Chapter Text
Jason had officially lost track of time since the moment he and his friends decided to step into this nightmare, he had seen things that made him believe he was probably hallucinating from stress, the yellow walls were the worst part, (he had always thought that the yellow color was one of the prettiest colors, but now he swore that once they found their way out he would never buy anything yellow again), the constant buzzing was a close second, it vibrated in his teeth and to his skull and gave him a permanent headache that not even his mother's incoherent arguments could cause him.
But the absolute worst part was that he had lost Will and Nico.
It happened probably after their first hour aimlessly walking through the endless yellow labyrinth searching for any clue that their friends have been there, (aside from Leo’s backpack that they found outside the ruins) when something had come out of a dark hallway. Jason still couldn't describe what it had been, just a shape too tall and thin, its limbs bending at angles that shouldn’t be physically possible, and it was fast. They had tried to remain together but in the chaos of running and Nico throwing stuff at the thing just to find out it did absolutely nothing, Jason had turned into a corner with Reyna and once he looked back, Nico and Will were gone.
Jason had tried to run back and call out for them but Reyna stopped him, it would probably only worsen things if the monster heard them instead of their friends.
“They’re smart,” Reyna had said quietly, grabbing his arm. “But we need to keep moving.”
Jason knew she was right, they wouldn’t be able to help anyone if they got themselves killed.
Now they were standing inside what looked like a hotel lobby, one from a very, very old one. Jason thought that if Annabeth was right there she would have a lot of comments on the architecture but mostly it was almost.. nice.
The transition had been abrupt and Jason still was a little confused about it, but everything about this place was confusing so it was nothing new. For a moment Jason had thought that maybe they had made it to the outside world. But after a few minutes wandering around and realizing they were the only people there, his hopes had been lost.
“What is this place?” Jason said looking at the dust covered furniture in the lobby.
“i don’t know, but it's different, that's good, could mean that we are getting somewhere.” Reyna said from somewhere behind him.
“or that we are getting deeper.” Jason suggested with a shrug.
“mh maybe..” Reyna said opening drawers from the front desk. Jason had gotten distracted with a weird looking mirror so when she called for him again he jumped a little. “Jason, look at this.”
He quickly went over to behind the desk where she was kneeling, her flashlight pointing at the bottom drawer. There were a few items there, supplies, like the ones they had brought but different, somehow they looked very familiar.
“Someone was here before us.” Reyna said, her voice shaking slightly. “bottles of water, first aid kids, granola bars and flashlights.” She listed while taking them out and putting them in her own backpack.
“Wait, hold on, aren’t those the granola bars the uni sells at the cafeterias?” Jason said his eyes were narrowing, he took off his glasses to give them a clean with his shirt.
“you’re right… you think this belongs to some other student?” Reyna said, closing her backpack after one last look at the granola bars.
“It could be from Travis or Katie?” Jason suggested, putting his now clean glasses back on.
“No, I don't think so, from what we know they weren’t prepared to enter this place, it wouldn’t make sense..”
“Right” Jason sighed, still looking at the now empty drawer, Reyna had already stood up prepared to keep moving. “Shouldn’t we leave a note?”
“What?” Reyna turned around with a confused look.
“I mean what if the people who left all this return?”
Reyna watched him with a sad smile and shrugged. “Sure you’re right, we shouldn’t let this place take the best of us right?”
Jason kneeled on the spot where Reyna had been previously and opened Leo’s backpack, Jason knew that Leo never went anywhere without his small notebook where he wrote jokes for his stand up shows at that bar near the uni. He still remembered the first time they met, he had been sitting front row alone, all his friends were busy and he was melancholic. He had just planned to grab a few drinks and go, but it was an open mic night. Leo had looked so nervous those first minutes, but as the public began clapping and laughing at all his jokes, Jason saw him transform.
He began passing pages with a small smile on his face, trying not to read any joke that Leo had written there, making a silent promise to wait until he saw him again, so he could tell them himself.
Once he found an empty page he began writing a small note. To whoever had belonged those things, in case they’d return for them. He tore off the page and left it in the drawer.
“alright lets go.”
