▬▬▬ CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE ▬▬▬

ESMERELDA WOKE UP TO FIGHTING. At first she thought it was Nico and Ethan having a go at each other for the millionth time, but when she opened her eyes, she realized it was much worse than she thought.

She was dreaming. She had to be.

The grand room with the broken fountains that she had previously been in was gone now, replaced by a different room with that accursed glowing coffin at the other end. In between her and the coffin were Annabeth and Ethan.

And they were trying to kill each other.

No, she thought, but she wanted to scream. Why couldn't she move? She was stuck sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. Her whole body was tense and stiff. Suddenly, something brushed against her shoulder.

She was only able to turn her head to look.

Sitting beside her was Luke, wearing an equally as horrified face. Neither of them could move. They couldn't do a thing, but watch as Annabeth and Ethan fought each other.

Suddenly there was a deep chuckle and the whole room darkened. A large, dark, and spectral hand rose from the coffin. Annabeth and Ethan's figures dispersed, and the hand reached out for her and Luke.

Luke was shaking, tears were streaming down his white face and Esmerelda was in a similar state. A shadow crossed over them as the large hand drew closer and closer. It was going to grab one of them, but who would it be? Would it get her or Luke?

She clenched her eyes shut just as it grasped out for—

"You little shit, you did that on purpose!"

"Did not, you're lying!"

"No, you are!"

Esmerelda let out a breath of relief when she heard the familiar voices of Nico and Ethan. They were arguing again, but at least they weren't trying to kill each other.

She thought of her dream and suppressed the urge to shudder. Why were Annabeth and Ethan fighting, and why couldn't she and Luke do anything about it? What did all of that mean?

"—drooled all over me!" Nico shouted.

"That's your own drool!" Ethan glared.

"What," she finally interrupted, pushing herself up into a sitting position. "Are you two fighting about this time?"

Ethan jabbed a finger at the younger boy's direction. "He kicked me and then had the audacity to accuse me of drooling on him!"

"I kicked you in my sleep, it was an accident! And you did drool on me! Look, Essie!" To prove it, he showed him the drool marks on the shoulder of his pure black tee-shirt.

"It was not an accident!" Ethan refuted.

"Was too!"

"You brat, I'm a son of Nemesis, I can tell when people lie to me!"

"For the love of gods, stop. Fighting." Esmerelda begged.

"But Essie—!" They said in unison.

She inhaled deeply and prayed for any kind deity to give her the patience to deal with this right now. "Ethan, it was probably just an accident. I'm sure Nico wouldn't do that sort of thing on purpose."

Nico felt smugly triumphant.

Ethan's jaw dropped. "Wha—but—but he—"

She raised a hand to stop him. "Can we please go through breakfast in peace? Please? For once, can you guys manage to do this for me?"

Ethan slumped his shoulders and grumbled profanity under his breath, but apologized to her anyways. Nico begrudgingly nodded in agreement before quietly eating his cookies.

"So what were you dreaming of?" Nico asked her suddenly.

"Huh?" She blinked at him. "How did you...?"

He gave her a dry look. "We've been arguing for awhile and you still hadn't woken up. Plus, you looked like you were having a nightmare."

"Demigod dream," she grumbled. "Or, well, nightmare really." All demigod dreams could pretty much qualify as nightmares because nothing good ever happened in them.

"What about?" Ethan asked, casually stealing a cookie from Nico's stash when the boy wasn't looking.

"Um," she hesitated, but both boys were looking at her so expectantly that she didn't really have much of a choice. "It was... weird. You were in it, Ethan, and so was Annabeth... You guys were, um, fighting..."

"Did Annabeth win?" Nico perked up.

Ethan shot him a scathing look.

