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k1arar3 · 13 days

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Maybe in Another Life |10|

Pairing: Clarisse La Rue x Hunter of Artemis!Reader

Summary: You are a Hunter of Artemis, but you start to question what you truly want when you meet Clarisse and get to know her.

Warnings: Fighting, Bleeding, Injuries

Word Count: 4.3k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

ch. 1 | ch. 2 | ch. 3 | ch. 4 | ch. 5 | ch. 6 | ch. 7 | ch. 8 | ch. 9 | ch. 10

“What now?” Clarisse asked.

You looked down the dark corridor, then back to the wall that originally held a door. “We go forward,” you said.

Clarisse sighed, nodding along as the two of you began your trek down the dimly lit hall. The flames from the torches flickered as you passed them. Your mind was on high alert, your eyes were darting everywhere when so much as a shadow moved.

“What do you know about the labyrinth?” Clarisse asked as the two of you continued your walk.

You had been walking for a few minutes and hadn’t passed by a door or another hall of any kind. The corridor seemed never ending, the stones around you never changed but ahead all you saw was darkness. Torches would come to life when the two of you got close enough, illuminating a few more feet in front of you. You never knew what lied ahead until the torches flicked on, for all you knew every step you took was leading the two of you to a giant monster or the path would just end, sending the two of you to your demise.

“Not much,” you admitted. You weren’t going to pretend to know anything about the labyrinth. “Just that most who enter don’t make it out.” You glanced out of the side of your eye to see Clarisse’s reaction. She didn’t seem surprised by the information, just nodding along. “What about you? You were searching for it, any relevant information you learned?”

“No,” Clarisse sighed. “Annabeth rambled on about it, but it was all just theories, it’s always changing and growing, rarely does anyone survive, it tries to trick you.” Clarisse’s eyes fell to the ground, she gripped her spear a bit tighter. “I wasn’t supposed to enter the labyrinth,” she whispered. “I was just supposed to find the door.”

“Hey,” you came to a stop, gently touching her on the shoulder to make her turn to face you. You stared at her for a second, she held her head high, looking as strong and confident as ever, but you saw the hesitation in her eyes, she wasn’t sure the two of you would make it out of this. “We will get out of here,” you said, your voice unwavering. “We just have to stick together, watch each other’s backs, we can’t allow this place to separate us.”

Clarisse nodded. “You really think we can find a way out?”

The truth was you weren’t sure and if you did find a way out you weren’t sure when it would be. You heard stories of heroes entering the labyrinth, disappearing for years and then all of a sudden popping back up. They were never sane when that happened, so you never knew what exactly happened to them down there. It was proof one could survive for years down there but at what cost, if they all lost their mind in the maze you had to wonder if death would be a kinder outcome.

“We have a better chance together,” you said. You couldn’t lie to her. You needed her to believe you would both survive this, you both needed to have hope, if you didn’t, you surely wouldn’t last long. You didn’t want to lie to her though, you couldn’t pretend everything would all work out, you just had to hope it would.

You glanced up, having to do a double take, when you saw a glowing light behind Clarisse at the end of the corridor. “What the hell,” you whispered.

Clarisse turned around, following your gaze. You grabbed an arrow, making sure to have it ready if needed. Clarisse held her spear out, ready to attack whatever lay ahead. The two of you slowed your pace, inching closer to the glowing light. The light wasn’t from a torch, it almost looked like a room at the end of a hall.

As you got closer, you saw what looked to be a standard-looking room. There wasn’t anything in it, but the walls were white, and the floor looked to be a shiny white tile. “Maybe we should turn back,” you said, slowly coming to a stop. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

You turned to go back the way you had come, furrowing your brow when you saw an empty dark void, no torches lit, you couldn’t even see the stone wall anymore. “What the-”

You were cut off by a loud rumble, then the ground began to crack. Your eyes widened as between the cracks was an orange glow before the ground quickly started giving away towards you and Clarisse.