After they finished looking around the hotel lobby finding nothing else of interest they kept walking, went upstairs and checked all the rooms, but they were all empty, some had old furniture covered in dust, but not one room was complete. Jason walked next to Reyna who was constantly looking over her shoulder, he noticed the way her hand hovered over the knife she had brought, he knew she was scared, but he also knew her well enough to know she would never admit it.
it wasn’t until the sixth room when they finally found something, this room had a bed and nothing more, but on the floor there was a camera, forgotten there, but it was not old or dusty like all the other stuff they’ve found. The screen was cracked but it still worked. Jason grabbed it immediately, turning it on.
His heart sank when he saw the most recent recording, it was in the same room they were currently in, Piper was on screen, she had blood on her face and looked on the verge of tears.
“What is that?” she said quietly looking at the person behind the camera.
“I don’t know…” the other voice replied, Rachel, Jason assumed.
a loud noise could be heard through the recording, Piper jumped and shook her head. “what do we do?” she asked, getting closer to the camera.
Rachel didn’t get to respond, as soon as the camera pointed over to the door the girls screamed and the camera fell to the floor.
“They were here..” Reyna who had been looking next to him said.
Jason turned off the camera, he felt so helpless right then, what was he even supposed to do to help his friends? but then he realized Leo wasn’t on the video, Jason didn’t have much time to think about what it meant before Reyna grabbed his arm.
“We can’t stay here, that thing.. it could come back.”
Jason nodded, taking a deep breath before putting the camera on his backpack. “Which way?”
Reyna moved to the door, opening slowly to have a peek outside, “The hallway to the right. It's the only direction we haven’t checked.”
They moved cautiously, their footsteps silent on the worn red carpet. The hallway stretched forever, lined with doors, each one identical to the last, it reminded him of a movie he watched with Piper and Leo a while ago, The Shining, the memory felt so far away now.
They were halfway down the hallway when he spotted a door slightly open, light spilling out from the crack. He signaled to Reyna. They approached the door carefully, when Jason pushed it open they found words written on the floor with what looked like lipstick.
IT CAN HEAR YOU.
Jason felt a chill run down his spine. He turned to Reyna ready to say something when he heard it. Loud footsteps that Jason was very sure that didn’t belong to a human.
“Go.” Reyna hissed looking behind her quickly before shoving him forward. “Go, go, go!”
They ran, The footsteps were louder now, they moved faster now, a frantic pounding rhythm that echoed through the hall. Jason could hear the thing breathing, the sound making his skin crawl.
A door to their left was open, Jason didn’t think, he just grabbed Reyna and pulled her through, slamming the door behind them. They stood in the dim light breathing hard, listening. The footsteps stopped right outside their door.
Jason held his breath.
The thing was there, they could see the shadow from the small creek on the floor, it let out a low growl. Then the footsteps continued, the monster was moving away.
They were safe, for now.
Jason let out a big breath and sat down on the floor, his back against a wall, the room was as empty as all the others, but at least they were fine, together, for a moment that was all that mattered.
Reyna sat down next to him, looking in her backpack for a bottle of water, offering him some, he gave her a small smile and took it from her hand.
It wasn’t until he was going to give it back when he noticed the wound on her arm.
“Reyna, you’re bleeding.”
She looked down at her arm, as if she hadn’t noticed until now.
“Oh yeah I think I scratched myself with the door, it’s nothing.”
But Jason was already moving, grabbing his first aid-kit from his backpack. “Let me see it”
He gently grabbed her left arm, revealing a deep gash along her forearm. It wasn’t life threatening of course, but it was ugly and bleeding steadily. Jason grimaced, as he grabbed what he needed from the kit.
“This is going to stink.” he warned, his voice still down.
Reyna nodded, and she didn’t flinch when he cleaned the wound, her gaze fixed on the far wall, Jason worked quickly, probably not as quickly as Will had done so, but he had a little experience from treating his own injuries after volleyball practice.
“You should have told me you were hurt.” he said quietly as he placed a bandage around her forearm to stop the bleeding.
“I barely even felt it, we had biggest things to worry about.” She said but her eyes didn’t meet his.
“Reyna, we are in this together, you have to let me take care of you sometimes you know? you don’t have to carry everything on your own.”