"You guys never got to finish, but whatever caused you to fight must have been pretty bad. You looked like you were really trying to kill each other." She shuddered, recalling their murderous faces. "And it gets weirder, this golden coffin was there again and—"

"—Coffin?!" Ethan interrupted her, almost choking on his stolen cookie. "Wait, time out, what did that coffin look like? Was it more like a golden glowing sarcophagus? And what do you mean by 'again'?!"

"Uh, I mean I've dreamed of it before?" She answered. "In the first dream, Luke and I were standing in front of the sarcophagus. He said something about how he was too scared to do something, so I had to do it instead. Then I actually started, um... crawling into the sarcophagus against my will."

They stared at her with stunned expressions.

"Ahem, er, anyways," she continued awkwardly. "In this recent dream, you and Annabeth were fighting in front of the same coffin and I was just... unable to do anything but watch. Luke was right next to me too, and he was also stuck. Then this giant hand appeared from the coffin, you and Annabeth disappeared, and the hand was about to grab either me or Luke, and that was it. I woke up to you guys arguing after that." She finished with a shrug.

"This is bad," Ethan mumbled. "Essie, that's Kronos' sarcophagus."

Now it was Nico's turn to choke on his cookies.

"W-what?" She asked fearfully.

"Kronos is going to be reformed in that sarcophagus," he explained seriously. "Every time a demigod renounces the gods to follow Kronos, a piece of him appears in the sarcophagus. He's almost complete. He just needs one more person to swear allegiance to him... and a host."

But the witch and the scarred one are ripe for the picking, and only one shall be spared from their destined killing

"Me and Luke," she swallowed thickly. "And the 'picking' is Kronos picking one of us to be his host... which would kill us."

She felt herself beginning to grow faint. She never should have left the ranch and she really should have listened to her father...

"Oh gods, this is so bad," he said worriedly, running a hand through his hair. "You're already having dreams of being picked."

"All the more reason to get out of this place." Nico decided, brushing off the cookie crumbs on his pants.

"But what about Percy?" Esmerelda asked. "Minos said he was heading towards a Telekhine den."

Nico looked troubled, but he shook his head anyways. "Percy has Annabeth and the others. I'm sure he'll be fine."

"Plus he's not the one who could potentially be turned into Kronos' meatbag." Ethan added.

She gave him a pained look. "Seriously?"

"Sorry," he said.

After a very unhealthy breakfast consisting of chocolate chip cookies and granola bars, the three of them set off to roam around the Labyrinth again.

The first few hours of it were pretty uneventful, which was actually a good thing, but naturally, everything went downhill just when they thought things were looking up for them.

Ethan took a step forward and the ground underneath him sunk beneath his feet in the shape of a tile.

They all froze to stare at him.

"Oh fuck," he said just as the trap activated. Hundreds of apertures appeared on the wall and began shooting arrows at them.

"Oh, come on!" Nico cried out in annoyance as they sprinted down the corridor. "You just had to step on the booby trap, didn't you?"

"It's not like you knew it was a trap either!" Ethan snapped back.

"Would you two stop fighting?!" Esmerelda begged, having the unfortunate position to be in the middle of them, meaning her poor ears were constantly being abused by their shouting matches.

Naturally, they didn't listen to her.

"—gonna pluck out your other eye—!"

"—wanna know what we do to little shits like you in the Titan Army? We rip their fucking tongues out—!"

"—gods, you're worse than Percy—"

"—do NOT compare to that fucking moron—"

"—Essie, can we just—?!"

"—don't talk to her that way—!"

"—YOU don't talk to her that way—!"

"—ESSIE—!"

"—ESSIE—!"

Esmerelda tried her best to ignore their gods damn screeching and focused on the Freezing Charm she was preparing to cast. Her fingertips buzzed with magic, and she shot a blue light over her shoulder and immediately the arrows froze in midair.

She had stopped the trap, but neither of the boys even realized it. They were too busy screaming curses at each other.

"Guys! You can stop running now!" She called out to them.

They paused, and turned around to face her. Behind her, they could see hundreds of arrows frozen in the air.

