Adam's POV
The room silent but not to be mistaken for peace. Yasmine's wounds visibly healing across her face as she steps off the bed in an impatience for waiting any longer.
"Should you even be moving already?" Thomas worriedly go to help her but she denies it
"Trust me, I'm not nearly as banged up as he was" She turns to Alex's body, a look of deep sadness becoming obvious by her previous movements becoming halted as she stares in awe of him.
"Now that I'm practically healed, we can get going right?" Yasmine announces, jumping a bit in place to exaggerate her condition
"I guess so, but how are we getting there?" Thomas questions me
"This pack is built on a cursed zone, we just need it to take to Percy"
"That man, he's going to the Moonlit Sky" Alex coughs out
"Are you sure!?" I feel my face scrunch up with frustration at the mention of him
"He said that they were next while we were fighting...or rather as I was getting thrown around" He looks down with disappointment but I place my hand on his shoulder to reassure him
"It was my fault for not listening to you in the first place, but I'm not understanding what exactly happened?"
"He never even shifted Adam!" Alex's face distraught with emotions, slamming his fists into the bed, alarming me but I stayed unphased in the position I sit in, waiting for him to continue.
"He. Never. Shifted. Maybe I'm just weaker than we both thought and he knew it" He puts his head back down and covers his eyes seemingly to hold back tears. Taking the moment to hug him through his silence knowing he's only feeling pain at the moment. "Yasmine maybe you should stay" I admit knowing that the closeness of a mate could help him a lot. But he responds for her.
"No, I don't want you guys to be delayed anymore cause of me. I'll stay here with Rane and keep in touch with you once you come back"
"In that case, try to meet up with us at the Moonlit Sky pack. We're killing this so called peace-making fucker that Rane seems to idolize" I stare at him from across the room, knowing damn well that he heard me say that. My line making Alex smile for the first time since he woke up.
"Alex, I promise we'll have our time. I just really need to help Percy first" Yasmine pleads, leaning down to touch him but he pulls her arm into a suffocating hug. Stroking her hair with a deep compassion, "I won't lose you, and I know you're strong. Just don't be stupid please" He begs in remembrance to his first although unknowing to Yasmine.
"You can trust me!" They briefly kiss before she hops out of his lap and back onto the floor, reminding me of Percy's first innocent interaction with me.
"Let's get going then?" Thomas asks, holding his hand out from the door and extending it towards us
"Adam, take care of Athena" Rane comments as I leave, a clear tone of disappointment in his voice.
"I planned to" My words making him smile a bit before he makes his way towards Alex to sit beside him. I trust them, and I'm waiting for the day we can all fight together again.
-
"Aren't we going to go through the front?" - Thomas
"Notice how each time we've used a current we ended up in one specific point? I believe that's the condition for it, otherwise I don't understand how we haven't came across them before. At least that's what makes most sense to me" They shrugs their shoulders at my explanation and go along with it, instead heading towards the back doors where we came in from.
Opening the doors to the deafening sound of rain digging up the ground I immediately create a safe space for us to walk out into it. Just enough being stopped to where they can barely hear me, "Look around!" They nod and begin scanning the floor for anything that could give it away that we failed to notice before.
-
A long while of searching passes and I feel myself getting tired from maintaining it so long. But Thomas tugs on my shirt to inform me of something, the places where we landed now covered in a thick mud where the land noticeably becomes more squishy than the rest. We all put our feet closer to inspect it but a muddy burst of water suddenly erupts from the ground, blinding me and making me drop the hellish rain onto us but helping to wash the mud out of my eyes. Feeling my legs sink into the ground I open my eyes up again to see that we're being pulled under, Thomas and Yasmine's panicked faces tells me they're squirming under the surface of it. 'Be calm, let it take you', I could be insanely wrong here and leading us to our deaths or I could be right...a worthwhile trade.
Following my own advice and slipping through I see a deep blue filled space of bubbles and shining stones floating throughout it. The other two not appearing too far behind me as we swim downward, unlike the other currents this one isn't pulling us, instead our bodies have full control although the water feels like it's getting more dense with each stroke.
Remaining close to each other we alarmingly start swimming slower and slower the closer we get to the image in front of us. The space itself taking the appearance of an ocean but we can still breathe, but anytime I try speaking it gets replaced by a burst of bubbles in my face. The final paddles of movement needed to get through this current feeling like my joints would rip apart. A final tension break as I throw my hand through the image of the greenery that I'm viewing, picking myself up through it and coughing out into ground from feeling winded at the change in pressure.
