Liz's POV
"Ugh. I've never been drunk, but this must be what a hangover feels like."
My eyes snap open, and I am greeted by the slim figure of Nico di Angelo. It's early morning now, still dark out, but I can just make out his features. Any visible skin is badly bruised and swollen from all the bees. His body is also covered in various cuts and gashes, all layered in dried blood. Dark circles fill his lower eyelids. He's half sitting, half laying against the dip in the ground, gazing off into the distance.
"You're awake," Nico observes, shifting his eyes to me.
"Couldn't sleep." I mutter absentmindedly.
"I feel you there." Nico says, resuming his previous gaze into nowhere.
I turn my head and see Annabeth and Clarisse still asleep and covered in the blankets I placed on them the night before, looking much the same as Nico does, with all the bruises, gashes and blood.
While trying to think of any possible herbs I could gather from the woods to help with Nico, Annabeth, and Clarisse's wounds, my mind drifts to...whatever that was with the imaginary Katniss last night. Her words haunt me.
You did this to me. You promised. Kill me. Too late anyway, Elizabeth.
"I'm going to go find some herbs for those wounds." I say numbly as I stand up, gesturing to Nico but only half speaking to him, half to myself.
I'm answered by a grunt as Nico stirs, apparently asleep.
I sigh and stand up, groaning and stiff. I look down to see that my skin is nearly identical to that of Nico, Annabeth, and Clarisse. However, I do look a little less bloody thanks to the ambrosia and nectar, and the swelling from the bee stings does seem to have gone down a bit.
As I make my way towards the woods, I see a bird sitting on a low branch of a full grown evergreen tree. A small stream runs along one side of the tree. I look closer and notice a small plant growing in the water. I gasp. The plant is katniss.
I decide to take this as a sign from the gods that Katniss is alive and well. Carefully, I crouch down and pluck some of the katniss from the ground. My gaze shifts back to the bird sitting on the tree branch. Suddenly, a white-hot pain sears behind my temples, and I relive my conversation with Apollo from the other day...
Not many creatures do deserve to die. With this bird you must learn that death is merely a part of the circle of life....This is a tough lesson to learn, but it is vital to your quest....Goodbye, my Elizabeth. And remember this lesson. Remember what I have taught you....
I cry out, squeezing my eyes shut. Why did I have to remember that now? Slowly, I get back to my feet and brush a tear from beneath my eye. I take a deep, shaky breath and enter the forest. It is unnaturally quiet, and I feel like millions of unseen eyes are watching me. I make my way through the woods, disrupting the eerie silence.
Then, out of nowhere, hundreds, no, thousands of wings are beating, flapping above and all around me. They press around me as one bird flies out in front of me, drops dead on the ground and begins to speak in Katniss' voice, saying:
"You said you could save me. You promised! I'm dying and it's all your fault. How could you do this to me? Kill me! Kill me! KILL ME!"
"No!" I sob, reaching out for the bird.
"Too late." the bird cries, and it is still.
During this time, the birds around me had grown thicker, and were flapping faster, faster, faster. Now they began to dive at me. Their beaks flashed bronze before they stabbed me over and over. They shot arrows from their wings at me from every angle. Then I couldn't take it any longer. I collapsed on the ground and screamed.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Gods forgive me!" I wept. My vision was blurred by my tears and blood, but the birds just kept coming. I heard their metal beaks snap at me, and at each other as they fought over my flesh. They clawed at me with their talons and dug at my skin, ripping it. They pulled my hair and shredded my clothes. I try to look up but all I see is the birds. So many birds. The mass of them is so thick now that I see no light, just their wings, beaks and claws. They won't stop biting, clawing, scratching me, despite my pleas for mercy...
Annabeth's POV
"Where's Liz?" I say, groaning as I stir and sit up. I nudge Clarisse to wake her up.
"She went to go get herbs, I think." Nico says, rubbing his eyes.
"You let her go by herself?! Nico, you know how dangerous it is here!" I say, suddenly wide awake.
Clarisse sits up, "Yeah, on that topic, you never told Liz and I why you two came back the other day all bloody. What was that about?"
Nico opens his mouth to explain when we hear a scream off in the distance.
"What was that?" Clarisse exclaims, jumping to her feet.
My stomach lurches as I too stand up quickly, "Not what. Who. You don't think—?"
Nico is already up and reaching for his Stygian iron sword, "Let's hope not. Come on."
Liz's POV
I've given up begging for mercy from these birds. They won't listen. They just keep diving and tearing at my skin, until I don't how there could possibly be any left. I'm suddenly light headed, and the corners of my vision darken. Everything sounds as if it is under water, except for the sound of my ragged breathing. I lift up my hand, squinting to try and make it out. All I see is a vague red shape. I drop it to my side. The birds seem to be coming in slow motion now. That's good, maybe they've given up. Maybe my friends have come to save poor, innocent Liz. I always wanted to be as brave and heroic as all of them, to be able to save everyone for once. My vision darkens more so, like when the curtains close at the end of a play, fading into black nothingness...
Clarisse's POV
We're running through the woods, yelling Liz's name over and over, looking for any sign of life. With all the noise, we're probably attracting who knows how many and what kind of deadly monsters. I grit my teeth, thinking of how stupid and selfish it was of me to tell Liz to knock me out last night. How did she even manage to get us to safety all by herself? I should've fought the hallucinations so I could help her, but I was only thinking of myself and my own fear. I glance to Nico and Annabeth on either side of me, and I can see they're having similar feelings of regret. We all buckled under our fears, except for Liz. Without her, we probably would've died.
Suddenly Nico freezes in his tracks. Annabeth and I both stop. His expression is unreadable.
"What is it?" I say, remembering his ability to sense death.
"I felt..." Nico starts staring at the ground, then he looks up at Annabeth and I and says what we all know, "She's gone."
Annabeth curses.
"Well, maybe your death-o-meter is out of whack in this place. It doesn't seem like anywhere we've been before and—" Nico shakes his head, cutting me off.
"I don't think so." He says quietly.
"Well, so what if she is? I mean, we can't just turn around and go have breakfast. We are finding this girl, right now." I say, surprising myself with how much I mean it.
"Alright," Nico says, "But its not going to be pretty."
With that, Nico takes the lead and Annabeth and I follow in silence. We come to a clearing that is scattered with bird feathers and blood. Off to one side there is a body-sized pile of flesh, bone, and shredded fabric.
Annabeth gasps and brings a hand to her mouth.
I bend down and pickup one of the feathers. "Holy..."
"What is it?" Nico says, walking over to me to get a closer look.
"Annabeth," I say, motioning her over.
Annabeth tears her eyes away from Liz's mangled body and walks over as well.
"Do you remember, the year we had the chariot races at camp when Tantalus was there?"
"How could I not, you won and Tantalus made Percy, Tyson and I clean dishes with the harpies after..."
"After the Stymphalian birds attacked us, yeah. I think that's what, you know." I say, gesturing towards Liz's corpse.
"Stymphalian birds?" Nico says, his brow furrowing, "You mean the birds with the celestial bronze beaks and a nasty taste for human flesh?"
I look at Nico, confused. "Yeah, how did you—"
"A few of those decided to feast on Annabeth and I earlier."
"So that's what happened to you two?"
Nico nods gravely.
I look back to Liz's body and step closer. There must have been a lot of those birds, and they must have really wanted Liz dead, but why? She never did anything wrong.
"So what do we do now?" I ask, still staring at Liz's dead body.
"I don't know." says the daughter of Athena.
"I don't know." says the son of Hades.