So I thought: Amnesia + Percabeth? Why not?

Thus this story was born.

I probably won't be able to update it very often, so please don't kill me for that, and if you have time, make sure to review! The plot kind of just snuck up on me all at once, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I'm reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox at the moment. *glances around suspiciously* And, ya know, Jason had amnesia in The Lost Hero . . .

Let me know what you think.

The first thing I noticed was the darkness, pressing at me from all sides.

The second thing I noticed was the smell.

It was a powerful, thick, anesthetic odor, filling my nostrils, paralyzing me, reminding me of desolate hospital halls and nightmares I'd had about doctors wearing face masks when I was little.

How did I remember that?

I forced myself to open my eyes. My eyelids felt like lead and drooped sluggishly, but I managed to peer through slits and dark eyelashes to see a bright white light shining in my face, blinding me.

I blinked slowly, then opened my eyes again, squinting against the light. The whiteness started to fade, and pieces began to appear in my vision, filling in each other like a puzzle. Soon I was able to make out the features of a room around me. The light seemed to be coming from a lamp situated directly above me, shining down into my face.

I heard noises that sounded muffled, like they were underwater, or my ears were waterlogged. I thought I could make out a voice saying, "She's awake," and a sigh of relief.

I was aware of a sudden pressure on my wrist. I wanted to cry, I felt so relieved, but I wasn't sure I could conjure up the tears. I could feel. My nerves weren't damaged. I wondered why my body felt so stony and useless—probably some drug in my system that had been injected in me.

I guessed I was in a hospital, so I wasn't too surprised when my vision finally cleared and I found myself looking down white sheets stretched tight over a lump on a bed that was my body, white walls and medical equipment surrounding me like torture devices. Nurses buzzed busily around the room, hurrying to scribble down things on clipboards or check statistics on a group of computers set up, clustered together on a table at the end of my bed.

A woman and a man were hovering over me, standing on the right side of my bed. The woman had long, dark hair that curled past her shoulders and was wearing a navy cardigan. She looked like she'd thrown it on hastily, as the top buttons were mismatched, and the bottom row were hanging completely loose. A few stray pieces of hair hung in her face. She had purple smudges and lines under her bloodshot eyes. She looked exhausted. Her lips were slightly parted and I noticed she was panting faintly, like she was on the verge of a panic attack.

The man had sandy-colored hair and appeared much more collected. My eyes flicked down to his hand and noticed that he and the woman both had matching silver bands on their ring fingers, marking them as husband and wife. I looked back up at the man to find his gray-colored eyes staring down intensely into mine. His hands were folded solemnly in front of his gray jacket and pair of suit pants.

"Honey, can you hear me?" The woman sat down on the edge of the bed, still gripping my wrist anxiously, her facial features full of worry. I stared into her round, soft-brown eyes, framed by dark lashes and light-brown eyebrows. Her eyes looked like drops of milk chocolate against her pale, smooth, porcelain skin.

"Annabeth." The man spoke slowly. I didn't recognize the name he pronounced carefully, rustily, like he hadn't said it aloud in a very long time. He appeared slightly worried, but not near as much as the woman—or he was just better at hiding it. "Try to stay still—"

But even as he spoke, I craned my neck to watch a group of nurses walking quickly toward me, carrying needles and medical instruments. I felt a shudder run through me as I realized they were for me. I hated needles.

I didn't know how I knew that.

"The doctor is coming. He's going to check your heart rate. Just try to keep calm," the woman urged me, patting my hand. I wanted to say, You could use some calming down, yourself. She liked like she was hyperventilating, her eyes darting every which way, but mostly focused on me, her hand in her lap, twisting her skirt nervously.

The man leaned down and whispered something in her ear, which seemed to calm her, and she nodded. Then, hesitating, he leaned forward and brushed a piece of hair—or a bandage; I couldn't tell—all I was certain of was that it was soft and light-colored—out of my eyes.

The nurses were still walking toward me, taking quick, small steps in their tiny, white, high-heeled shoes that matched their uniforms, and clicked with every foot that touched the linoleum floor.

Linoleum floor. White tiles, two-feet-by-two-feet. Why was I noticing these particular facts? I suddenly noticed the full of the absurdity. My eyes were jumping everywhere, taking in tiny, useless facts. My brain felt like it was going into overdrive. I saw the short, stubby hairs on the man's blond mustache above me, a few soft hairs between the woman's eyebrows she'd missed with the tweezer. I took in the tall buildings of a city through the glass of the window in the room, bright light shining from outside onto my bed. I felt my eyes dilating, my eyelashes fluttering. My throat felt horribly, sandpapery dry.

"Are you feeling all right, Annabeth?" There it was again. The man's voice was deep and soothing, but I noticed it shook slightly as he pronounced that strange word—that name. "You've had an accident. You're going to be okay, I promise. Just lie still."

The nurses ventured nearer. One was looking straight at me, her mouth set in a grim line. She looked quite young, with blonde hair cut short that curled around her chin.

Their heels tapped the floor loudly. Their slim legs swung up, then touched the floor again.

Click.

Pump.

Click.

Pump.

Clickpumpclickpump.

The blonde nurse reached my side and jabbed a needle in my forearm, but I was feeling too sluggish to cry out. My vision began to blur, my eyes focusing on the nurse's name tag pinned on her blouse, which I think read something along the lines of Julia. As my eyesight started fading, I noticed a man step through the door on the right wall at the end of the room. The doctor. He hastened over to a computer displaying a graph. Red and blue lines were jumping up and down and gliding in a dangerous-looking way all over the screen.

Black was seeping through my eyes and brain and body, making me feel more tired and dead than I already was. I knew the drug seeping into me was working.

I managed to mumble four words through lips that felt like thick rubber before I went completely out. But even though I spoke them quietly and nearly unrecognizable, everyone in the room seemed to hear me, and their eyes grew wide and their mouths gasped as they understood them.

"I don't remember anything."