Author's Notes: This chapter is set mostly in the Labyrinth, and hence follows Labyrinth time from Nico's POV. However, the counting of the days of the week follows Real World time. Hope that makes sense.

Transition

Week 2 : Lost

Day 1

He wakes up in the middle of the night, panting and sweating, desperately swinging between wanting to forget the existence of the dream and remember every minute detail of it.

There was clashing, lots of it. Sparks too. And the whole thing sounded like metal clashing on itself. It was chaotic, and as far as Nico was concerned, it was terrifying. Mostly because somewhere in it he'd caught a glimpse of dark eyes and hair…

Stop thinking about it, he told himself firmly, you're being a paranoid baby. She's all right.

Of course, he spent the rest of the day performing dismally in whatever activity was going on at camp. Logic was one thing, but this was his sister he was talking about here. Bianca was his well- everything, really. He was already missing hanging around her like an omnipresent tail.

On the bright side, the deadline for the quest was tomorrow. Only one more day to go.

He couldn't wait to see her again. These dreams were starting to get on his nerves.

He was savagely hacking at one of the practice dummies when he heard the news.

Savage hacking wasn't something he usually resorted to, but the problem with Mythomagic was that it was basically pondering, and pondering was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. His dreams -nightmares, really- had only gotten worse. He couldn't make sense of all of it, but he'd gotten the gist of it. Bianca was-

He hacked harder, distracting himself before he could think the thought through. He was being a paranoid baby again. And if having magical powers was like this, he didn't want any of it.

"Hey, Nico," Kally Radcliff from the Athena cabin (who'd been trying her best to introduce him to elementary sword-wielding) hollered at him, "they're back. You can stop attacking the dummies already."

Nico instantly dropped his sword and fairly flew towards the big house. About time she was here, now he could go back to sleeping without disturbing paranoid dreams. And he could tell her everything he learnt in camp; especially the part with the lava-dodging rock-climbing. That had been fun.

Maybe she'd even decide to stay here with him after he told her everything they had at camp, so he increased his pace, dodged around the dryads near the big house, and burst into random rooms till he found the one they were all gathered in.

Well, Percy and Grover, anyway. And that blonde girl they saw back in Westhoover. But Bianca was-

The faint sounds in his head that he'd been suppressing came back full force, and he heard someone say, not unkindly, "Bianca, Huntress of Artemis. You stand before the judges of the underworld, to pass from one world to the next."

He squashed the voices again, looking desperately at Percy.

Percy met his eyes and looked down at a figurine clutched in his hand.

He thought about Percy. Several words came into mind. Bianca would've killed him if she'd heard him use any of them. It didn't matter now, of course, but he didn't want to acknowledge that.

He promised he'd take care of her. Jerk. Traitor.

And then he delved into a series of Greek words which were somewhat worse.

He didn't know most of what he was saying; it made sense one moment and crept out of his brain the next. The place he was stuck in was a damned labyrinth, with nothing like an end in sight. He didn't' even know how exactly he'd ended up here; one moment at camp and the next underground. He had no idea how he'd made the earth open up and swallow those things. He didn't know where to go, what to do. Anything.

Bianca was gone. He was alone. Utterly and absolutely.

Nico let out a frustrated screech, punching the nearest wall, rage outweighing every other emotion he might have felt.

Day 4

It must've been maybe a few hours since he'd come into this place. He'd stumbled around in the semidarkness, practically blind with rage to begin with. He'd glared at every single thing he could possibly glare at.

Then he'd swiped his face impatiently with the back of his hand, and it had come away very, very wet.

That was when he had to sit –flop, really- down, and cry his eyes out.

After what had seemed like hours of bawling, he started to take real notice of his surroundings, and he really didn't like what he saw. Vague darkness started to take the form of frightening shadows, the endlessness of the paths emphasized how utterly alone he felt, and once in a while he could hear scary, guttural noises.

He wished she were here. She'd probably be as scared as him, but she'd still take time off to tell him everything was going to be okay-

His tears started up again, accompanied by little choking hiccups.

Day 5

Once the tears dried up, he felt hungry.

He supposed he'd been feeling hungry ever since the whole thing with the skeletons, but something as insignificant as hunger had been squashed to the back of his mind once he had received the news. Now though, his stomach was protesting too loudly to be unheard. Not that it made much of a difference. The tunnel was gleefully devoid of anything resembling food. He did spot some luscious mushrooms, but something told him eating them would be a bad idea.

And of course, the voices in his head weren't exactly inaccurate, were they?

So he plodded on, occasionally glaring at his stomach and wiping away stray teas that seemed to bubble up every now and then. He wished they would stop coming. It was hard enough to see without tears blocking his vision too.