"Oh," Ethan said dumbly. "That was, uh, smart thinking."

"Thanks," she said dryly. "Gods, I'm so tired..."

Nico turned to glare at Ethan. "This is all your fault."

"My fault?!"

"Yeah, you're the one who was dumb enough to step on a booby trap! And now you got Essie all tired because she was fixing your mistake!"

"HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW—"

"—OH, I THOUGHT YOUR SUPER COOL ARMY WOULD TEACH YOU HOW—"

"—YOU'RE ON FUCKING TIME-OUT, KID! GET YOUR ASS TO THE CORNER!"

"THERE ARE NO CORNERS HERE, WE'RE IN A TUNNEL!"

"DO NOT SASS ME WITH THAT TONE, YOU LITTLE SHITHEAD!"

Esmerelda felt herself close to tears at this point. Someone get me the fuck out of this Labyrinth, PLEASE! She internally begged, taking deep, shaky breaths.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Even though using immobulus on the trap was an excellent idea, she couldn't keep the arrows still forever, so they still had to jog for about a mile until they were a hundred percent sure they were out of the trap.

Right now, they were just plain tired, and hungry because their food supply (especially their cookies) were dangerously low. Esmerelda had the fun little bonus of being stressed out too since these two just couldn't give her a gods damn break.

"Gods, I'm starving," Nico moaned lowly before giving Ethan a scathing look. "If you hadn't eaten all my cookies during breakfast—"

"—Oh here we go again," the older boy rolled his one good eye. "Haven't you ever heard the phrase 'sharing is caring'?"

"Well, I don't care about you!" He said hotly. "I only did it because Essie didn't want you to starve!"

"You know what—"

"—Guys, I see a door!" Esmerelda suddenly gasped.

They both looked at her. "What?"

Esmerelda ran ahead without waiting for them. At the end of the tunnel was a large, grey, metal wall with frost stuck to it. There was no handle in sight.

"Where do you think this leads?" Nico asked wearily.

"With our luck, Antarctica," Ethan responded bitterly.

"Let's find out," Esmerelda said eagerly. She wanted nothing more than to get out of the Labyrinth right now because if the maze didn't drive her crazy, then being stuck in an underground enclosed space with Ethan and Nico definitely would.

Hopefully she'd find a relaxing spa on the other side of the door. Or even better: a therapy clinic.

She pressed on the glowing Greek ∆ symbol. Icy mist poured out from the edges of the door as it slowly moved back. The three of them moved out of the way. On the other side of the wall, she saw shelves of frozen ice cream tubs attached to it.

"What...?" She mumbled in confusion. Okay so this definitely wasn't a relaxing spa or a therapy clinic, but this was good enough. Maybe she could just eat the stress away.

She squeezed herself through the gap between the metal door and the tunnel and entered a cramped and cold room. No, wait, this wasn't a room. She was in a freezer, and in front of her was a glass door.

The door had led her to the freezer of a grocery store.

"Where are we?" Nico hugged his oversized jacket around himself as he squeezed in beside her.

"We're inside a freezer of some grocery store." She replied, then pushed open the glass door. There were mortals all around them, but the Mist probably made them blind to the three kids piling out of a freezer.

Ethan looked around the aisle before spotting a familiar logo on the wall. "Great," he said sarcastically. "We went from one Labyrinth to another. This one's just Swedish."

Esmerelda spun around. "Huh?"

He pointed upwards. "Look."

She saw the familiar yellow and blue sign and realized just where exactly they were: the Swedish Food Market section of Ikea.

"Ikea...?" Nico tried to read. "Never heard of it."

Ethan looked at him incredulously. "You've never heard of Ikea?"

"There probably weren't any Ikea stores where he was from*," she said quickly. Ethan wasn't aware of Nico's situation yet, and she didn't feel like it was right for him to know. Not when he was still technically semi-loyal to the Titan Army.

