violent delights, percy jackson

chapter eleven

"Uh, okay," He replied, sounding about as confused as felt herself. Gods, where was Annabeth when you needed her? She would have been all over this type of thing. Not Azalea, she wanted to stay as far away from this endless maze as possible, like a reasonable human being. "What kind of—?"

He never got to finding his question, as Azalea's finger tips moved across a groove in the wall that didn't feel like a regular crack in cement. As if it was burned or pressed into it like an insignia. The Mark of Daedalus. Her finger tips traced the symbol and instantly it started to glow a bright neon blue. The Greek symbol of Delta.

"That kind of symbol," Azalea breathed in a sigh of relief as the roof slide open and the pale sky reappeared, only now covered with a violet and orange mirage. The colours of sunset. Metal ladders dropped down from the opening, leading all the way up to the top of the exit. Without so much as a second to spare, both Percy and Azalea quickly went to climb the rungs in a hurry, not wanting to be stranded down there a moment longer. As she climbed, Azalea only had one lasting thought. That she was never, ever going back to that place.

Whilst they climbed, Azalea and Percy heard the bellows, shouts and calls of multiple voices yelling their names. With each adjusted arm or step upwards, as they got closer to the surface the anxiety and fear melted away from the blonde girl. Sunlight, solid ground and safety beckoning her arrival. When they arrived at the top, and managed to squeeze their ways around the narrowing opening in rocks, they ran into Clarisse, the previous Ares girl with a burly figure and a bunch of other campers looking relieved to have found them.

"Where have you two been?" Clarisse demanded angrily, as she stared at Azalea with a ferocious look. She all but snarled at Percy, "We've been looking forever."

"But we were gone only ten or fifteen minutes," Percy stated dumbly with confusion written all over his face. Azalea was just staring at the slowly fading sunset with shock. Time passed different in magical places, that much was true but nearly a whole day when it felt like at most a half hour? That couldn't be right at all.

Hearing that they were found, Chiron trotted up with his bow and arrow at the ready as he glanced at the both of them, seeing they were relatively unharmed. Though he didn't miss the mental instability showing through on the Apollo girl. She was still shaking like a leaf from her delve in the darkness. Tyson, the cyclops, and a satyr followed closely behind him.

"Percy!" Tyson exclaimed happily, before asking with his big eye blinking wildly as it took in his half-brother's appearance. "You are okay?"

"We're fine," Percy stated, though Azalea figured he was putting a little more positively into the sentence than he normally would. Azalea herself was anything but fine at this moment. Lee and Micheal showed not a second later and both sighed in relief at seeing Azalea alive. "We fell in a hole."

The campers, including Lee and Micheal looked at Percy skeptically. Micheal liking ready to call him a liar, before their eyes darted the bolden girl who usually had a lot more to say standing silently at his side. Obviously shaken up. Annabeth pushed foreword in the crowd, her eyes darting over both fo them like all the others. Looking ready to pummel them both for worrying her.

"Honest!" Percy exclaimed at the campers mistrust towards him.  "There were three scorpions after us, so we ran and hid in the rocks. But we were only gone ten minutes."

"You've been missing for almost three hours," Chiron stated gravely before tossing a well meant look at the frazzled blonde girl who was otherwise in an entirely different dimension. "The game is over."