“Run!” you turned, pushing Clarisse to run towards the room you had been wanting to avoid.

You kept glancing back, seeing more and more of the ground give away. Your eyes widened when the cracks got close enough and you could see molten lava beneath. “Go!”

The two of you were running side by side. The room was within reach. The floor gave out from under you.

Clarisse jumped, making it into the room.

You didn’t make the jump.

You stabbed your arrow into the side of the wall as you fell towards the lava.

Your eyes were glued to the glowing orange and red lava below. You saw a few bubbles pop, making splashes of lava come up near your feet. Despite being a few feet from the lava you were already sweating from the heat.

You kicked your feet, trying to get some traction on the side of the wall. Lucky for you the wall wasn’t smooth, it was a rocky surface, but there wasn’t anything to grab onto. There wasn’t a way for you to maneuver and climb your way back to the top.

You felt a small vibration travel through your hand. Your eyes instantly snapped up, seeing your arrow beginning to crack.

“Shit,” you gritted out.

You kicked your feet against the wall, trying to run up it as much as you could, swinging your arm with your bow, hoping it would catch on to something. As you flung your body up, you let go of the arrow, allowing it to fall into the lava below. You gave a small smile as your bow caught on a small rock that was poking out.

Your smile quickly left your face when the rock crumbled. You opened your mouth to let out a yell as you prepared to fall into the lava, but death never came. You looked up, letting out a relieved sigh when you saw Clarisse partially hanging off the ledge as she gripped your bow with both hands.

“I got you,” Clarisse said through gritted teeth.

She used her strength to push down on the bow, trying to keep it stable so you could pull yourself up. You kicked your feet, using all the strength you had to pull yourself up. When you got close enough Clarisse moved one of her hands to grip your arm. She helped you push your bow onto the ledge then used her now free hand to grip the back of your shirt, helping pull you up the rest of the way.

You collapsed onto the ground next to each other, both of you breathing heavy. “Thank you,” you said between breaths.

“Anytime,” Clarisse breathed out.

Clarisse was the first one to pull herself to her feet. She held out a hand for you, you looked at it, releasing a few more breaths before grabbing it, allowing her to pull you to your feet. When you were both standing you looked around to see you had made it into the mysterious room, the doorway you had gone through was gone, which you should have expected, and the rest of the room was all blank white walls.

You scrunched your eyebrows when you heard a high pitch whistling sound before your eyes went wide. “Get down!” you grabbed Clarisse, pulling her back down to the floor.

As soon as the two of you hit the floor arrows shot through the air, whistling as they passed over your heads. You kept your head pressed to the ground as you watched the arrows fly over you. You didn’t realize you had been holding your breath until the arrows had finally stopped.

As soon as you and Clarisse got to your feet again you were being pulled to the side, pressing yourselves against the wall as a large axe swung down the middle of the room. Then another axe swung out, swinging across the middle of the room the other way, forcing the two of you into a corner. Both axes swung up and across the middle of the room, perfectly in sync so they didn’t hit each other.

You gripped Clarisse’s arm while she braced herself against the wall when the entire room started to rumble. Your eyes darted around the room as the walls started to close in, pushing the two of you closer to the axes that continued to swing. Right before you would have been sliced in half the axes stopped swinging, though the walls continued to close in.

“What’s that?” Clarisse asked, you looked up to see she was pointing at the ceiling.

You tilted your head when you noticed that not only were the walls closing in on you but that the ceiling was moving. The ceiling wasn’t coming down to crush you, but the tiles of the ceiling were shifting around, revealing black panels underneath. Under one of the panels was a small red button, but the tiles shifted to quickly to try and jump up and hit it with your hand.

You grabbed an arrow from your quiver, lifting up your bow to aim at the red button. Clarisse was crouched down, pressing herself as close to the wall as she could get without being in your way. You had to adjust your arms, getting into an uncomfortable position as you focused on the red button and not the walls about to crush you. When you let the arrow fly, you watched it sail through the air, the panels continuing to shift as the arrow hit the red button just as the panel moved out of the way.

