The camps are in ruin. The demigods are scattered. Olympus is under siege. The gods were wrong, Gaea was never really defeated. She took a hit, sure, but she got what she needed-the blood of Olympus. With Tartarus, entire cities are in chaos and filled with monsters. Even death isn't an escape. It's an apocalypse Percy fears he might have to face alone, separated from his family.
…Scattered….
How many days has it been…?
Weeks…? Have weeks gone by?
But the monsters… how much more can I kill?
Ugh, here comes one now.
He raised his sword just in time, slicing the empousa's head clean off. He was too used to the monster dust to brush it off.
He was sick of them. Sick of those monsters. They tried to kill him every ten minutes. He was sick of hiding too, but he didn't have much of a choice, he was too drained to fight off more than two at a time.
He was even sick of ambrosia. He'd taken too much these past days and it was starting to churn around in his system. He didn't want to take anymore.
Percy groaned as his vision started to blur. He leaned on the concrete wall at his side, doubling over almost immediately.
"Sit down, Jackson." He scolded himself in a weak whisper. "You're killing yourself."
He didn't really know exactly where he was. He left California maybe two weeks ago after the bombing. He tried to follow the highway but soon he was bombarded with monsters. He had to hide. He had to get to New York.
He'd found one of those tourist maps at a monster infested Seven-Eleven by the roadside. He'd killed off the monsters, of course, and followed the map as best he could. He may be twenty-eight, but his dyslexia still bugged him most of the time.
Eventually he ended up in some random subdivision when he was trying to get to an abandoned gas station/gift shop. He found some scattered monster dust around the parking lot and saw the shelves have been raided.
Obviously some demigods' work. But then…
Could Annabeth have gone through here? Could little Luke… no he couldn't have…
The constant thought of the family he might've left behind was more painful than anything else Gaea could've brought. It constantly nagged at the back of his mind and haunted his dreams. It settled at the pit of his stomach and choked his lungs.
He felt tempted to just sit down and cry, to let the pain out. He wanted to wake up and know it was all just a dream. But it wasn't. He had to go on.
Now, back on the streets, Percy plopped down on the sidewalk and rubbed his hand over his face. He decided to crawl into an alleyway and sit there until the nausea passed.
He was fairly sure it was the Oreo-and-coke-diet he'd had since taking to the streets. Or the blood loss. Or both.
"Ugh," he groaned as his head pulsed with pain. It'd been about fifteen minutes before it finally subsided and he was able to stand.
His headaches had grown more and more painful over the past few days, becoming lengthier and more sudden.
It was probably the lack of sleep.
Percy decided to move on. He was fine. He could handle it… right?
The eerie silence wasn't comforting. It made him jump every time a monster-roar was heard behind him, breaking the quiet. He didn't dare make a sound himself. It just seemed… disturbing- how his footsteps echoed down an alleyway, the loud, lonely clank of a soda can he dropped, even his ragged breathing every time the headaches strike.
The cities… they were deserted. Every town, every building seemed void of people. Sometimes Percy felt like he was the one human left alive in the world, though he hoped not.
He was left alone to his thoughts, walking down the sidewalk, until he heard the growl.
Hellhound. He snapped to attention.
There it was, crouched in the doorway of an innocent-enough house just a few feet from Percy. Its glowing red eyes were fixated on him, mouth snarling and fizzling with reddish foam.
Percy cracked his knuckles, uncapped Riptide, and charged. He killed it easily with one swing of his sword. Its claws managed to scratch his shoulder, but he was fine.
The doorway of that house, light-blue and covered with monster dust, was wide open. Curiosity got the best of him, so naturally, he took a peek inside.
The living room seemed normal enough, though disorganized. Three couches, a coffee table, and a flat-screen TV on the wall. To his right was a flight of stairs and across the room was, what he guessed, a kitchen doorway.
Walking further in, he found an incomplete Lego house by the sofa, a fallen pile of magazines, a broken wooden chair and, well, blood. On the floor. Smeared across the carpeting and trailing into the kitchen.
He felt a chill run through him at the sight , but it was as if some force compelled him to look in further.
So, braving himself and taking a deep breath, he surged into the kitchen.
There, slumped against the kitchen sink, was the bloodied body of a girl. Most of the red substance was on her stomach and leg. In one hand she loosely held a glowing golden long sword.
Demigod.
Percy felt sick to his stomach. The red foam on that hellhound's mouth… it was blood. This girl's blood.
Carefully he kneeled next to the girl and laid his sword down. He brushed off the shoulder-length hair from her face to get a better look. Her face… he felt his stomach churn.
"G-Gwen…?" His voice cracked. Tenderly, he held her cheek with his own calloused hand. "No… H-how…?"
His heart sank. One of his closest friends- dead. Or… was she?
His hands immediately moved to her neck and wrist, checking for a pulse…
Nothing. He sighed, closing his eyes and leaning his head against the wall. He opened them, just a crack, to survey the kitchen.
Sunlight from the window above the sink streamed into the room, shimmering on the golden monster dust scattered around the floor.
That's it. There must've been more of them and that one hellhound found an opening. It managed to kill her.
He stayed like that for a moment, just resting against the wall trying not to look down on his friend's body. He felt the blood from his own wound ooze down his arm in little red streams.
"Gwen…" Percy sighed again, just a little goodbye. He didn't expect an answer.