"I hate...this" Thomas copies my pained coughs before lifting himself to his feet. "Woah" He gasps in amazement at the surroundings, the soft terrain grass disguising the harshness of the environment behind us. A florescent smell hiding the scent of rotting bodies and decayed meat that's strung up by the plants.
"And...Percy is here?" Yasmine questions me
"I hope" Is all I can reply with, not having any evidence to confirm whether or not. Even so we continue walking to what seems to be deeper into the zone, a warm wind washing past us every now and then and would otherwise be comforting if it wasn't for the human and animal skulls sticking out of the ground like an after meal.
"Do you guys hear that?"
"Hear what?" Yasmine responds to Thomas who picks up his pace to a direction unbeknownst to us, "Talking?" He tries to identify it but seems uncertain himself.
-
Passing into the what feels like the centre of the flourished zone I hear the voices that Thomas was referring to, "I deserve my rightful place back, do I not?"
"It is not my place to decide that nor have I ever cared for the affairs of the world" I see Clio talking to the figure I can't ever mistake to be my mate.
"Percy!" I run ahead of the other two and go to lay my hand on him, only to be stopped by Clio rushing over to me first
"Heed your pace, that is not the one you're familiar with" She quietly voices into my ear, a slight shudder falling down my spine as I glance back at Percy's turning body
"Ah, the mate" He laughs to himself although appearing forced
"And you are?" Yasmine asks in my place, the dark grin still whipped across his face as he eyes me up and down
"A true pity it wasn't your body, we've met before. Surely you remember these" He waves his hand past his eyes, the scene itself taking a painfully slow reveal to show me the burning gold eyes that I saw once before.
"That is the very wolf we're trying to stop" Clio informs me while I grit my teeth together in increasing anger
"What do you mean 𝘞𝘦 Cliodhna? What happened to being neutral?" He places a hand on his chest to imitate the feeling of being hurt
"Not picking a side is as bad as being one of the reasons our world is currently struggling. And you've hurt more than you know. Fenrir." She approaches him but still stays a bit away
"Ah, so you won't be joining me this time?"
"No"
"Truly hurtful, but I have other remaining...family ties." He smiles to himself once again, my foot digging itself into the grass to prepare for me to charge at him
"That bracelet you have on, why haven't you removed it yourself?" - Cliodhna
"I just haven't felt like it"
"It's because only the person who put it on can remove it, am I not right?"
"You get off by thinking you're so smart don't you? You're nothing but a hollow figure waiting to be met with death, come let me deliver it to you" His tone sinks into a deeper fixation and eyes growing colder with each passing second. A visible note that he's losing his patience with us already.
"Let me ask you something, why have you not moved?" She points at his feet that are planted in the floor as if his weight is unmatched to his body size
"You think I cannot harm you?" A brief comment before Percy's body begins cracking, his frame gradually stretching itself minorly until he makes an anticlimactic drop to his hands and knees
"So I was correct, without Percy you can't move with that bracelet on. It's remarkable how powerless you are at the moment" She smirks, finally closing the distance between them and looking him into the eyes
"It's breaking, even you know those stones were only temporary. Until then I'll be here, watching you squirm with the machinations of insects. Continue holding onto that tiny glimmer of hope that you've been given. I'll make it my first job to take that light from your eyes" He visibly spits out in annoyance, the action juxtaposed by Percy's small body but his words feeling too true in the weight they hold.
Clio ignores him knowing he isn't a threat in the moment ironically enough, "Percy and your sister have gone into the underworld in hopes of securing his last chance of saving him. They shouldn't be too long, it's best you stay here until they return."
"Bullshit I want to see him now!"
"What I meant by "best", is that you quite literally cannot enter without Oracion's help. Now sit and wait" She forces a hand on my shoulder and puts me to the floor like a child on time-out. If I wasn't tired from that obnoxious swimming I'd of fought back, although the serenity of the grass is calming me with it's aromatherapy. Glancing at Thomas who's trying to eat who knows what fruit dangling from a tree and Yasmine already laying like a starfish on the terrain.
"Thomas I swear to god you're going to get poisoned"
"No, being poisoned is an exaggeration. I prefer the term...uncertain certain death"
"What the hell are you even saying!?"
"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW JUST LET ME EAT THE PLANT!"
"Let him" Yasmine laughs out and so I give up and wish him the best, and now the hardest part. Waiting for Percy and Athena to come back to us.