Once your arrow hit the button all the walls stopped and the panels on the ceiling stopped as well. You and Clarisse were pressed against each other, barely able to move, having been just seconds away from being crushed. The both of you just had time to let out a shaky breath when the floor came out from under you, sending the two of you falling into darkness.

You let out a long groan, rolling over, at least you weren’t dead, if that could even be seen as a plus. “I hate this place,” you groaned out. When you became more aware of your surroundings, you felt a smooth cool surface under your hand. It was clearly a stone or rock of some kind, it almost felt damp.

Another groan came from right next to you. “How are we still alive?” Clarisse asked.

You used your forearms to prop yourself up as you got a look at your surroundings. The first thing you did was look up from where you had to have fallen from. Once again, the door you fell through was gone and there was nothing but a rocky surface through the darkness. You looked around the rest of the area, you definitely seemed to be on a rock, the only way you could describe it was a cave of some sort.

There was a loud screech making your blood run cold. “What was that?” Clarisse whispered. You only raised a finger to your mouth, silently hushing her. A second later there was another loud screech.

You looked around the cave, there was a dim light coming from above, replicating what would be moonlight. It lit your surroundings just enough so you could see island formations of rock surrounding the area. There was a larger island in the middle of everything. A couple rope bridges connected smaller islands to the larger one. There were several waterfalls pouring down from the islands into an endless black abyss, the largest waterfall flowing down and through the large middle island.

A large black form moved high above you, blocking wherever the light was coming from for a second. You pulled yourself to your feet as quietly as you could, holding out your hand to help Clarisse do the same. The both of you stood back-to-back as the black form flew over the two of you again. It shot down from high above and into the darkness below and then began circling the two of you. You and Clarisse had your backs pressed against each other, her spear pointed at the ready and your bow already drawn.

There was another loud screech, much closer than the first two, followed by loud flapping. The entire island rumbled when the large black form landed in front of you. You backed up, forgetting for a second that Clarisse was right there. Clarisse opened her mouth as she turned to face you but whatever she was about to say died in her throat as her eyes widened at the creature before you.

The two of you stood there, both of you holding your breath as the creature slowly opened its wings, then leaned forward letting out a loud screech right in your face. You could feel your heart in your throat. The wings were as dark as the night sky, the rest of the body a dark grey, it had little tuffs of fur around its neck and ears. Its eyes were a pale white, telling you it was in fact blind, its large, pointed ears flicked repeatedly, probably from little sounds you could never even dream of hearing.

It used its arms, which were connected to its wings, to walk around, circling you and Clarisse. You tried to stay as still as possible, but a simple shift of your foot made the scraping of your shoe against the rock echo throughout the cavern. You pushed Clarisse to the ground as the creature screeched, pushing off the island and flew just inches above the two of you, you were pretty sure you felt its claws graze against your jacket.

It flew high, turning to circle back around to get you. You and Clarisse jumped to your feet at the same time and took off as fast as you could, jumping from one island to the next, hoping that if you could make it to the main one, you’d actually have a chance. The closer you got to the island with the bridge the greater the distance you were having to jump. You made the last jump, having to duck and roll to stick the landing. Clarisse jumped, her foot catching the edge, but before she could tumble into the darkness, she used her spear, stabbing it into the rock and pulled herself to safety.

Just as you were about to let out a sigh of relief you were hit by a strong force, then suddenly you were being lifted in the air.

“Y/N!” You vaguely heard Clarisse yell, but you were a little distracted by the monsters’ claws digging into your shoulder.

You looked up, seeing the large bat-like monster carrying you away. You began thrashing around, hoping something would cause it to lose your grip on you. You had lost your arrow after being caught off guard when it grabbed you, but you still had a tight grip on your bow. You swung the bow up and around blindly, hoping to get lucky and hit the bat somewhere painful. Your bow came in contact with something, the bat let out a loud screech, and then suddenly you were falling.

