บท 103: The Abyss and I have a Staring Contest

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{Tartarus, Unknown Time}

Ozzy POV

This had definitely been the worst weeks, days, hours... I couldn't tell. Time had lost all meaning down here, but they were definitely the worst I'd had in a long time.

First, Luke got away with the bolt, and jumped into Tartarus, most definitively to give them to Kronos. I'd managed to heal Thalia, which should've felt like a victory, but in the process, I lost most of my fingers. Painful as that was, it hardly mattered now.

I jumped into Tartarus after him, almost died from the fall alone, drank fire to keep myself going, and met a goddess who almost ripped my soul out like it was her favorite pastime. That was before bathing in monster blood just to meet a cousin whose wife and most of his children I'd once killed. And let's not forget the cherry on top: my cousin knew I was here.

But now—now was worse. Now the Abyss itself personified, aka, my uncle, Tartarus, had his hand on my shoulder.

The weight of his touch was indescribable. My skin crawled where his fingers rested, an icy burn that reached deeper than just flesh. It felt as though the earth itself wanted to consume me, and every nerve in my body screamed in terror.

My legs shook violently, but I couldn't move. My feet stayed rooted to the ground as if they, too, had succumbed to his pull, and a horrible realization struck me—I was being pulled toward him. Slowly, inch by inch, as if the air around him had turned into a whirlpool, dragging me in with no way to fight it. No effort I made, no thought or force of will, could stop the inexorable pull toward Tartarus.

I was stuck.

"Odysseus," he said, his voice low, that sounded like it was being drawn back inward rather than projecting outward. "It's nice to finally meet my nephew, Gaia has been talking about you a lot lately."

My body tensed. I didn't know why he was asking, and I sure as hell didn't trust myself to speak. So, I stayed silent. My jaw clenched tightly as I resisted the urge to shout or beg or even scream.

At my silence, Melinoe began to talk towards the Abyss. She tried to speak, her voice wavering with defiance, "Tartarus, you—"

"Silence," he interrupted, his voice crackling with power. It wasn't a shout or a growl, but the effect was immediate.

I watched my nervousness growing as Melinoe was planted into the ground. She was being plled down as if gravity itself didn't want her to stand back up. Her skin and hair, seemed to blur between existence and nothingness, she was trembling violently, phasing in and out of reality. It was like she was being erased before my very eyes, as if her soul itself was being destroyed. She opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound came. She was helpless. And so was I.

The silence stretched, cold and oppressive.

I fought against the pull, but it was hopeless. My muscles were locked, my body slowly, torturously, being drawn toward him. Tartarus tilted his head, his expression literally unreadable, but even then I could feel something from his spiral face. Pure unbridled sadism. He was enjoying this, I realized. My struggle. My fear.

"You inferiors," he began, his voice a low rumble. "Always so small, so fragile, but somehow so important. Do you know why I am keeping you alive?"

I didn't answer him, simply looking down, I struggled to swallow the fear, to think of a way out of this. My name meant I was clever, I needed to think of something, anything.

"No?" he mused, glancing at Typhon, who just kept on laughing though somehow it felt like background noise, unlike the mountain splitting laugh he was unleashing earlier.

"No clue?" Tartarus leaned in slightly, the gravity around him intensifying, pulling me closer. My knees buckled, and I fell to one knee, the weight too much to bear. "I guess you wouldn't remember," Tartarus continued, his voice soft but edged with malice, "after all you've killed so many, monsters in your short lifespan. Haven't you?

I gasped for breath, each word he spoke dragging more air from my lungs. My heart pounded in my chest.

"Do you remember Alcyoneus, Odysseus?" he asked, his eyes dark as the void. "You see, I don't really care much for my children, not even that laughing pile of flesh in front of us."

With those words, Typhon's laughter stopped, and at the same time everything else in this place seemed to have stopped as well, it was only him and me.

Tartarus took a step closer. The ground beneath me seemed to groan in response, the weight of his presence bending reality itself. "I've lived since time immemorial," he continued, his voice a slow, deliberate grind of ancient stone. "You fight, struggle and die. This is true for all of you, mortals, demigods, monsters, gods, titans, giants. You are all a speck in time, one that doesn't really matter in the end."

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

My throat was tight, my heart racing. All I could think about was the pull—how I was being dragged closer, ever closer to him. My hands clenched into fists, my body trembling as I tried to resist.

Tartarus sighed, a long, drawn-out sound that seemed to make the air grow heavier. "You see only my sisters, brothers and my primogenitor matter, yet every once in a while, some of us get attached to you inferiors. Nyx has her children, Eros seems to love all of you, Erebus has his children as well and even Gaia herself has some attachment to them, me I don't really care."

"But," Tartarus added, his eyes gleaming with dark promise, "when I felt your presence, masked as well as it was probably by Erebus himself, I couldn't help myself to see what would happen when you would stare at me."

For a moment, I thought I'd break. The weight of Tartarus's power, the hopelessness of the situation—it all pressed down on me like an ocean crashing over my head. But somewhere, deep inside, a spark of defiance flickered. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

"Yet you can't move from here, so powerful yet you are more imprisoned than the monsters in here," I managed to grind out between clenched teeth.

Tartarus chuckled darkly. "Are you proud? In your wit, I mean,"

Suddenly, his grip on me tightened. I could feel the pull intensify, dragging me forward, as if the very ground was dissolving beneath me. The abyss yawned open, waiting to swallow me whole.

But I wasn't dead yet. Not by a long shot.

With a final surge of strength, I planted my feet as firmly as I could, resisting the pull with everything I had left. My muscles screamed in agony, but I held on. I wasn't going to let Tartarus win.

"Melinoe," I whispered, my eyes darting to her still form.

Her gaze met mine, a flicker of understanding passing between us. She was still trapped, her form fading in and out of existence, but her eyes burned with determination. She wasn't done fighting either.

Tartarus's smile faded. His amusement evaporated, replaced with cold calculation. "You think you can resist me, Odysseus?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. But my silence was enough.

Tartarus scowled, his face darkening with rage. The ground around me began to crack, the air thickening with the sheer force of his anger. This was it—the end.

I looked up and stared into the face of the Abyss and the Abyss stared back at me. I could only say a few words, but they were enough.

"Let's see who blinks first."