epiphany ━━ chapter v.
. . . cyclops' worst nightmare

THE LEFT TUNNEL was a dead end. After sprinting about a hundred yards, the quintet ran into an enormous boulder that completely blocked their path.

Nova wasn't used to running, so her lungs were beginning to burn from the lack of oxygen. She was trying really hard to keep up, not wanting to be the one to slow down the group. None of the others seemed to have the same problem—Percy wasn't even panting in the slightest bit—so she tried to hide it, but she was in some way thankful when they were forced to stop.

Her content lasted very shortly, though, because soon it became clear that they weren't in safety. They had just reached a dead end, and it seemed like they were very close to being caught by whatever non-human thing that was following them with dragging footsteps.

"Tyson," Percy was the quickest to react. "Can you—"

"Yes!" he slammed his broad shoulders against the rock so hard the whole tunnel shook. Dust trickled down from the stone ceiling, and Nova subconsciously moved closer to Annabeth.

"Hurry!" Grover stressed. "Don't bring the roof down, but hurry!"

The boulder finally gave away and Tyson pushed it into a small room. It made a horrible grinding noice when it moved, and the group hurriedly dashed through behind it.

"Close the entrance, quickly!" Annabeth exclaimed as soon as everyone was through.

All five of them pushed, and together they got the rock pushed back into place. The monster chasing them wailed in frustration, and the sound made Nova's hands feel sweaty. She felt as if her heart was constantly up in her throat, and she was questioning whether going on this quest was a good idea or not.

"I think we trapped ourselves," Grover's words did not help the unsettling feeling in her stomach, and when she turned to find them standing in a twenty-foot-square cement room with a wall covered in metal bars, she was close to breaking down and giving up. They had trapped themselves in a cell.

"What in Hades?" Annabeth questioned, tugging on the bars. They didn't budge at all.

Through the space between the bars they could see rows of cells in a ring around a dark courtyard. There was at least three stories of metal doors and metal catwalks.

"We're in a prison." Nova sighed to herself.

"Maybe Tyson can break—" Percy started to say, but Grover interrupted him.

"Shh," The satyr whispered. "Listen."

Somewhere above them, a deep sobbing echoed. There was another voice too. A raspy voice was whispering something unrecognisable.

"What's the language?" Percy whispered.

Nova, Annabeth, and Grover looked as confused as Percy, but Tyson was looking surprised, eyes staring straight ahead.

"It can't be," His eyes were wide.

"What?" Percy asked his half-brother.

Tyson didn't answer, instead he moved towards the bars and grabbed them. He was quick to bent them, making the hole wide enough so even he could get through.

"Wait!" Grover exclaimed, but Tyson wasn't listening. He started walking and didn't look back, so the others had to almost run to keep up with him.

The prison was dark. The only light illuminating their path were a few dim fluorescent lights flickering above.

"I know this place," Annabeth was walking next to Nova, but Percy was walking directly behind them, listening in. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean the island close to San Francisco?" Nova frowned.

She nodded. "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."

The five of them appearing out of the labyrinth on the other side of the country didn't seem possible, but Nova trusted Annabeth more than anything, so she took her word for it.

"Freeze," Grover warned, confusing them all.

While the three demigods stopped upon hearing Grover's word, Tyson just kept walking, completely unbothered.

"Stop, Tyson!" he whispered. "Can't you see it?"

Nova looked to where he was pointing, and her breath got caught in her throat at the sight. On the second-floor balcony, across the courtyard, was a monster she had never seen before.

It was kind of like a centaur with a woman's body from the waist up. It didn't have the lower body of a horse though, instead its lower body was like a dragon—at least twenty feat long, black and scaly with enormous claws and a barbed tail. Her legs were sprouting snakes, hundreds of vipers darting around, constantly looking for something to bite.

"It's her," Tyson whimpered.

"Get down!" Grover said, sharing everyone's unwell feeling about the monster.

Immediately, they all crouched down into the shadows, out of the monsters sight, but it wasn't looking in their direction. It seemed to be talking to someone inside a cell on the second floor. That's where the sobbing noice was coming from. The dragon woman said something in her rumpling language, and they all looked questionably at each other.

"What's she saying?" Percy asked. "What's that language?"

"The tongue of the old times," Tyson shivered. "What Mother Earth spoke to the Titans and . . . her other children. Before the gods."

"You understand it?" Percy looked at his half brother. "Can you translate it?"

Tyson nodded before closing his eyes
and began to speak in a horrible, raspy woman's voice. "You will work for the master or suffer."

Nova shuddered at the voice.

"I hate it when he does that." Annabeth commented.

"I will not serve," Tyson said in a deep, wounded voice, before switching to the monster's voice again: "Then I shall enjoy your pain, Briares. If you thought your first imprisonment was unbearable, you have yet to feel true torment. Think on this until I return."

The dragon lady tromped toward the stairwell, vipers hissing around her legs like grass skirts. She spread wings, leaped off the catwalk and soared across the courtyard.

The five friends stayed crouched lower in the shadows. A hot sulfurous wind blasted into Nova's face as the monster flew over and she shuddered for the millionth time on that quest.

"H-h-horrible," Grover mumbled. "I've never smelled any monster that strong."

"Cyclopes' worst nightmare," Tyson murmured. "Kampê."

"Who?" Percy asked, sitting up a bit straighter now they didn't have to hide.

Tyson swallowed. "Every Cyclops knows about her. Stories about her scare us when we're babies. She was our jailer in the bad years."

Annabeth nodded thoughtfully. "I remember now. When the Titans ruled, they imprisoned Gaea and Ouranos's earlier children—the Cyclopes and the Hekatonkheires."

"The Heka-what?" Percy confusedly asked.

"The Hundred-Handed Ones," she said. "They called them that because . . . well, they had a hundred hands. They were elder brothers of the Cyclopes."

"Very powerful," Tyson added. "Wonderful! As tall as the sky. So strong they could break mountains!"

"Cool," Percy nodded in appreciation. "Unless you're a mountain."

"Kampê was the jailer," Tyson continued explaining. "She worked for Kronos. She kept our brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them always, until Zeus came. He killed Kampê and freed Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones to help fight against the Titans in the big war."

"And now Kampê is back," Percy concluded.

"Bad," Tyson nodded.

"So who's in that cell?" Nova joined the conversation, her curiosity getting the better of her nervousness. "You said a name—"

"Briares!" Tyson perked up. "He is a Hundred-Handed One. They are as tall as the sky and—"

"Yeah," Percy said, interrupting him. "They break mountains."

"I guess we should check it out," Annabeth said, "before Kampê comes back."

Nova did not want to check it out, but as the others nodded, she did too, following Percy as he walked towards the sobbing sound.

author's note
said i was going to update again soon and then disappeared for 3 months... i'm so sorry 😔😔

i really hope u guys still want to read this, and if u want to read more then i have a leo valdez story and it would mean the world if u would check it out!!

i really mean it when i say i love u for reading this 🫶🫶