"P-Percy…" Her voice was hoarse, blood pooling out of her mouth. All his senses were suddenly alert. He sat up and held her shoulders, intent on healing her.
He started to press down her wound, but she shook her head. "No." she managed weakly, and he stopped. His insides were too numb to protest.
"I…" she coughed up more blood, shaking violently. Percy held her. "The camp's gone." She said. "I-It's all…"
"Gwen-"
"No, Percy…" He had to strain his ears to hear her, as she spoke barely above a whisper. "The mortals… they-they haven't… upstairs… see f-for yourself…"
But he didn't understand. All he cared about at the moment was talking her back into living. "Gwen, no, don't. This… This isn't fair. You had a family and you're…" his gaze dropped to her stomach, eyes widening in horror as realization struck.
"You… you were supposed to…"
"At least she won't get to see this… this horror-world…" she smiled, her gaze already far away. Her hand rested on her wounded stomach as she began to close her eyes.
"Gwen. Gwen, no!
"You… you had a family!" He said desperately, trying to get her back.
"So did you…" she muttered, her smile holding. "We still do…but death… isn't an escape…" she coughed again. "I can see it now, Percy… it's all… it's all punishment… Tartarus has taken control… Hades… Hades has fled…
"Upstairs," she pleaded, looking straight into his eyes. And for the last time, Percy saw the warrior in her. He saw the fierce gaze of this once Roman Legionaire, the leader who backed down to no monster. He saw the leader of the fifth cohort who once led him into battle at the War Games. For at this moment, it would be the last time anyone would ever see that warrior again.
"And… one last thing…" she breathed, closing her eyes. "Don't die."
He had tried to clean off as much blood from Gwen's wounds as he could and wrapped her body in a white blanket. He found a marker in the lower bedroom and drew an SPQR symbol on the cloth at her chest. It would have to pass for a shroud.
He tied up his own wound and made for the stairs.
It was quiet in the house. Looking up he could see three doors at the top, one shut and two wide open.
Tentatively, Percy began his climb. The stairs creaked under his shoes at every step. The railing was evenly painted, if not a little rough. He noticed a few framed pictures hanging in an ascending row on the wall at his other side.
He stopped mid-way to examine a frame. It was the typical family picture- mom and dad on the sofa with two kids.
The next picture was of a girl with curly brown hair and green eyes in a glittery-pink dress. She was the older sister in the family picture. The girl seemed to be standing on a stage, roses at her feet and a medal around her neck. She must've won a contest of some sort.
Percy left the frames and climbed up the last few steps. He went straight into the room in front of him. It seemed to be a children's room, empty save for a bed, desk and an open toybox.
The next one seemed to be a girl's room with pink walls, a lavender bed, a bookshelf and a desk. The walls were decorated with posters of romance novels and movies, shirtless actors and One Direction.
Typical girl's room.
It seemed normal at first glance, until he saw the window on the left wall. It was wide open, and out of it looked the girl from the photo downstairs. She had a terrified look on her face and seemed to be frozen where she stood, probably because she was.
Nervously, Percy approached the girl. Looking closer, he noticed that she was tinged with grey- not only her skin, but her clothes and hair and eyes. It was as if she was covered in a grey spider web.
He left her there and decided to go to the next room. It was locked, so he kicked it open. After a few hits, it gave way.
It was obviously the parents' bedroom. Same as the girl, the two adults stood frozen in a grey haze, gaping in horror out the window. The mother had her arms raised, as if shielding herself from something. At their feet was a little boy, staring up at his parents in confusion.
He felt sorry for this family. They didn't deserve to be pulled so suddenly from their normal, happy lives and into a reign of chaos. He knew once Gaea gained full power the mortals would regain consciousness and be forced into slavery.
"All mortals," Percy decided, speaking out loud. "All of them are like this. Must've woken up in the middle of the night to some… some horror outside. Turned them half to stone."
He touched the little boy's hair. It was solid and cold, like marble. So was the rest of his body. So was every other mortal's.
He took what he could from the kitchen and filled up a sling bag he found in the parents' closet. He took the father's jacket as well, just for warmth. Other than that, he didn't dare take anything else.
He burned Gwen's body in the backyard- the proper burial custom, with the money and speech and everything.
He made to leave, but stopped when he saw it was sundown. The clock in the living room read 5:52pm. Spending the night in a house for once wouldn't be so bad now, would it?
He made sure to lock all the doors and windows, barricading them for extra security. He made himself comfortable on the couch since he wasn't particularly enthusiastic about sleeping in a room with frozen humans.
He cooked up some chicken and ate that with bread. It tasted way better than anything he's salvaged on the road.
Finally he snuggled up on the couch, staring at the ceiling. He left the lamp open to give him a little light. He kept his stuff on the coffee table and he had Riptide in his hand, in pen-form of course.
He fiddled with it for a while, left alone to his thoughts. Slowly, he started slipping off into a dream. It was the one he relived every night, and it was too late to pull back now…
So how's that for a first chapter? XD
So first I'd like to thank you all for reading. Please review and tell me what you think!
And second I'd like to apologize to those who are waiting on Just Trust Me, my other story. I'll try to update soon, but my mind's blank on that at the moment.
So this is like an apocalypse story that I failed to fully explain in this first chapter, hehe. Sorry. But I promise more explanations shall be given in the second chapter.
Percy's 28 by the way.
~LeFabulousApolloChild XD
