Blood Of The Hero

Chapter 11

But there was a wide variety of animals around us. There was a leopard, an owl, a couple of snakes, a fucking lion, a couple of cats painted to look like baby tigers, and the best of all, an actual zebra. It looked horribly sad though, dirty and skinny. It's ribs were showing and I swear I could've seen tears well up in it's eyes.

"You'll be free soon." I couldn't help but think at I looked at it.

"Thank you, my prince." A voice replied back in my head, and I actually jolted in surprise, not expecting that. I looked around quickly, trying to find the source of the voice and I'm pretty sure I looked weird considering the look Annabeth gave me.

But then my eyes landed on the zebra, which was staring straight into my eyes intensely.

"Did you just say that?!" I thought, feeling a bit dumb trying to speak to an exotic horse.

It nodded. "Yes, my liege."

I blinked. Right. OK. Sure. Why not? I can speak to equestrians now. This made perfect sense.

"It's because of your father, my prince." The zebra spoke again in my mind and it all clicked for me.

My dad wasn't just the god of the sea, earthquakes or storms. He also created horses. And dolphins, but that wasn't really relevant. But that's why I could hear the zebra speak in my mind.

Before I had the time to fully appreciate that though, footsteps and voices began to appear near the truck, and Annabeth, Grover and I all instantly hid ourselves by ducking between boxes and cages, concealing ourselves into the shadows.

I could hear a gruff voice nearby, and I'm pretty sure he was closing the doors to the truck while speaking to another dude.

"Marty, are you sure she gave you syphilis? Because I'm pretty sure everybody gets a rash on their d-"

BANG

The doors fully closed with a bang, shutting out any other light from the outside world and leaving us with only a weak strobe light that flickered like crazy.

Soon after, I could feel us begin to move.

I turned to my right, where Annabeth was hidden behind a box, and got her attention by muttering her name. I gestured for her to come over to me and she obliged.

Annabeth sat down next to me with a thud and looked up at me.

"What?" She crossed her arms. I shrugged.

"Just wanted to talk."

"About what?"

"Anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything." I reaffirmed. She nodded.

"Cool. So about the que-" I put my finger up to silence her quickly.

"Let me stop you right there. When I said we could talk about anything, I didn't mean the quest, y'know?" She shook her head.

"You said we could talk about anything."

"I lied."

"Ah." She sounded. "So whadduya wanna talk about?"

"I dunno? Celebrity crushes or something?" I shrugged but I felt stupid when she gave me an amused smirk and crossed her arms.

I groaned. "Fine. Let's talk about the quest. I'll go first. What exactly is DOA Studios?"

"It stands for Dead-On-Arrival, and it's a recording studio for mortals, but the entrance to the Underworld for people like us." She spoke like she was reading out of a textbook.