A coin flip

"Okay Seth, lets hike up." I said breaking the silence.

"Are you kidding? We just biked 40 miles! It is almost dark out. We need to rest for now. We don't know what is going to happen and we need the energy to be ready for whatever we will face." He pleaded.

"No, we can't keep waiting. The winter is spreading fast. I don't want to wait anymore. All we have to do is release Khione out of a cage and then bing bang everything will go back to normal."

"Fine then..." Seth said with a groan.

We started hiking up the mountain and saw the trail of ice leading to a dark cave. And inside, you could hear the echo of unknown monsters.

I shivered in fear and began walking inside. Once I was several steps inside I noticed Seth still at the entrance kicking the dirt. "Seth, come on!" I said waving him over.

"Nah I'm good," he said causally.

"Don't chicken out now! We went all this way for you to stand around?"

"I don't do well with a lot of monsters. With one or two, that is fine. But you can tell there is a lot in there. We don't have the energy to go in there and defeat them." He replied shakily.

I didn't realize he was scared about what would happen trying to save Khione. He was good at hiding his worries.

I walked toward him and put my hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. "If you don't want to you don't have to. I am now going in and if I die you will have to live with it." I said. I knew saying that I could use his emotions to come in. I didn't want to, but he didn't seem like he was going to budge with a please.

I started walking in and didn't hear Seth's foot steps behind me. I was tempted to turn around and beg him to come in with me, but I kept marching.

My body began to tremble not having him at my side and I kept looking behind me expecting him to be following me.

The sounds of monsters continued and kept getting louder as I approached it.

Seth came running towards me and stopped by my side. "You are crazily stubborn." He said.

"I know." I replied. I let out a sigh of relief knowing he was next to me. I kept a straight face and kept walking deeper in the tunnel trying to hide my fears from Seth.

I stopped at an opening in the cave. It was a huge room with a hallway on the other side of it. Inside, a trail of ice was covering the wall. 'That is where she is.' I thought.

I started walking towards the hall when a Cyclopes dropped from the celling along with numerous other monsters. I uncapped my pen and whispered to Seth "I'll fight them off, you get to the hallway." He nodded knowingly and I started fighting the monsters. One by one I got the monsters on there knees.

All types came lunging at me, but none of them were too hard to defeat. I slashed there arms and toros as they attempted to conquer me. I felt alive fighting them and a rush of adrenaline kicked in.

A huge cyclope grabbed me off my feet and started squeezing my body. I felt my breathing break and I began to suffocate. He didn't close his hand on my arms so I blasted it with ice. It went right into it's eye causing it to drop me.

I kept fighting and Seth started creaking through them using a hammer to knock out any monsters that got in his way.

"Help us!" A girl yelled from up top. I looked up and saw a platform made of rusted metal. Seth was already at the hallway and was calling me over. I didn't know what to do, and I thought the girl's cried was a decoy.

It was like a coin flip, help Seth or help the unknown.

As much as I wanted to help Seth, I didn't want to risk that girl actually being real. I created snow around my feet and it shot me up. I did a front flip in the air and landed on the metal platform. There, I was greeted by furies like the one I encountered on the bus. I fought them easily and got to the girl. Along with her was a boy who was knocked unconscious.

"Khione!" The girl yelled in glee.

"I am not Khione." I said cutting the shackles on her and the boys wrists and ankles. She looked at me confused but turned to the boy. The girl grabbed the him and asked, "Do you have honey or ambrosia?"

I opened my backpack and handed her the honey I brought. 'They must be demigods.' I thought.

"Who are you?" The girl asked putting the honey in the boy's mouth.

"Daughter of Khione." I replied. "Why are you here?"

"To save Khione of corse! Even though many demigods don't like them." The girl replied. "I am Kelly by the way. And this is Kendric."

Kendric sat up groggily and moaned in pain.

"Rital!" Seth yelled from afar. "Where are you?!"

"Get our of here." I said to Kelly jumping down to ground level. I battled some more of the monsters that remained. For most of them, I used my ice to blast them. Their body's slammed against the wall and they collapsed on the ground.

My body started to ache and my body felt strained. I ran over to the hallway and saw Seth trying to open a ginormous cage.

Inside, was Khione laying lifeless on the floor.