Something clanged in the shadows.

Nico stopped and listened, the pounding of his heart the loudest thing he heard. At least until a harsh grunt sounded somewhere in front of him, followed by a wheezing little noise. Then footsteps, steadily approaching nearer. The grunting noises became increasingly louder too; it sounded like a whole contingent of monsters. Things like the skeletons…

Nico shrank back towards the wall, huddling against it as much as he could, wishing he were invisible. For some reason, it seemed to work. About twenty or so orc-like things passed him, grunting at each other, shaking horned heads and occasionally sniffing the air as if they'd smelled something interesting. A few of them looked directly in his direction and he resisted the urge to run away screaming, but they just gave a shake of their shoulders and walked away.

He sat there for a while, listening to the footsteps (more like pawsteps, really) fading and unable to move. What was this place? And if monsters like that came through here on a regular basis, how would he even survive? They were supposed to eat half bloods.

He looked down helplessly at his hands, and saw darkness.

He had no idea how long he screamed, just that by the time he was done, his throat was aching too, as well as his stomach.

He desperately waved his hands in front of his face, and saw only shadows. Why couldn't he see himself? He could see everything else around, (stalactites and stark walls) even better than before, but he couldn't see his own damn hand. What was happening here?

He prayed, he wished he was himself again. Just-

Shadows melted into pale, long fingers. Nico gulped, just as his legs gave out in relief. He hadn't even realized he'd stood up. How could he, when all he saw about himself was black?

He buried hugged his knees to himself, noticing his body was trembling. Everything since Westhoover seemed so surreal, it was almost like a dream. All he wanted was to wake up, to see Bianca again, even if it was just her sniping at him. He swore he'd never even look at anything mythological again, and he was fully prepared to burn all his mythomagic stuff the minute he woke up, even if it drove Mr. Thorn crazy. He just wanted to wake up.

Somewhere, something chanted eerily. Nico buried his entire face on his knees, refusing to look up.

Day 7

"I told you there was one here."

Nico's head jerked up and he stared into two ugly, unmistakably nonhuman faces. One of them had a giant club hanging from an arm, and the other had a skeleton hung over one shoulder, the grin on the skull matching the monster's leer.

"Little half-blood," the thing carrying the skeleton said, teeth widening into something nowhere near a smile, "all alone by yourself, and crying. The labyrinth is not kind to people, is it? Especially ones with frail little human bodies."

Nico scuttled back until he hit the wall.

"Terrified already," the thing said, licking black lumps where it's lips should have been, "and no weapons. Pitiful. Best we put you out of your misery before the labyrinth does."

The thing with the club looked around nervously.

"This is not good," it said, voice getting interrupted periodically by the clicking of sharklike teeth inside it's mouth, "we are to be in the army. The Titan Lord-"

"He's not here, and this is too good to pass up. I'm tired of fighting alongside half-bloods," the first growled, "Following them. Bah. They're our prey."

He said all that without looking away from Nico's eyes, and grinned when he flinched.

"It will be quick," the thing reached for what looked like a handle stuck between the teeth of the skeleton. Blank orbs twisted in the boy's direction as it pulled out the knife, "and I will carry your remains around till I find someone who smells better," it paused to sniff the air, "which might not be for a while."

The other one jumped at a rock falling from the ceiling and hissed, "Leave the half-blood. We're to-"

"One strong enough to smell that way and weak enough to be unable to defend himself?" the skeleton monster glared at it's companion.

The club scowled, twisting the grotesque features further.

"I'll be quick about it," the skeleton monster promised, advancing toward Nico, who finally found his voice.

"St-tay away from me."

A quavering, stuttering voice, but a voice nonetheless. The monster grinned at the tone and slowed it's advance, making sure Nico could see the rusted, serrated blade of the knife.

"Go back! Stay away from me!"

The skeleton twitched, something rumbled in the tunnel. The club monster looked sharply at Nico.

"I told you, half-blood-child, that I'll make it quick. You'd rather it be me than the Labyrinth."

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

The club monster shifted it's eyes to the top of the boy's head, where a glowing blue-and-black symbol had appeared, and choked. The skeleton monster looked at it impatiently,

"What?"

"Fool," it breathed, "that's a child of Hades."

The monster had enough time to widen it's eyes before the skeleton on it's back drove a hand into it's stomach, just as the cave shook and stalactites came tumbling down their heads.

The last thing Nico saw before he blacked out was a grinning skeleton, it's fingers reaching out towards him.

Author's Notes: Cheesy? You can tell me. :)