Not a Choice Anymore
"Percy!" Annabeth screamed. "Percy! What the heck do you think you're doing!" she called after him. Percy ran back to her. "What? You told me to scout for anyone else around here!" "And that was a trip wire!" Percy's eyes widened. "Run!" Annabeth saw the hole widening in the earth, as if it were slowly falling away. It seemed like a cruel joke, after what had happened last summer. They had just barely defeated Gaea, the earth itself, and now it felt like Gaea was causing the ground to collapse instead of the Gamemakers. Annabeth stumbled blindly away from the gaping pit, dreading what might follow behind her.
Percy's POV
How could I have been so stupid? First, after Camp Half-Blood was destroyed, I brought Annabeth to these horrible districts. Then, I triggered the wolf attack. Now I set this off. I checked behind me to see if Annabeth was still there. Thank the gods, she was still running. But the pit widened at an alarming rate just behind her. We ran for what seemed like forever, then the dark hole stopped expanding. We collapsed onto our knees at its edge. "Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth said. "That was a little too close."
Annabeth's POV
Percy and I laughed for a minute. Not because there was anything funny about our situation. We were just so exhausted, we couldn't really help it. I guess when you get stuck in something like this, knowing you could die any minute, if you don't laugh about it to ease it a bit, you start to go out of your mind. We got up and made to go to our camp, but a blinding pain started suddenly in my side. A knife handle stuck out of me. I stumbled back dazedly, looking at my own blood. I felt warm and cold at the same time. A face grinned at me coldly from a distance, the face of the girl who threw the knife. "Win for me, Percy. Please." I managed to say. My foot slipped, and I saw Percy's face one last time before I plunged into the pit and the blackness at the edges of my vision took over.
Percy's POV
Annabeth was dead. And ten feet away was the person who had killed her. Riptide, which with a trick of the Mist had passed as my token, elongated into a bronze sword in my hands. Pure rage filled me. I swung the sword at the murderer fast as lightning, but the girl evaded the blade. She screamed, " Cato! Cato, save me!" Pathetic. She was too scared to kill unless it was where she could be safe. The coward. I swung and hacked off a chunk of long brown hair. Not what I aimed for, but it distracted her. I thrust Riptide toward her, and my mark hit home. She collapsed onto the ground, gasped for the last time, shuddered, and then lay still. The wound in her stomach still bled. "Goodbye, Annabeth," I choked out. I picked up Annabeth's bronze knife, the camp necklace with the beads for each summer at Camp Half-Blood that was her token, and made a silent promise. I would win the Games for Annabeth. Her death wouldn't go unsung and unavenged. If our places were reversed, she would've done the same for me. I had to get out of the arena, so I could make the Gamemakers pay for what they did to Annabeth. It wasn't a choice to give up and die anymore. It wasn't for my own survival now. Annabeth would want me to live and tell her story. I would survive the Games, and she would be remembered.