AN: Well, I'd be lying if I said that I was 100% satisfied with Tartarus when I read House of Hades. It seemed like a typical hell - playing off of natural human squeamishness, fiery suffering. Of course it's understandable. I mean, Percy and Annabeth did have to escape somehow. But I had pictured something a little harsher, and bothered to write it down. It was interesting, since fatal flaws aren't really what tortures, so it's not something that was shown repeatedly in the books.
Everyone experiences something different in Tartarus, unique to their greatest dreads and fears. And that isolation and desperation is what creates the horror.
L'enfer, C'est les Autres
Part 1/3: Percy
Much to Percy's surprise, Tartarus wasn't beyond his wildest nightmares and ultimate fears: it was completely made up of his most intense nightmares and fears.
Tartarus was a raging storm. At some point during the fall, the wind had picked up, not just rushing up past him, but blowing from the sides as well. It only got stronger as they kept tumbling. Now Percy was struggling to walk forwards through the storm. Gusts nearly knocked him off his feet every few seconds. The curls of icy and scalding wind mocked him and laughed at his pathetic attempt to keep going. His feet were made of lead, making every step a struggle. It was raining hard and sideways, but whatever was falling was not water.
He wasn't really picking which direction was forwards, he was just following Annabeth. Or, what he thought was Annabeth anyways. It was a hazy figure in front of him who didn't seem to be having any trouble fighting against the wind. They kept close enough that he could tell that they were there, but far enough ahead that he could tell how much easier they found the process. The hazy figure was beating him. She was smarter than him, cleverer, more successful… and here he was, fighting to not get blown backwards.
Calling out to talk to the person (possibly Annabeth) in front of him wasn't really an option. It was taking all of his effort to stay on his feet. His shoe slid back a foot, and Percy immediately tensed, forcing himself to take another step forwards.
In the gusts of cloud and wind he thought he could see faces sometimes. Often they didn't look familiar, but every now and then he'd pick out one or two that he recognized: his mother, a god, Grover, Luke Castellan, Thalia… They all looked at him with a sort of amused apprehension, as if mildly interested, but not all that concerned if he survived.
Dark clouds filled with an acidic moisture swirled around him, but he couldn't control this hurricane. His own element was fighting against him now, and surely he would lose. He could feel his legs weakening already, his skin being torn off but the force of the wind… though when Percy looked at his hands, they seemed to have no injuries. That didn't stop the pain though, the invisible pain.
The winds mocked and taunted him, watching him fight when they felt like it. They gossiped among each other, howling of how the lowly son of Poseidon was nothing great after all, merely a wrongdoing, a mistake, and how he had bitten off more than he could chew. They screeched and whined and wailed and shouted and chattered, and Percy's vision kept getting foggier. But he had to keep going. He had to prove the winds wrong. He could do it. He could escape this place, if he could just remember what it was he was looking for. Percy Jackson was not weak.
After a while (he could not tell how long), Percy could not tell how far he had moved. The liquid (or maybe it was a solid?) falling from the sky continued to push him back, and the winds held him down. A huge weight seemed to be pressing on his chest, like the sky had been, but somehow even more daunting and forceful.
Percy knew he wasn't strong enough. From the moment he'd landed in Tartarus, he knew that every awful teacher, every playground bully, every Gabe Ugliano, they'd all been right. He wasn't good enough. He couldn't do it. He never could. Percy Jackson was a mistake. His father had said it straight to his face.
He was going be a failure after all.