Just a little note, if you want the full effect of this fic, listen to Radioactive by Imagine Dragons as the structure of the fic is based on the structure of the song, and it also has some major themes that are present in the fic.
Radioactive
I woke up to the darkness of the closed room and the damp smell of sweat. I could taste rust in my mouth - the unmistakeable taste of blood. When I turned my head, in the window stood three familiar figures: a princess with blonde curled hair, a tall horseman standing six feet, and a boy standing the same height. His green eyes pierced the darkness, the only thing that brought a fire back into my sore chest and limbs.
The humidity from the room created a thin line of sweat on my forehead, and as it slipped into my eyes, I instinctively wiped my brow. The needle that had been strapped inside my arm twitched and bruised my already bloodstained arm. The pain made me suck in the hot air deeply and loudly.
"The process is almost done, yea?" Percy murmured through the glass. His face looked dark in the low light - almost Titan-like. He leaned forward on the glass, palms up, clearly distressed.
"Nearly," Chiron said, trotting nervously against the wooden floor. "The worst has yet to come, but it is the last part of the procedure."
"Better now than later." Percy swallowed and opened the wooden door leading to my room. His head was down, coldly staring down at the floor. His fingers moved nimbly against the dials on the machine which my needle was attached. The green power that would soon be integrated with my blood churned in the container as it prepared to lazily slip down the tubing into my arm. I took the prep time to speak, my voice dangerously hoarse.
"And everyone goes through this, yea?" I asked.
Percy solemnly nodded. "Dangerous, yes. Painful, yes. Will it come to save your life one day? Yes. I couldn't tell you how many times my powers have saved my life."
I eyed the poison, slowly dripping into the needle. The burning was already searing my skin. "And I will be like you, Percy?"
He didn't answer before the pain was immediate and shocking. My body flinched towards the ceiling, like Poseidon himself was dragging me to the Heavens, pulling my closer to him. My head snapped to my bloody, strapped arm and with my free hand, I reached across my body to remove the needle. The pain was unbearable. It needed to stop.
A pale hand grabbed mine and pulled it down to the lab table. It landed in something wet and sticky, probably a combination of my own sweat, blood, and tears. The restraints snapped around my wrists as my body thrashed harder and harder. The tears began pouring from my eyes, and they fell carelessly down into my open, screaming mouth.
I began pushing through the restraints. The needle was digging more into my skin, but I couldn't feel it over the burning fire in my whole body. My chest was the worst, my heart deliberately receiving the brunt of the pain. My back craned towards the Heavens, higher and higher as the process went on. My head snapped to Percy, and his radioactive green eyes staring back into my brown. I pleaded silently with him to relieve me from my unbearable pain, but he just continued to hold my legs down to keep from dislocating his jaw. I closed my eyes and threw my head back cursing our father.
In brief relief, the pain and the burning stopped, as if Poseidon heard my calls. My muscles unclenched, and my limbs fell limply on the cold lab table. I turned to look at Chiron and Annabeth who was covering her ears from my screams.
"Is it over?" she mouthed.
The overwhelming heat returned just as a saw Chiron's lips say, "No."
I heard the distant sound of crashing waves against the walls and when I looked up through squinted eyes I saw that the waves were tangible and in the room. I could smell the ocean in the room, it was no longer the stench of my sweat, but sweet saltwater.
My eyes were clamped shut, and when it the pain was over, I unsteadily rose from my restraints. The waves were gone; the floor was damp from their departure. As Percy pulled the needle from my arm, I noticed that my bruises and blood had disappeared. The wasn't even a puncture from the needle, just a blue trident stemmed out from where the needle was. "We match," Percy whispered, sticking out his imprinted arm. He looked up in my eyes and flinched.
When I stared in the mirror that was placed at the foot of the lab table, my eyes had changed to the same radioactive green as his.
"Welcome to the new age of demigods," Percy murmured coldly, "where surviving means being radioactive."