You weren’t sure if plummeting into the dark abyss to your certain death was better than being carried away by a giant bat creature, mostly likely to be eaten and ripped apart. As you were falling your hand hit something, making you reach out on reflex, gripping whatever it was. When you opened your eyes, you were staring down into the dark abyss, but you were still alive.

“Y/N!” Clarisse called again.

You looked over to see her running towards you. When you looked up you saw your hand was gripped around the rope of the bridge, your other hand still gripped your bow. You let out a shaky breath as Clarisse got to you, the rickety bridge wobbling with each step. You weren’t sure how many people crossed the bridge but based on the rotting wood and moldy rope you would assume it’d been a long while.

Clarisse quickly grabbed onto your arm, helping pull you to safety. You reached up, setting your bow on the bridge and helped Clarisse get you up the rest of the way. “Are you okay?” Clarisse asked, resting her hand on your back as you were breathing heavily.

You nodded, unable to verbally answer. You straightened your back, the movement making you hiss as it pulled skin the bat’s claws had dug into. You moved your shirt, seeing blood through the tears from the monsters’ claws, if you survived this you would have to get the wounds cleaned out as soon as possible.

You grabbed your bow and pulled out an arrow again. You followed the movement of the bat flying around as it circled you and then you released your arrow. The arrow sailed through the air and tore through the bat’s wings as soon as it flew into the arrow’s path. The creature screeched but as soon as it turned to face you, you released another arrow, sending it straight through the other wing.

“Go!” you yelled, turning to run across the bridge when you saw the bat flying straight for you, despite clearly being thrown off with its torn wings.

The bat slammed into you, sending you to your knees. “Keep going!” you yelled, knowing Clarisse would turn back for you.

You used your bow to hold back the bite as it tried to snap at you. You felt around for the arrow you had dropped, wrapping your fingers around it when you felt it. You brought the arrow up, stabbing it into the creature’s eye. You didn’t hesitate to rip it out, ignoring the blood that surely splattered all over you before stabbing it into the other eye.

“Hold on!” you shouted, sparing a glance behind you to see Clarisse had both hands on the ropes at her side.

You leaned up as the monster thrashed around above you. Raising your bow you let another arrow fly, aiming for the right post where the rope was tying off the bridge. As soon as the arrow left your hand you grabbed another one, aiming for the left post, quickly releasing it as well.

You flipped yourself over, grabbing the wood planks of the bridge as tightly as you could. There was a second where everything was silent, then you were weightless, you held on tight as your body came up, swinging through the air as the ropes tying the bridge off tore, sending the bridge smacking into the side of main island.

You let out a shaky breath, looking up to see Clarisse had a tight hold on the bridge as well and was beginning her climb to the top. You glanced down, letting out a tired sigh when you saw the bat was still attached to the bridge, shaking its head as it continued to try and recover from its eyes being stabbed, despite already being blind. As carefully as you could you slipped your bow around your head, keeping yourself pressed against the bridge.

Once your bow was secure you began your climb. As soon as you reached for the next plank it ripped out from under you, sending you further down, smacking the other planks as you tried to find one to grab onto. Finally, you got your hand wrapped around the rope, stopping your descent, and allowing you to grab onto another board. You pulled on the board a few times, making sure it would hold your weight before beginning your climb again.

You had barely made progress before you felt a searing pain in your calf, letting out a yell as the monster ripped its claws down, trying to bring you down with it. You gripped the planks tighter, using all your strength to pull yourself up and out of the creature’s grip. You felt something breeze past your head then suddenly claws impaled in your leg were gone. You looked down to see the bat falling into the dark abyss, a crackling red spear in its mouth.

You used your remaining strength to climb up the bridge, going slower than you should have, your injured leg shaking each time you needed to use it to push off the next plank. When you got close to the top you once again felt Clarisse’s arms reach out for you. She took one of your hands in her own and then helped brace you by putting her other hand on your back, helping pull you up the rest of the way.

