A/N: Welp, I decided to write a fic where the seven fail and the world crumbles. Here's the first chpater. Kinda rushed and not very good, but heigh ho. The whole fic is gonna be written from Piper's P.O.V and there will be major character deaths, sorry. But, enjoy it all the same!

Song: 'Abraham's Daughter' - Arcade Fire

Her boots slammed against the earth heavily, kicking up moss and leaves and twigs. Her breath came out in short pants. Her duffel bag slapped against her back, and her gladius tapped her thigh. She was used to running. She was used to the burning in her lungs, the aching in her legs, the annoying way in which her supplies hit her body as she ran. After all, she'd been doing nothing but running and surviving for two years.

Piper Mclean had been her name back when the gods had been in power. Ever since Gaia had taken over, she'd been known as Subject #7, one of the escaped demigods. A bounty was on her head, though not as heavy as that on Percy and Annabeth's heads. Piper had learned to avoid villages and roads, sticking instead to the abandoned cities and woodland. Villagers knew her face. They'd stop at nothing to apprehend her and hand her over to the malicious earth goddess, dead or alive.

Piper has once been beautiful. She'd once laughed and smiled and danced and loved. Now, she scowled and hunted and ran. She survived. And she prayed an awful lot as well. She prayed to her mother, who was bound in chains in the heart of Mount Olympus, along with all the other gods. She prayed that she would one day find herself back in Jason's arms. That she would hear his voice. That she would be able to kiss him, right on that ancient little scar of his.

He was alive as far, as she was aware. Posters bearing his smiling were plastered along the roads, along with a 10,000 drachma bounty. Normally, when demigods were caught and killed, their posters were taken down. That's how Piper found out that Leo, Hazel and Frank had been killed. She shuddered. The day she'd seen the Cyclopse soldiers taking down the flyers had been one of the worst over the past two years. It still made her cry just thinking about it.

Piper leapt over a fallen tree trunk, lost her footing for a second and scrambled along the forest floor on her hands and knees for a moment. Dirt buried itself in the crevices of her nails. Her long hair fell in her face. She brushed it back irritably. It was reaching cutting length. The next time she stopped, she'd be slicing it all off again.

Her next stop was literally around the corner. She flew around the side of a large group of boulders and found the perfect place to set up camp. A thin stream cut through the forest floor, flowing fast. A formation of rocks made the perfect cave for resting in. If she was careful with her fires, she'd be able to stay at least three or four days.

She dropped her duffel bag down on the damp forest floor, resting her gladius, bow and quiver full of makeshift arrows down next to the bag. Before the Fall of Olympus, she'd only used a knife, Katoptris – which she still had – and her charmspeak in conflict. After the Fall, she realised that she couldn't just rely on her voice and looks to get her out of a battle. So, she raided the remains of Camp Jupiter for the gladius and made her own bow. Weeks of training helped her to master both weapons. She'd learnt her survival skills along the way.

Piper didn't have much in the way of possessions. She had several bottles of nectar, a few squares of ambrosia in air-tight bags, a length of rope, a spare change of clothes, a ragged sleeping bag, three water containers, a lighter, her last pack of Chocolate Fudge Pop Tarts and an empty game bag she desperately needed to refill. Before the Fall, Piper had been average sized. Now, she was used to seeing her ribs poking out from under her skin. She was used to her sallow cheeks, her chapped lips and the dark shadows beneath her eyes.

What she was also used to was the daily struggle to survive, to keep on going in the hopes she would find those she cared about once again. Her father was dead. That much she knew. During the Fall, their Los Angeles condo had collapsed with her father still inside. When she went back to Camp Jupiter to see if anyone had survived, she'd passed through Los Angeles. Filled with hope, she'd gone to her old home to find her father, only to find his dead and decaying body. It had been one of the worst experiences of her life.

Piper sat the edge of the small stream, cupped water in her hands and splashed it into her face, washing away any exhaustion she had begun to feel. She still had a camp to set up and a meal to hunt. Exhaustion would hinder her movements. Exhaustion was as deadly an enemy as any of the monsters or mortal bandits prowling the wilds in search of her.

Her camp was set up in under five minutes. She left the small cave, armed with her bow and knife, and ventured into the trees. She did a loop of the area, going no further than 100 metres out from her camp. She knew to not stray too far as she ran the risk of losing her way, something she had done before.

It didn't take her long to find the stag that would become her meal. Within minutes of setting out and establishing a border, the stag had run straight across her path. Faster than a strike of lightning, she let loose the arrow that became the murderer of the stag. She fell to her knees before the fallen animal; the arrow still quivered in the poor animal's eye socket. The stag twitched feebly. Piper ended its suffering with a quick stab of Katoptris. Using some of the vines dangling from the branches of trees as a rope, she lugged the stag back to camp and set about skinning it.

The fur would provide her with a new blanket. He meat would give her sustenance for at least another day or two. Piper cast her gaze to the antlers, which were long and lethal. Good weapons for the future.

The ransacked carcass of the stag was dumped outside the hundred metre line. Piper concealed the body beneath a rock formation, hoping to the gods that no passing wolf pack would pick up the scent of the carcass and come for her.

Sitting beside the fire while she waited for her venison to cook, Piper reflected on the shell of her former self she had become. Before the Fall, she avoided meat at all costs after a horrible trip during which they passed a slaughter house. The smell eradiating from the place had driven her love of cheeseburgers from her mind. During the first few weeks of her surviving the wilds alone, she learned that being a vegetarian was no good any more, and had reluctantly turned back to eating meat as a last resort to live. If the world was ever given back to the gods, she was going straight back to being a veggie.

Of course, the chances of the world becoming the gods' again were slim. For two years, those ancient, unstoppable gods had been kept prisoner beneath the original Mount Olympus, chained to their home with the Celestial Bronze that was made to protect them. Their powers dampened and ridiculed, the gods did nothing to help themselves or their children. Then again, Piper thought, there was not much they could do.

The world was in shambles. It seemed as if Earth had reverted back to its primeval state. She remembered something Percy once told her on the Argo II, before he went missing, about the state of the world reminding him of Alaska. Wild. Untameable. Dangerous.

The world was dangerous. Piper could literally smell the danger. It leached into the woods, into the water and into her mind, poisoning her with random bouts of fear and paranoia. Of course, fear would kick start the adrenaline.

When her fight-or-flight response kicked in, Piper used to pick fight. That had been before the world went to shit and she had no choice but to choose flight in order to confirm her survival onto the next day. The few times she had chosen fight; she had lost in a big way and had been punished. She had the scars to show.

Piper sighed and rubbed her arms, her eyes on the sinking sun, which was only just visible through the canopy of leaves and branches sheltering her. And, not for the first time since the reign of Gaia had begun, Piper cursed herself for failing. It was her fault that the world had fallen to shit.

She'd turned her back on the gods, after all.