They headed to where the escalator was in order to get to the top floor where the food court was. On the way there, they spotted the familiar Småland, the kids area. Esmerelda remembered various times where her foster parents would drop her off there and how much she used to love the place.

Ethan followed her line of sight and cracked a small grin. Then he leaned down to whisper to her, "How about we drop the kid off so we can eat some Swedish meatballs at the food court?"

"Nico needs to eat too," she deadpanned, nudging him playfully with her elbow.

"Oh come on," he grinned. "He's short enough to enter. We should let the kid hang out with other kids his age. I'm sure he'd love the ball pit or the coloring station. Maybe he could watch some Disney movies too."

Nico kicked the back of his foot. "I heard that, asshole. I'm not going anywhere."

"Language," the older teens chided; Esmerelda more kindly and Ethan more scowl-y.

The line for food was, unfortunately, very full, but with Esmerelda's powers over the Mist they were able to get to the front of the line.

"Oh, I miss cheesecake!" Esmerelda squealed, grabbing a plate of blueberry cheesecake.

"Should we order you a kids meal?" Ethan asked Nico mockingly as he held out the last chocolate cheesecake out of the shorter boy's reach.

"Give me that," Nico glared.

"Nope," he set the cake on his tray. "Your ass is grounded, so you don't get any cake."

"Essie!" Nico turned to her for help.

She gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Nico, but you need veggies more than sweets." He had been homeless for months and she doubted he was able to have a decent meal during those times.

She may as well have stabbed him. He looked at her with such betrayal.

"But—"

"—You're so skinny now, Nico! You need to eat healthy, so no sweets." She told him gently.

Ethan snickered under his breath.

Nico sighed in defeat. "Fine." Then when she wasn't looking, he stuck his foot out and tripped Ethan.

"Eat shit," the older teen hissed at him, not wanting Esmerelda to overhear him.

They managed to 'pay' for their food with little incident and were now eating at a table.

"We're all the way in Orlando, Florida," Esmerelda stated as she looked up from the Ikea pamphlet she was reading.

"Florida?" Ethan rose a brow. "Lucky us, then. We ended up in the one place where all kinds of weird shit happens."

"What do you mean?" Nico asked in confusion. "What happens in Florida?"

"What doesn't happen in Florida?" Ethan snorted.

Esmerelda rolled her eyes. "Just ignore him. Anyone got any drachmas? I should probably contact Percy or Annabeth... Tell them not to wait up for us."

"I got none," Ethan replied. "Plus, I doubt IMs work in the Labyrinth anyways. They probably won't receive it."

"Good point..." She sighed in defeat.

"So what's the game plan now?" Nico said through a mouth full of macaroni and cheese. He had yet to eat his vegetables but knowing Esmerelda, he'd have to eat them sooner or later (and he chose later).

"Well, since we're out of the Labyrinth—" Ethan began.

"—No duh, Sherlock." Nico cut in.

Ethan quietly kicked his shin from under the table and proceeded to ignore him. "Maybe you guys should stay away from camp for the meanwhile. Luke's sort of, um, planning to attack it by using the Labyrinth."

"I know," she deadpanned.

"Y-you do?"

"Yeah," she aggressively stabbed a meatball with her fork. "Percy told me all about it. You're trying to find Ariadne's string to navigate through the maze and all that. Sorry, Ethan, but I'm not just gonna stand by and let my friend's get slaughtered."

"Essie, you don't understand—"

"—No, you don't understand." She interrupted him harshly, her eyes flashing a glowing green, and Ethan began to shrink a little.

Nico ate his mac and cheese quietly, watching the two of them argue back and forth.

"You may not have any loved ones at camp—" He opened his mouth to argue against that, but she barreled on. "—But I do, and I don't want them to die while I sit around and do nothing." She glared. "I'm glad you care about me enough to help me get out of the maze and warn me about Luke's plans, but I'm not going to let camp to get destroyed."

