artemis ; pjo

The Thrill of Rushing

The shadowtravel took longer than it should have, and it was more painful.

   When I finally felt the ground under my feet, fatigue swept over me. I stumbled around, trying to regain feeling, but I tripped over my own feet. Someone caught me as I went down.

"Thanks," I said, and they helped me up. I turned around and saw that it was Ben who had caught me. I scrunched up my nose and thought, Never mind, I  would rather had fallen.

"Alright, where are we?" Gabby asked.

"Yeah, I've never seen this," Dan said.

   I looked around and saw that we were in an alleyway. In the dark it was hard to make out, it just looked like any dingy alley. I realized that I had subconsciously thought of a different part of New York. We were in the alleyway that James had taken me through to get to the Hudson River.

"I know where we are, follow me," I said, retracing my steps from what felt like a month ago. Maybe it was.

   We wandered through the dark, passing some mortals who gave us weird looks. Young teens walking through New York at 11 didn't seem weird to me, but then I remembered that we looked horrible. We finally made it to a main street. I didn't know where we were this time. I tried guessing, but it felt like we were getting farther away.

"Okay, we're officially lost. Sorry," I said.

Dan just walks away and approaches a stranger. A few moments pass and he comes back.

"We've been going in the wrong direction for 30 minutes," Dan said.

"Damn!" I shouted.

"We can't get there in time, it's 11:50," Gabby said gravely.

"Maybe we can," I said quietly. The others gave me a funny look and I whistled. Out of nowhere a taxi swerved violently into view. It parked next to where we were standing.

"You again?" A creaky voice asked.

"Yeah, listen, I'll give you like, 5 drachmas if you can get us to the Empire Sate Building super fast. The world kinds depends on it," I explained.

"If the world depends on it, it might be worth more," another voice said.

I rolled my eyes and opened the door. We all piled in.

"I'll give you a bunch. Now go!" I yelled.

   The three old women muttered among themselves for a moment, then the taxi shot off. They began arguing and the driver took out the third woman's eye. Ben let out a yelp.

"Let the driver have the eye!" I screamed. All three women jumped.

"You've gained confidence since the last time," The second woman said.

My mind was racing and I barely caught what she said.
"Heh, yeah," I mumbled.

As I said that we screeched to a halt and my neck jerked.
"Ow."

   I threw about 6 drachmas, give or take, and jumped out of the cab. We ran up to turn doors and tried to open them, but they were locked.

"Can they make his any harder?!" Gabby shouted, leaving the few people left around us to stare.

Dan pressed his face against the glass door.
"There's lights on, and I see a security guard."

"Perfect. Pound like hell in the door," Gabby said.

We all did that for 30 seconds, and the guard came up to the door. He unlocked it and began shouting at us. Gabby interrupted him and said, "Look, we need to get to Olympus now!"

   He then proceeded to ask us questions that we all tried our best at answering. After that, he let us through. We climbed into the elevator and pressed 600. As we rose to determine the fate of the world, Für Elise played in the background.

Hey, so I don't think I built that up well, but that might be because I'm the author.

I just wanted to tell you guys that in having an OC contest in my other book You Know You're a Fangirl When...
So, check that out if you're interested!