A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: I know I owe a lot of updates on other stories but this idea has been eating at my skull for two weeks now and I cant think strait so I'm writing it so that maybe I can get rid of this writers block.

That being said this idea is one of my favorites to think about and I hope it translates well into writing.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Horizons

POV: Percy

They say that better things are always just over the horizon for those brave enough to look. My mother used to tell me to keep traveling forward because the past is behind you and a better future is on the other side of the horizon. When I learned to sail they used to say to pick a point on the horizon to keep your bearings. Horizons are supposed to hide wonderful things from us and give us a reason to push towards them.

That is not always the truth however. I was a deck hand on a cruse ship headed across the pacific. It wasn't much fun but it was a paying summer job and I was broke. We were about half way through the crossing when the horizon betrayed us.

It was a warm, sunny, day and all the guests were enjoying them selves when the waves started to get rocky. It was a freak thing that I couldn't figure out for the life of me. I was going to go back to my cabin, like all the passengers on the deck had already done, when the captain ordered me to remain on the deck to secure some loose items so they wouldn't roll around in the choppy water.

After giving me the order he went into the ship to attend other matters and left me with my fellow deck hand Nico to secure the deck.

"Fucking ass." Nico muttered as we ran around the dramatically rocking deck. "He could at least help us lock down this stuff. I mean he said he was off to check on Will in the infirmary, right?"

I nodded in response as I crouched down to tie a chair down to the deck.

"Will isn't o duty right now." Nico said bitterly.

"Well neither are you." I pointed out. " But here you are."

Nico shook his head bitterly.

"I get one afternoon off a week and I spend it locking down shit with you." He grumbled.

I frowned, a little insulted by the comment.

"And what's so bad about me?" I asked, trying to tighten the knot on the rope.

Nico glance up at me from behind the lounge chair he was tying down. The light and rocking of the ship made him look older and more dangerous.

"Nothing's wrong with you." He replied coolly. "But it's my day off and it's Will's day off as well. It's pretty rare that we both get off. We had plans and now they're probably ruined."

"Plans?" I asked with a sarcastic smile.

"Yah," Nico continued. "We were gona go see a show, followed by an early dinner and a nice, relaxing, night."

"Sure!" I laughed, trying to stand up and work my way across the rocking deck to a chair that was starting to slide to the other side. "Relaxing. I'm sure you would get plenty of rest."

Nico's face went pale.

"And what business is it of yours, what I do with my boy friend?" He demanded.

My eyebrows went up at the sudden hostility at I finally took hold of the run away chair.

"Look, man," I began. "I'm not judging. Your shit is your shit."

Nico looked like he was about to say something when the door in back of me was flung open and a girl with golden eyes and darker skin came ruining out of the ship and to the railing. I was about to ask her why she was out here when she suddenly vomited over the rail.

Then more passengers came out of the ship.

"Hazel?" Called an Asian looking kid. "Are you ok?"

"Is she ok?" Demanded the girl next to him with a feather in her hair. "She just threw up, Frank."

Frank looked flustered by the comment but didn't speak.

"We should probably get back inside." The boy with his arms around the feather girl commented.

"Jason's right." A girl with storm gray eyes commented.

"Jason's right?" Asked the spiky, black haired, girl. "As in my brother Jason?"

"Back off Thalia!" Jason butted in. "And thank you Annabeth."

Jason shook his head.

"Come on, Piper." He said. "Lets get inside."

Before he could move however the doors burst open again.

"Percy!" Called the girl who had burst from the door.

It was Kattie, the ship's "Gardener". She was an actual gardener back home and could grow some really good food but out here she was just the person who watered the plant pots.

Will, one of the ship's medics, and Leo, one of the ship's engineers, were flanking her.

"What's up?" I called to her as the ship continued to rock.

"The captain said to get every one inside!" She called. "He sent us to get you two!"

"He actually sent me and Kattie!" Leo called. "But Will insisted on coming!"

I caught the look that Will and Nico shared when Leo said that.

Just then there was a large bang off the left side of the ship.

All the heads on the deck whipped around to face the explosion.

The ship instantly started to roll towards the left and it was clear that we were flooding and fast.

"That sounded like the main engine!" Leo cried. "Based on the size of the blast, I'd say were flooding in sections two through seven!"

I knew our ship could stay afloat with three of the eight sections flooded but if we were flooding in six we would sink in a few minutes!

The ship continued to roll to the left and I knew we were probably going to capsize.

"Grab hold of some thing!" I screamed. "Now!"

I reached out and grabbed the railing on the right side of the ship as the angle of the deck became too steep to stand on. I tried with all my strength to hold my self up when I noticed the to my right. It was the girl with the gray eyes and blond hair, Annabeth.