"Camp Half-Blood is going to be decimated," he said through gritted teeth. "We've got over a thousand demigods and monsters on our side and Kronos will be there to see camp destroyed. Do you really think you can handle all that?"

Esmerelda wasn't gonna lie. The second he said that their numbers were by the thousands, she grew scared. Really, really scared. When she first arrived to camp all those years ago, there had been a few hundred campers, but now those numbers were rapidly dwindling. Kids were either dying or joining Kronos. What frightened her even more was that the Titan himself would be there for the battle. Or at least, he was planning to be.

"Thanks for the intel," she said gratefully (because she really was thankful for that piece of information). "But I'm still going to fight."

Ethan gave her a sad and defeated look, but there was something else behind his eye. A certain fondness, a knowing glint like he knew that she would stay fighting no matter what.

"Don't die when that battle comes then," he said, his lone eye begging.

"As long as you don't," she replied. "Nico, how about you? Will you be going back to camp?"

Ethan looked a little troubled at the thought of Nico going to camp to fight and possibly die, a sentiment that Esmerelda shared.

The younger boy pursed his lips, looking uncertain. He had always been insistent on never coming back, but the prospect of people dying seemed to be enough to make him falter. Or maybe it was because he knew certain people who were going to stay to fight.

"I... I don't know," he admitted.

"That's fine," she told him soothingly. "You don't have to fight if you don't want to."

She preferred that he didn't, to be honest. He was still so young, and the thought of anything happening to him pained her just as much as Bianca's death had.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

After finishing her meal—including her dessert—and drowning several glasses of water, Essie made the mistake of going to the bathroom and leaving the two boys alone.

Ethan was in the midst of enjoying his chocolate cheesecake when a sharp kick was delivered to his shin.

"Ow!" He glared at the younger boy, who glared back.

"Essie may buy your 'nice guy' act, but I don't," Nico gave him a dark look. "You're probably trying to find a way to get her into Luke's clutches. I don't want you anywhere near her."

"Didn't you hear me swear an oath that I have no ill intentions for her?" Ethan snapped. "I'm trying to help her, okay?"

"You kidnapped her last year."

His face fell for a second before it hardened all over. "And I'm trying to... to atone for that," he faltered. Over Nico's shoulder, Janus' faces appeared again. He blinked rapidly, and Janus was gone.

Nico glanced over his shoulder and frowned. "What? What is it?"

"N-nothing," he said shakily. That pesky god had been haunting him lately, making him doubt himself and his choices.

The younger boy scowled. "Whatever. I don't care about whatever promise you made. I learned the hard way that promises can be broken. I'm watching you, alright? You make any wrong move, do anything suspicious, or anything that could make me think you'll stab us in the back, then I'll make sure you get a one-way ticket to the Fields of Punishment."

"You... you're a son of Hades, aren't you...?" Ethan realized, then his eye darted down to the pitch black sword attached to his hip. Stygian iron... he thought, growing tense.

Nico gave him a wry smile in response, and slowly inched his hand down to the handle of his blade. A clear threat.

Ethan straightened up and leaned forward. "Look, swearing on the River Styx is a lot more serious than making a promise, alright? Oaths made by the river brings a punishment worse than death to the oath bearer if not fulfilled or lied on. Clearly, nothing's wrong with me, meaning I was telling the truth. I have no plans of hurting anyone."

Except Luke, he thought with some guilt.

Nico's hand didn't leave the hilt of his sword, which was a big concern because Ethan wasn't looking forward to getting his soul reaped by a gremlin fetus right now. There was absolutely no way was he going to get killed by some kid who was barely starting puberty. He could almost imagine the engravings on his tombstone:

Here lies Ethan Nakamura. Died at age sixteen and was killed by a scrawny eleven year old who could barely lift up a sword.

The shame. The humiliation. He'd never be able to live it down.

