Percy:

"I was twelve. That's when my life truly became worse than ever before. That's when I gave up..."

Flashback:

I ran as if my life depended on it, at the time I thought it did. The tears swelling in my eyes prevented me from seeing anything. Next thing I know I collide with someone. I wiped the tears away to get a good look at them. It was a woman. She looked so much like her that it hurt.

"Are you OK dear?" she asked with a sweet voice.

I didn't know what to say, so I kept running, the tears coming faster than ever. I ran until I couldn't anymore. I passed what seemed like hundreds of disgusting buildings, gangsters with sneers that seemed to challenge me to come closer, cars that couldn't care less as I ran beside them, and worst of all were the people who pretended to care. Those who would stop and ask if I was OK, I would never be OK again.

Finally I made it to what appeared to be an abandoned apartment building. I sighed, this would have to do for tonight. As I entered I caught the gazes of the homeless people who decided to stay here as well. I ignored their shouts and eventually found an uninhabited room that didn't look horrible nor smelled too bad. Instead of falling asleep like I should have I began to think about how this had come to be, how drastically my life changed in a measly three hours.

It started when I got home from school. My mother was still at work. At the thought of my mother the tears came back, but this time I made no effort to wipe them away. Since my mother didn't come home until six I was stuck with my wretched step-father for three hours, Gabe Ugliano, otherwise known as Smelly Gabe. Or the bane of my existence. He was fat, had about three hairs on his head, and sewage waste brown colored eyes. But those eyes turned red with fury after I refused to do his bidding. Of course I hurt me, but I was so used to this that I was numb to the pain. After Smelly Gabe got tired of beating me, Gabe went back to the living room and me to my room.

I began attempting his homework, but with my dyslexia it proved to be increasingly challenging. After a while of trying, but failing, at my homework, I heard my mother come home from work unusually early. I ran out of my room to greet her, but stopped when I heard Gabe's disgusting voice begin to shout.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN FIRED?" Gabe shouted louder than ever before.

"They said I had missed too many days." his mom only but whispered.

I knew exactly what this was about, lately Gabe had been forcing my mom to stay at home and cater his poker matches. He forced her to cook and clean at home instead of going and collecting their only steady supply of money. Anger began to surge through me more intensely than ever before. He was going to punish her for his mistake! How was this fair? Why does my mom, the most perfect woman in the world, have to suffer this much? Why couldn't I be the one suffering instead? Why couldn't Gabe, who was sent in a blinding rage, killed me instead?

Yes you heard me right. Killed. At first it was a loud smack, but he just kept going until he was hitting so hard it seemed my mother's skull had caved in. I wanted to trade places with her so bad. There is no way that the pain of being brutally murdered would ever come close to the amount of pain I felt now.

After it happened I didn't know what to do. There was no phone in the house (they were too poor to afford one), so I couldn't call the police. So I ran. Ran as fast as I could to escape. Gabe made no attempt to follow me, it seems he came to terms with what he had done and just blankly stared at her body.

I was torn from the rest of the memory by the sound of a gunshot. I made the mistake of looking outside. I saw a young boy, no more than 16, holding a gun with tears in his eyes and two dead bodies beside him. One was of a woman, she couldn't have been older than my own mother was, she had blonde hair that turned red with blood. The other was of a boy who must have been her son, he couldn't have been much older than me.

I watched in horror as the boy ran away and no one made any attempts to help the woman or her son. There were plenty of people passing by but not one single person stopped, they didn't even look longer than a couple seconds. So I went to help. I ran across the street and kneeled beside the mother.

She was still alive, but just barely. Her son wasn't. She had tears in her eyes and the most beautiful grey eyes I had ever seen. I grabbed her phone and called 911.

"Thank you" she said as though it was painful to speak. "Can you please call Frederick?" she asked.

I looked through the contacts and clicked on this Frederick. I made effort to hand her the phone but she shook her head.

"I can't speak well right now, please just tell him that Athena and Malcolm love him and we are leaving this world" she said.

-"Hello?" a young girl answered.

"Hi is Frederick there?" I asked tears streaming thinking that this must be her daughter.

-"Daddy it's for you"

-"Thank you Annabeth. Hello Frederick Chase speaking?"

I tried to choke out the words but I couldn't. Then Athena took the phone

"Frederick, I love you and tell Annabeth I love her too. No it's not alright. Malcolm and I aren't gonna make it. I'm sorry."

She stopped for a moment to cough out blood. I couldn't take any more of this so I was going to run back to my temporary home, but before i could she asked for my name.

"Percy" was all I said before I left.

Three years later

It's been three years since my life fell apart. In those three years I've still been running, hiding from the surrounding world. Since I haven't been going to school I stole books to attempt to continue my education. The strange thing is, I found that I actually liked to learn and read. I read so often I was sure I became smarter than my 6th grade teachers, but that's not saying too much. The only part that sucked was I couldn't steal books fast enough. I read them too fast and I couldn't take so many in such a short time.

I did that a lot. Steal. I was still too young to get a job so I stole to live. Food. Water. Clothes. Anything I could get my hands on. I wasn't very good, until I read Oliver Twist. For some reason reading about a good thief made me a good thief, go figure.

Today I needed another book, I was thinking American History. I went to my usual spot and got ready. Everything went smoothly, until the security guard saw me. I cursed, this had seen me before so he knew that I was the one stealing. I tried to run but eventually he caught me and called the police.

They arrived put me in their cruiser and began talking.

"Hey kid where are your parents?"

"I don't have any" I said the anger evident in my face.

"Where do you live?"

"Anywhere I can" I said with the same steely voice and harsh glare in my eyes.

After that they stopped talking to me and we started driving. At least in juvie I would get free meals and a place to shower. But they didn't take me to juvie. They took me to a place I had been avoiding more than anything second to only my old home, Child Protective Services.