Chapter 7 - The City with No Sky
published: Wednesday, 16 January 2019

When the sun set and the moon rose, the five demigods pried up the floorboard under the cover of the night.

Hazel peered down the seemingly endless void of darkness and discerned a staircase spiralling downwards.

She could feel tunnels extending from the stairwell, their entrances and exits blocked with rubble and dead ends. The whole maze made her dizzy. 

"Ladies first," Leo said weakly.

Jason rolled his eyes. "I'll lead." He shouldered past Leo and started down the staircase. 

Annabeth followed after him, Leo right at her heels. Hazel hurried in after him, not wanting to be last.

When they were all on the staircase, Frank slid the floorboard back over their heads, plunging them into absolute darkness.

The abrupt absence of light sent a shiver of fear through Hazel. She was suddenly reminded of her death, oil filling up her lungs and blocking out her vision.

Hazel blindly reached for anyone, and she grasped familiar fingers.

"F-Frank?" she whispered shakily into the darkness.

Frank gave her hand a comforting squeeze. "Hey, hey, I'm here."

For the first time in ages, Hazel felt completely at ease with him.

The last few weeks were filled with clumsy exchanges and awkward silences. Hazel constantly caught Frank staring at her with a strange expression on his face, and when she locked gazes with him, he would always turn away. He kept blushing and stuttering around her, or simply avoided her altogether.

She frequently found him muttering to himself, then glancing at her before looking away.

All Hazel wanted to do right now was kiss him in the darkness, but she forced herself to remain calm.

There was some shuffling around before Jason's sword burst into being, the Imperial Gold casting a dim golden glow. Annabeth unsheathed her dagger - the celestial bronze similarly lit up - and Leo held a flame in each palm.

Their dim halo of light was the only illumination as they descended the staircase.

Hazel's hand never left Frank's as they followed Leo.

Hazel continued down with bated breath. She half-expected monsters to start jumping out of the walls.

"Did you hear about the girl was so keen on road safety and always wore white at night?" Leo's voice echoed around the stairwell. "Last winter, she was knocked down by a snow plough."

When no one else joined in his nervous laughter, Leo didn't seem to mind laughing by himself.

"Did you hear about the idiot who sat up all night wondering where the sun had gone? The next morning it dawned on him."

"If you don't shut up, you won't live to see the next morning," Annabeth growled.

Leo gulped and they continued in silence.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, everyone seemed to be anxious about the lack of opposition.

"It shouldn't be this easy," Annabeth kept muttering. "What about the test?"

"Is that it?" Leo murmured to Hazel. "I don't want another Godzilla incident."

"Maybe the Agathians were friendly people," Frank said hopefully.

Leo looked like he wanted to make a sarcastic comment, but Hazel silenced him with a glare.

Jason pivoted in a circle. "I think it's a dead end." As soon as he said that, a silhouette rippled into existence in the wall.

Hazel had to strain her eyes, but she made it out to be a door. A door so black it was almost invisible in the darkness.

The word "PROCEED" was written on the door in purple block letters.

"Should we just..." Leo mimed opening the door. "...go in?"

Jason shrugged and tentatively pushed the door. "It's locked."

"Want me to kick it down?" Frank suggested. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and start preparing to break it down.

Annabeth walked up to the door and grabbed the handle.

The door swung open.

"It's a 'pull' door," Annabeth told them, stifling a snicker.

Hazel looked away so Frank couldn't see her grinning in amusement.

Annabeth strode through confidently with her dagger at the ready.

They spilled through the door and onto a cobblestone path.

Hazel scanned her surroundings. They were on the main path in a village, just like in Jason's (terrible) drawing. Houses were erected on either side of the path, and medieval torches carrying purple flames hung from walls.

"Unfriendly residents?" Leo guessed nervously, glancing from house to house.

"Frozen in time," Annabeth corrected, pointing to figures on the street.

Hazel realised that she was right. Three people were standing a little in front of them, on the path, but they were the colour of dust and stone from head to toe, and unmoving.

"The citizens must've all been frozen when the earth swallowed Agatha," Annabeth reasoned. "Hades shows no mercy."

Hazel felt an urge to apologise for her father's maniacal habits.

"Someone's been here," Jason said suddenly in a hushed voice. "An hour ago, maybe less." He gestured to the imprints on the cobblestone - dirt and leaves on an underground city's road.

"It has to be Pontus," Annabeth insisted. "Or one of his allies. He couldn't have pulled all of this off alone. Monsters won't answer to him; he had help."

"Who else controls the monsters?" Hazel wondered aloud. "It's not Pluto, and his subjects wouldn't betray him. Who else can control the monsters, and might side with Pontus?"

Annabeth seemed to grow paler by the second.

"You have a hunch," Jason realised.

Annabeth pursed her lips. "Let's hope I'm wrong."

They traipsed past the stone figures, trying not to look at them. Hazel wondered if she would meet the same fate before getting out of this place.

Underground was usually a sanctuary for her.

Not Agatha.

This city gave her the creeps. There was no sky, no clouds, no sun. There was only an inky abyss.

Dark magic hung in the air, and Hazel could feel dark Mist swirling around them - harmless for now, but possibly deadly in the near future.

