❝𝘴-𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯❞
❝𝙞 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪.❞
𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗬 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗢𝗡 had met a lot of people and he had seen a lot of things that had caught his eyes. But she was a different story. The girl with the long hair was just someone he coul...
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XXVII. THE DAY I WITNESS THE RISE OF THE LABYRINTH
━━━━━━
"It only hurts this much right now
Was what I was thinking the whole time"
CAMP HALF-BLOOD'S WOODS HAD ALWAYS been like a second — er, maybe third — no, fourth? Either way, it was a place that wasn't all that foreign to Dodie. Yet, somehow, it was a little bit scary when you don't have a clue where on earth you're supposed to go. In short: it was like a small maze. But they have always had help from the nymphs and satyrs that resided here. However, during games such as this, no such help could come to them.
As scary as it was, Dodie guessed it was lucky that she at least knew the woods like the back of her hand — of course not as well as the nymphs and satyrs and such, but still good enough to know which way to go even if she was nothing but anxiety incarnation. She guessed it was also luck that they were released into the woods when it was still light, but the shadows from the trees could easily fool anyone into thinking that it was midnight. It was cold, too, even in summer. Percy and Dodie, to their luck, had found tracks almost immediately — scuttling marks made by something with a lot of legs. They began to follow the trail.
"Doing okay there, Dods? It's getting dark," Percy had been nonstop in glancing over his shoulders to make sure she hadn't fallen into some random hole or something, considering she was as blind as a bat, and it wasn't like she wearing her night glasses.
However, while cute the sentiment was, Dodie also found this to be quite... interesting in a way.
"For the hundredth time, Percy, I'm not totally blind," she sighed as she felt the hand gripping her wrist tighten its grip protectively; Percy was leading the way through the woods, all the while Dodie could hear hundreds if not thousands of sounds all around them.
Ever since they had stumbled into the forest, her hearing had heightened tremendously. And frankly, Dodie wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not...
"Cool, cool, cool," said Percy, trying to play it cool, but he was doing an incredibly terrible job at it. "Just so you know, we're moving past a creak,"
"I can see that," mused Dodie.
"And it's going to be slippery —"
"Trust me, I'm not going to die just because I'm not wearing my glasses, Percy,"
"Just wanting to be safe than sorry, you know," he muttered.
Dodie shook her head.
As they reached the creek, Percy jumped expertly, all the while Dodie was careful with her steps, gripping Percy's hands tightly. Just as she was about to jump on another stone, not wanting to get her shoes entirely wet, they heard some twigs snapping nearby. Looking at each other, they shared the same thought and crouched behind a boulder, but it was only the Stoll brothers tripping through the woods and cursing. Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as buffaloes.
