably trying to move. Suddenly everything went silent, the whining noise of static cutting off. "Percy?"

No response.

___

I shot up in the sleeping bag, startling the boy beside me. I focused on steading my breathing, feeling dizzy from sitting up too fast.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his voice still sleepy as he rubbed his eyes.

I blinked, my heartbeat not allowing me to calm down.

"Yeah... yeah, I'm good. It was just a dream," I lied.

Nothing for a demigod was just a dream. But before he could say anything else, Chiron came barging in, waking up everyone. The son of Poseidon looked back towards me as if the conversation wasn't over and would resume later.

"We have their location," Chiron said.

___

Sitting around the table in the Big House was everyone who'd been there when we had all fallen asleep. There was me, Percy, Hazel, Jason, Annabeth, Leo, Reyna, and Nico, accompanied by Chiron, Dionysus, and Rachel.

"I received word that there is unauthorized beings, coming in and out of the Underworld which people are saying could be linked to this Tenebris Equorum group," Chiron said. "Hades said that he's been trying to locate, but whoever has been traveling there is cloaked by very, very old magic."

"And you're sure they're being held there?" Reyna asked.

"Yes," the centaur responded.

At the end of the table, Rachel's breath hitched, and she sat rigid in her chair. Her green eyes started to glow like neon lights. Suddenly, green mist curled around her like vines.

"The demigods fall without a mark,
And a close guide shall aid them into the dark
To seek out those of which they are to face.
Two shall be lost without a trace.
The quest is far from done,
Not until they can restore the one."

The young Oracle collapsed like a rag doll in her chair as everyone stared at her.

"Sooo," Leo broke the silence, jokingly but sort of serious. "Was anyone writing that down?"

Annabeth, having gone through this more times than enough, turned her notepad towards everyone. "I got it."

She stood up and copied the lines on the walls of the conference room. It was my idea to paint the back wall with whiteboard paint a couple months ago.

Percy and I spent the whole day painting it, and by the end we were each covered in paint after dumping it on each other during a friendly fight.

"Okay, first line," Reyna said, asserting herself into natural charge. "'The demigods fall without a trace.' That's talking about Frank and Piper and the other demigods, and eventually the rest of us."

Beside the prophecy's line, Annabeth jotted down that note. I grabbed a marker to help her write the information down.

"Wait, Chiron, do you have a list of all the missing campers?"

"Yeah," he said as he got up from his wheelchair and trotted into the next room.

He returned a moment later with a file folder. Inside was a handwritten list of the missing people and information about them. I took the folder from him and laid the papers out on the table, looking for patterns.

Eight pieces of paper. One for each of the missing people.

"There's no clear pattern," Leo said. "There's no common target age, godly parent, or even age. The only pattern is that they're only taking people from Camp Half-Blood... even though the Underworld is located in California and Camp Jupiter is closer."

"But look," Reyna started to rearrange the papers. "They started with the people who have been at camp the longest. See, this one says ten years, which has to be quite a long time."

Nico propped his elbows on the table. "So they've been trying to target people that they thought would catch our attention. But it's also strange that they even have that sort of information."

"That travel thing is a good point. They have to have someone who can practically transport," Hazel said.

"Prophecies are tricky," Leo said. "You can think that mean one thing, and then yeet it turns out it means the exact opposite."

"'And a close guide shall aid them into the dark.'" Percy said. "'The dark' is talking about the underworld. And most of us have already been in the Underworld, but Nico probably knows it the best, so he could lead us."

"Yeah," the son of Hades agreed.

I wrote that down next to the second line. My handwriting was neater than Annabeth's was, but hers was slanted and sloppy from months of jotting down numbers and figures because of all her architecture classes.

To seek out those of which they are to face.

"The next line is good, I guess," Hazel shrugged, cautious of being too hopeful. "I think it means we find them."

Two shall be lost without a trace.
The quest is far from done,
Not until they can restore the one

"The last three aren't," Jason stated, bluntly. Each of us looked around the room nervously. "Losing two people?"

As I thought of my dream, my heart raced again. Without knowing it, Percy's hand had found mine under the table. He glanced over at me and gave me a hesitant smile that didn't meet his eyes. I'd be lying to him if I smiled back as if everything was going to be okay, but I tried anyways.

"What are we supposed to restore?" Annabeth thought out loud. "Olympus again? That's one more headache."

"I don't want to lose anyone," Percy said to me, falling into our own side conversation while the others talked.

"Me neither," I said, then switched back to trying to be optimistic. "But 'lost' is a relative term. It could mean someone just wandered off... not like dead. And it didn't specify who or what. Maybe someone just loses their socks... or something."

With Percy's infamous streak of bad luck in his life, he didn't look convinced. "I guess."

"It's going to be okay." I leaned over and kissed his nose. "Promise."

He blushed. "Alright."

___

school is really coming for all my time
i'm sorry for the delay oopsies

1182 | unedited