The Journey Through Tartarus

Terminal Velocity

Percy's Pov:

Hesiod said that it would take nine days to fall from earth to Tartarus, had it been days, hours, minutes I couldn't be sure. The only thing I could see was darkness, the only sound I could hear was the rush of wind. My arm ached I think during my fall I dislocated my shoulder, that was something I needed to fix and soon. As I fell, I realized the vast hopelessness I faced, I was falling into the literal Hell, where I would have to fight my way through Gaia's elite forces to get to the doors of death, then close them and escape back to the mortal world, back to Annabeth.

I began to realize a flaw in my plan, if I continued to fall at this speed, I would become a demigod pancake on impact. I needed something to slow my fall, I began to wonder if I could fashion a parachute out of my shirt no matter if it was riddled with holes, that's how desperate I was.

Suddenly, the chute I'd been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below me, Percy could see the bottom. For a moment he was too stunned to think properly. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern – and I couldn't even see its full extent.

Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape at least what he could see of it was rocky black plains punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To My left, the ground dropped away in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

I looked around for anything that wouldn't kill me on impact. Then I saw it, a glittering black ribbon carved its way through the black landscape, I hadn't even noticed it at first glance because the black landscape and black river blended together well.

As I fell, I spread out my body like a skydiver, letting myself fall towards the river. When I was above it, I tried to control the water, but it didn't work. Fear and anger rose within me and I gave a mighty shout as the river finally obeyed my will rising up to catch me.

The impact didn't kill me, but the cold nearly did, the oxygen was shocked out of my lunges, the current of the river pulled me down. I tried to breathe only to inhale the black water. Once I reached the bottom the voices started, "What's the point of struggling? they told me. You're dead anyway. You'll never leave this place." At that moment I realized how right they were, my determination to survive momentarily vanished and  gave in to death, then I heard a different voice, one that filled me with hope and power,

"Seaweed brain get out of the water." My eyes snapped open and called the water to push me up, and this time I wouldn't take no for an answer. A whirlpool pushed me to the surface, and I began to swim towards the shore ignoring the pain in my shoulder. I pushed myself out of the water exhausted, I winced as my palms burned on the ground, I looked down to realize that the riverbank was composed of small pieces of black glass shards, a few of which were still embedded in my hands. Plucking them out and standing up I began to look around, I didn't know which direction I needed to go to get to the doors of death, but the black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where I stood,  I couldn't see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires. I decided that was a good direction to go. But A hundred feet away, a familiar-looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand. It looked just like the Fiat that had smashed into Arachne and sent her plummeting into the pit.

I set off towards the car thinking that I could raid it for supplies, but as I approached, I noticed several things. One of the car's tires had come off and was floating in a backwater eddy of the Black River. Two of The Fiat's windows had shattered, sending brighter glass-like frosting across the dark beach. But the third thing I noticed, under the crushed hood lay the tattered, glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon – the trap that Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving. It was unmistakably empty. Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver... as if something heavy, with multiple legs, had scuttled into the darkness.