Just then, Esmerelda finally returned and Nico placed both hands on the table and straightened up his back, suddenly looking like the picture-perfect representation of innocence.

"Oh good, you ate all your veggies!" She beamed, giving the evil boy an awarding pat on the head.

Ethan sunk a little in his chair, grumbling and sending the boy dark looks. Every time Esmerelda was around, he was like the perfect little angel to her, but the second she turned her back, the brat was back to acting like the true gremlin he was towards him.

What was worse was that whenever he tried to point it out to her, she wouldn't believe him! In her eyes, Nico was a sweet little boy who could do no wrong.

"Are we all done here?" He asked, rising to his feet with his tray in hand. "We should put this all away now. Where's the disposal?" He looked around, only to freeze at the sight of three Laistrygonian giants entering the food court, their beady red eyes fixed right at them.

"Them again..." Nico whispered, standing up too.

"We can take them," Esmerelda said confidently. "It's three versus two."

A trio of dracaenae joined the giants.

"Never mind."

One of the giants grabbed a nearby table and threw it at them like an oversized frisbee. The mortals screamed and started running around. Whatever the Mist was making them see was certainly enough to cause widespread terror.

"Get down!" Ethan ordered, grabbing the two and throwing them to the floor. The table whizzed by and embedded itself to a wall. Esmerelda used her telekinesis to pry it off the wall and throw it right back to them, killing one of the dracaenae.

"This way!" Ethan shouted, leading them through the wild throng of terrified people. They made it to the bedroom area, which was less crowded and more easier to navigate through.

Naturally, the four monsters followed after them.

One of the giants lifted a bed up from the floor and flung it at them. Esmerelda dove to the right where a bunch of mattress were being displayed while Ethan tackled Nico to the left where they landed on a tiger printed rug.

"Where's Essie?" Nico asked with wide eyes, looking around.

Ethan turned to mattress aisle only to see her use a mattress to smack one dracaenae to the other.

"She's fine, she can handle herself," he said just as he spotted the other three Laistrygonians heading towards them. "Swords out, kid, get ready!"

They whipped out their blades just as the giants lunged for them. The fighting pushed them back to the children's section, where one of the dracaena Esmerelda was up against tripped and fell into a cage of stuffed animals. Esmerelda shrunk it and kept her trapped inside.

"Essie, can't you blow them up?!" Nico called out to her.

"I can't risk it!" She called back, ducking down to avoid what could've been a fatal swipe. "The whole building could collapse!"

And there were still a bunch of mortals in the building, Ethan realized. Not to mention they could potentially die too.

Ikea wasn't a good place for a battleground. There was a reason he called it the 'Swedish Labyrinth' after all, because ten minutes into the fight he had completely lost sight of Esmerelda and Nico.

Fuck, he thought, turning his attention back to the Laistrygonian giant he was facing. Nico was most likely facing the other two while Esmerelda was dealing with the last of the dracaenae.

He rolled over to the side to dodge a dresser that was about to slam into him and stopped in a kneeling position. He slashed at the giant's knees and when it buckled over, quickly swiped it's head off.

Gotta find the kid, he gritted his teeth and began running around. He nearly slammed into Esmerelda, who was thrown onto the floor just beside him.

"Where's Nico?!" She asked, firing some glittery magical blast at the incoming dracaena.

"I lost him," he admitted guiltily.

She spun around to face him. "WHAT?"

"I'm sure he'll be fine, the kid's got a sword," he argued weakly.

Her glare didn't falter. Instead, it only grew fiercer.

He swallowed thickly. "But, uh, I'll go look for him."

Hastily, he left the scene and allowed Esmerelda to continue her fight. He had full confidence that she'd be fine, anyways.

He scrambled around the entire floor like a headless chicken until he finally found the poor kid in the living room section, trying his best to dodge and duck whenever a couch or a coffee table was thrown his way.

"Nico, you okay?" He called out.

"What do you think?" Nico shouted sourly.