She chuckled quietly looking at the floor. “Why do I feel like we are not talking about the wound anymore?”
Jason just stared at her with sad eyes, then she finally met his gaze, and he saw a crack in her armor, the kind of vulnerability she rarely let anyone see. But he was not just anyone.
“Remember when we were kids and our sisters forced us to be friends so they could see each other more often?” She said with a small smile.
Jason blinked at the change of subject, but he nodded. “I remember, at first you were so serious, you wouldn’t even look at me.” but he smiled, despite everything.
“i was terrified of you.” she admitted.
“what?!” Jason laughed, a short, surprised sound. “Why would you be terrified of me?”
“Because you were so.. earnest. You wanted to be friends so badly, and not even just with me, with everyone. And I had no idea what to do with that. I’ve never had many friends.. Hylla was the social one, not me. But you already know all that.” Reyna sighed, her gaze drifting back to the wall.
Jason remembered that, the way Rena would stand far away from everyone during breaks, her arms crossed watching everyone else play. Back then it didn’t seem to bother her at all, but as they grew older Jason realized she might have been way better at faking confidence than most other kids. He remembered Hylla practically pushing her towards him. Thalia had a smile on her face standing beside Hylla. “You two are going to be best friends, Thalia and I have decided.”
He remembered how she had glared at him with a frown, and how he had smiled at her and said. “Do you play hide and seek?” with a big smile, cause Jason never said no to a new friend anyway.
“You were so different from all the other kids at our school,” Reyna continued. “i didn’t understand why you actually wanted to get to know me, you were not just keeping me company cause our sisters practically forced us to, no, you seem to actually enjoy every time i was around and.. you even laughed at my jokes, i didn’t knew how to handle all that.” she chuckled and smiled, shaking her head. Jason almost missed the tear that ran down her cheek, he didn’t mention it.
“You handled it pretty well.” Jason said. “Its actually crazy, we’ve been friends for, what, sixteen years?”
“Seventeen.” Reyna corrected him. “We first met when we were five.”
“Seventeen years, wow.” Jason shook his head with a smile. “that’s a very long time.”
“it is.” Her voice was quiet, thoughtful. “A lot has changed since then.. we’ve changed but.. I'm glad you’re still here.” Reyna looked at him with a tight smile, her eyes glassy, she was trying to blink back tears. “I’m glad it’s you who I'm stuck with, I mean literally and metaphorically.”
Jason chuckled quietly, his chest warm, he reached out and squeezed her hand. and tried to ignore that his eyes were definitely getting teary too. “I'm glad too, you’re the only one I could survive this nightmare with.”
“We are going to get out of here.”
“i know.”
“And find our friends.”
“I know.” Jason nodded, squeezing her hand again. “I mean we survived high school together, what could possibly be worse than that right?”
Retina laughed then, a soft unguarded laugh that he had not heard in quite some time. “right.” she nodded too and closed her eyes for a moment cleaning her cheeks with the back of her free hand. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
Her eyes went back to that determination Jason knew so well.
“We keep trying to understand this place, and.. its creatures, maybe we can start identifying them as we go, maybe take notes, actually maybe we could leave notes. We know at least Piper and Rachel passed through here too, Nico and Will could find this place too, we should let them know what we’ve found. warn them.” Jason suggested.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea, what about Leo?, he wasn’t on the video we saw”
Jaso had been avoiding thinking about Leo and what could have happened to him, because each option was worse than the last, and he hated feeling like maybe they had been too late.. no, he couldn’t think that way. Leo had to be fine, he had to be.
“Maybe he got hurt and was separated from Piper and Rachel…”
“Hey, it’s okay, we will figure out how to find him, all of them.” Reyna said, putting a hand over his shoulder.
Jason nodded trying not to let his thoughts get darker. He met her eyes and for a moment saw the same girl who stood apart from all the other kids on the playground, all those years ago. who had hidden her fears behind a wall of fierce independence.
She was still there, but she had grown, they both had. And for a second Jason let himself believe that they would be able to solve this, side by side, the way they’ve solved everything life has thrown at them since they were kids. For a moment he wasn’t scared anymore, he had his best friend by his side and that was all he needed.