She had a wide-eyed, frightened, look on her face and our eyes met for a few seconds and I knew what was about to happen. I saw it in her eyes. Her grip on the rail slipped and she started to fall. My next reaction was pure instinct. I pulled my right arm off the rail and grabbed her wrist as she fell.

I heard her yelp in pain as her shoulder was yanked by the stop.

"You ok?" I called to her.

She nodded.

"Please don't drop me!" She called up.

I nodded as I pursed my lips under the strain of trying to keep us both up.

Then I felt the sweat form between my hand and the rail and I knew I couldn't hold on any more.

"I'm slipping!" I warned Annabeth. "Looks like we're dropping!"

Just then my fingers gave way and we started to fall towards the choppy watted. On the way down was a chair that I had secured to the deck. It had a wooden back that resembled a fence. I reached out my left arm to grab it but I missed. Instead my wristwatch got snagged between two of the bars and I felt a yank as the fall was suddenly stopped. I didn't let go of Annabeth but she did yelp in pain. Her yelps however, were drowned out by my screams as my left arm snapped under the pressure of the weird angle my wriest was wedged between the boards of the chair.

It felt like a clean break, half way between the elbow and the shoulder. I looked up at my pinned arm to see the broken bone was poking through the skin.

Shit! I thought to my self.

I glanced down at Annabeth to find her ankles were rapidly being swallowed by the ocean as the ship continued to sink.

"I'm going to drop you now!" I called to her. "You won't fall far!"

"What about you?" She questioned, a worried look on her face.

I glanced up at my arm and then back at her before responding.

"I'm pinned!" I told her. "I have to drop you or ells you'd get dragged down with me!"

Then I herd a yelp as Nico dropped past me, into the water.

Annabeth looked shocked at what I had told her. The water was now up to her gut and I knew I had to drop her now so I let go.

She slid down into the water before cropping back up. I glanced up to see all the people that were on the deck were now bobbing up and down in the water.

"Help!" Annabeth screamed. "He's stuck!"

"There's nothing you can do!" I screamed at her. "Just get clear."

By this time the water was up to my waist.

What happened next surprised me. Annabeth looked at me with an apologetic look and pulled out a knife. She floated with it until we were almost face-to-face. By this time Will as a few feet away.

"Sorry!" She screamed to me as she swung the knife.

I felt a lot of pain on my broken arm and then I slipped below the choppy waves. There was a lot of spinning and bubbles. Eventually I blacked out, convinced I would die.

Time Break!

POV: Percy

When I came to I was lying on what felt like wood that was moving up and down in a gentle way.

"Wha?" I began groggily.

I shut up immediately when the pain hit me. My arm was killing me. Why was it killing me? Right, I broke it on the ship.

The ship!

It was then that every thing that happened to me came back. I was pinned on a sinking ship!

I sat up quickly and looked around.

"Percy!" I heard some one yelp excitedly. "He's awake!"

I turned to the voice to see kattie leaning over me.

"Where are we?" I asked her through the pain.

"We're on a chunk of the deck that broke off the ship." She answered. "We roped together three sections of deck to we don't loose each other."

I looked around to find three, relatively large, pieces of wooden deck floating in the ocean. They were tied together with straps designed to hold down furnisher in bad weather.

"Did every one make it?" I asked Kattie.

My mind was still groggy and I couldn't remember who was on the ship and who wasn't. The pain of my broken arm was not helping either.

"Only the ones who were on the deck during the explosion." She answered.

She appeared to grow more and more uncomfortable by the minute.

"How do you feel?" She asked at last.

"My arm hurts." I replied.

She looked distressed by my comment.

"Um, Percy," She began. "About that," She shifted uncomfortably, biting her bottom lip. "You kind of, well, only have one arm."

"What?" I asked in shock.

I slowly shifted my head to the left and was shocked at what I saw. There was only a small stump where my left arm had been. It as wrapped in a bloody rag.

"Annabeth, the grey eyed girl," Kattie began. "She cut it off to get you free of the ship before it sank."

Kattie looked so worried and sad.

"Once we had the first raft we pulled you on and Will stitched you up. He had just come from the infirmary and had a stitching kit on him."

I looked around in shock, eventually meeting eyes with none other then Annabeth. She appeared to be worried and scared. I became very aware of the fact that I was only wearing my cargo shorts.

"Where is my shirt?" I asked.

"It was torn to shreds and soaked in blood." I herd Nico reply from another raft where he had an arm around will and was rubbing one of his shoulders. "So we turned what was left of it into a bandage for your arm."

I glanced back at the stump and the bloody rag that was once my shirt.

I then glanced down at my bare feet and wished that I hadn't chosen to where flip-flops. Apparently they had fallen off in the ocean.

"We need to find land." I heard Hazel say. "I think I'll throw up again if we don't."

We all nodded in agreement.

A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Thanks for reading and if you want to read more of this story just post a review! No review no update, but the more reviews the higher on my update priority list this story becomes!