One of the giants faced Ethan, which balanced things out for Nico's sake.

The monster picked up a bookcase and swung it at him like a baseball bat. Ethan stepped back to avoid it, but all the books came spilling out and some managed to thwack him. He hopped off a couch in order to get behind the giant and slashed at it's back.

The Laistrygonian responded by whirling around and striking him down with a cat-shaped lamp. The glass shattered once it made impact with his head and Ethan was thrown to the floor. Amidst his daze, he heard Nico let out a choked cry.

Slowly, he picked up his sword and got to his feet. The two Laistrygonians were rushing away and Nico was tossed over one of their shoulders.

"Fuck! Nico!" He chased after them. "ESSIE! THEY'VE GOT NICO!"

"What?!" Esmerelda shrieked before quickly stunning her opponent. Together they rushed after the two giants, but the monsters made it to the elevator in time.

"Staircase!" Esmerelda panted, and they bolted for it.

"Why do they want him?!" Ethan asked as they rushed down the stairs.

"It's Minos! He wants Nico to kill Daedalus or something! Oh gods, that means they're taking him back to the Labyrinth!"

Ethan cursed. Going back there was the last thing he wanted to do right now. This should've been the perfect chance to get Esmerelda out of Luke's grasps once and for all had the monsters not shown up, but now he had no choice but to go back there.

Nico had been taken under his watch. He was just a kid, no matter how annoyingly bratty he was. He couldn't just let the kid suffer.

The elevator was empty once they reached the ground level, but they already knew where to go. They sprinted to the market place, the store eerily empty now that all the mortals have cleared out.

"Which freezer was it?!" Esmerelda fretted.

"It was the one with all the ice cream!" Ethan replied.

It wasn't that hard to find. The giants had thrown all the shelves to the side, leaving only the glowing blue symbol of Daedalus on the metal wall. Quickly, he pressed on it and the wall was pushed back, creating a small enough gap for them to squeeze through.

They entered the Labyrinth and were met with multiple paths that weren't there before.

"No..." Esmerelda whimpered. "We lost him..."

— author's note —

* Nico was born on January 28, 1932 and Ikea first opened on July 28, 1943 in Älmhult, Sweden. So yeah, Nico's never heard of the aMAZEment that is Ikea because he and Bianca were put in the Lotus Casino when he was around ten years old (so sometime during 1942, I think)

When I was seven, I got lost in Ikea before and I was fucking terrified. Also, I kept getting bad paper cuts from those measuring tapes they offered? Why tf did they make it so SHARP???? AND THERE WAS THIS ONE TIME WHEN MY PARENTS LEFT ME IN SMÅLAND AND I WAS A LITERAL BAWLING MESS AND THEY COMPLETELY FORGOT TO ORDER ME DINNER AND AAHHHHHHH. Anyways, as you can tell, Ikea's great but I have bad childhood memories of it D':

Here's some summaries of the chapter:

Essie, to Ethan: This is Nico! He's a sweet boy who eats his veggies. I'm so proud of him!

Nico: *sasses Ethan, kicks him around, threatens him, and pretty much acts like a gremlin child around him*

Essie: He's such an angel 😊

Ethan: ...

Nico: *acting like his usual feral self*

Ethan: GET YOUR FUCKING DOG BITCH

Essie: It don't bite

Ethan: yeS IT DO

Ethan: Ugh, Nico's such a brat, I can't stand him. I hate children 🙄

Nico: *gets kidnapped and dragged back to the Labyrinth*

Ethan: Fuck we gotta save him, Essie. Let's go back to the Labyrinth despite the fact I've been spending the last few days trying to get us away from it.

Essie to Ethan and Nico: (I'll let you guys think of a caption, lol)

Essie's therapist: So when do you think all this trauma began?

Essie: It all started when I was born... *tells them everything in great detail*

The therapist:

Can anyone figure out what's going on in that dream Essie just had???