Your breathing was ragged as you laid on the cold stone surface, the sound of the rushing waterfall filling your ears. You turned your head, glancing down at your leg to see your pants ripped and already covered in blood.

“Come on,” Clarisse said. She reached down, throwing one of your arms around her shoulder, and swinging her other arm around your waist before you had the chance to respond.

You limped, trying to help as much as you could as Clarisse led you across the large island. You went the opposite direction the water was flowing until you got to the bottom of the waterfall. Despite the slipperiness of the rocks Clarisse managed to get the two of you to the little cave behind the waterfall. It was a little damp but if there were any more bat creatures in the cavern it was the safest place the two of you could be, the waterfall was loud enough to cover any noise the two of you would make.

“Easy,” Clarisse said as she gently laid you on the floor, propping your back up against the wall. “Let me get a look at your leg.” She didn’t wait for a response before she ripped the rest of your pants leg, gently turning your leg as she got a look at the wound.

“My-my bag,” you rasped out, tiredly reaching for your bag that you somehow managed to hold onto.

Clarisse reached over you, taking the bag from your hands. You let your head flop back against the stone wall, the sweat was already making your hair stick to your forehead. You had been running on pure adrenaline and survival and now you were really beginning to feel each and every one of your injuries.

“Ambrosia?” Clarisse asked. You opened your eyes to see she had opened your bag; you gave her a small nod and smile.

She cut one of the squares of ambrosia in half and handed it to you. You quickly put it in your mouth, savoring the sweet taste. When you lifted your head again you saw Clarisse ripping off a piece of her shirt and beginning to wrap your leg.

“Don’t want you bleeding out before the ambrosia kicks in,” she mumbled. You let out a tired chuckle, that certainly wouldn’t be good. Ambrosia helped with the healing, and you would be good to go in the morning, or whatever time it was, but it wasn’t a guaranteed safety net, you could easily die even after eating some ambrosia.

“Let me see your shoulder,” Clarisse demanded, already putting her hands on you to help lean you forward.

“That’s not as bad,” you mumbled. You were quickly shut up by Clarisse throwing a glare at you.

Clarisse ripped off one of her sleeves and took it to the waterfall, sticking it under the water. When she came back, she leaned you forward, moving your shirt out of the way just enough to see the wounds. She began wiping away the dried blood and the wounds themselves. When she was all done, she helped you lean back against the wall, wincing as your shoulder touched the stone before quickly going back to a dull ache.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” Clarisse whispered. Her eyes were glued to the ground as she refused to look you in the eye.

You were to tired to lift your hand so you slid it across the smooth surface until your fingers brushed against hers, making her look up at you. She reached up, resting a hand on the side of your face, making you instantly lean into her touch.

“You sacrificed your spear for me,” you mumbled. You knew it wasn’t the original weapon given to her by her father, but it was still her pride and joy, and she lost it because she decided to save your life.

“You or the spear,” she whispered. “It wasn’t even a choice.”

You noticed her eyes flick down to your lips. “I’m sorry.” Your gaze fell as well, you wished for nothing more than to give her everything she deserved. “Maybe in another life things could be different.”

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against yours. “I’ll wait for you in the next life,” she whispered. You could feel her breath against her lips, but she never leaned in, still respecting your status as a Hunter.

“It could be a long time.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.” After another second, she pulled away, caressing your cheek one more time. “Get some rest, I’ll take first watch.” Her tone was kind, but it was clear there would be no arguing with her.

You shifted your body, getting as comfortable as you could against the hard rocky surface. Clarisse stood up, pulling out a dagger that was strapped to her ankle. The last thing you saw before you closed your eyes was Clarisse standing tall in front of the waterfall.

Taglist: @cxcilla @touchmyfracturedomens @luclue @manu-007s-world @death-in-love @nenas19 @mynameiskaci @danonered

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