Hazel couldn't sense any tunnels leading out of this city, it was just in the middle of nowhere, buried somewhere in the earth. The idea that she was trapped in soil made Hazel's heart clench. It reminded her of Gaia.

Frank studied her expression. "You okay? You look like you're thinking of..."

Hazel bit her lip.

"Oh." Frank fell silent.

"There's so many arrows pointing to Gaia," Hazel whispered. She didn't want to scare her other friends any more. "Primordial, Pontus' previous relationship with her. And Agatha, a city buried in the earth."

"She couldn't have risen," Frank said. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than her. "We–we would've known. There would've been signs. Earthquakes."

"It's still a possibility." Hazel sighed. "What if she turns the Romans against the Greeks again? There are so few of both camps that it wouldn't take long for us to wipe each other out."

"I don't know what will happen," Frank said slowly. "But I do know I'll fight beside you. And beside all my friends." Frank looked at his feet. "Because you guys are my family."

Hazel glanced up at him.

His brown eyes showed only kindness and an innocence that was unique to Frank. Hazel stood on her tip-toes and kissed him on the cheek.

She cleared her throat. "Listen, Frank. I don't know if it's just me, but the last few weeks have been..."

"Horrible, awkward, weird," Frank blurted out.

Hazel pulled a face. "That sums it up."

Frank scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, I know. I'm really sorry about that. I've been feeling strange, that's all."

Hazel felt the knot of stress in her chest start to unravel. It was like an enormous burden had been lifted off her shoulders. She let out a deep sigh. "Oh, you have no idea how glad I am that we talked about this. Anything else I should know?"

Frank shifted his weight and shook his head. "No," he said uncertainly.

Hazel immediately sensed he was lying. She started to gather the courage to ask him about it when Annabeth suddenly halted in her path.

"Guys," she breathed. "I'm not just imagining this, right?"

Hazel followed her gaze and her eyes widened in shock. The cobblestone path led up to a castle, the colour of ebony, that stood in the distance, as tall as skyscrapers.

Even Leo was impressed. "Wow."

"You don't think..." Jason trailed off hesitantly.

"That's where Piper and Percy are?" Annabeth finished. "I'm almost a hundred percent sure."

Jason sighed. "I was afraid of that."

The castle stood on top of a hill and stretched into Agatha's void of a sky.

They began their trek up.

Hazel passed more frozen people as they walked.

The dark magic in the air she was feeling was definitely the spell that had frozen the city's residents in time. She wondered to herself if it was Hecate's doing – the goddess who had personally endorsed Hazel.

As they neared the castle, it seemed to grow in size. The towers stretched up into the midnight-black sky, and small lights flickered in a few windows, though the faint glows were nowhere near enough to illuminate the city.

There was a moat surrounding the castle, and Leo held a flame in his hand up high so that they could see it.

"It just looks like water," Annabeth mused.

"Very, very dirty water," Leo said warily. "Like I could contract tuberculosis just from standing near to it." 

Hazel sighed. "That isn't what tuberculosis is–"

"Why don't we just move away from the murky water?" Frank suggested weakly. "I think I saw something moving inside."

That got them scrambling away quickly.

As the five demigods crossed the drawbridge, Hazel desperately prayed that it wouldn't suddenly retract and leave them to fall into the moat. 

Fortunately, the bridge remained intact and in place, though Hazel couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief when they reached the other side.

The gates of the gates were open, as if welcoming them inside to their deaths. Hazel felt a shiver run down her spine, and she shuffled closer to Leo for the warmth.

The entrance opened up into the main hallway. To the right, there were stairwells leading up and down. Straight ahead, the corridor made a turn.

"We should split up," Annabeth said. Her voice reverberated off the dark walls.

"That's exactly how the characters die in every single horror movie," Leo whimpered. "Let's not do that."

"It's the only way to cover the most ground," Annabeth insisted. "One group goes up, one goes down, and one searches this level."

"We're an odd number," Hazel noted. "Someone will have to go alone."

Leo seemed to be petrified with fear.

"I'll go alone," Annabeth offered, rolling her eyes as Leo feigned wiping sweat from his brow. "It was my idea anyways."

"You'll be fine?" Jason asked her warily. His right hand held his spatha, but his left hand was hovering over his wound. 

Annabeth waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, I can take care of myself."

"I'll go with Leo, then," Jason decided. "Hazel, you and Frank can take downstairs. Leo, you and I can search this floor together."

"Leaving me with the top floor," Annabeth finished. "Meet back outside the castle when you're done. If you run into any trouble, just scream. We'll come running."

"What if we don't hear it?" Hazel asked worriedly.

"I'm very good at screaming," Leo reassured her. "Trust me, you'll hear me." He sobered up almost instantly. "But seriously, guys, be careful. I-I-" He took a deep breath. "I can't lose anymore of you."

Hazel felt a pang in her heart. She gave Leo a reassuring side hug. "And you won't." She have each of them a glare as if to say, don't you dare die or I will kill you myself.

Annabeth brushed the hair out of her face. "Well, then. See you later." She saluted with a fearful expression as she started walking up the stairs.

Once she disappeared from sight, Hazel grabbed Frank's hand and pulled him towards the stairs.

"Have fun," she wished Leo, who reluctantly followed after Jason.

She drew her longsword and glanced up at Frank. "Let's go find our friends."