Description: I am Luke, and I am not a hero. Rated T for language and bitter themes.


Sometimes, people kill themselves. This is known as suicide. Simple enough. I remember as a little kid, I wondered in sick fascination about those who murdered themselves - I wondered what could be so bad. So bad to make yourself want to die. Over the years, I learned a thing or two. I learned there are voices in your head. And no matter what, those little guys won't shut the fuck up. Try anything, everything: Cutting, puking, bullying. No matter the solution, it's all short term.

In less than two years, I went from the little kid wondering why death sounded so good to a fucked up guy who didn't even have enough time to wonder why he was still alive.

I made bad decisions.

And if you came here looking for a sob story, if you came here looking for an apology, you're not getting one. I did what I did, and ended up getting myself killed.

Trust me, I think about it all the time. After all, Heaven is what you make it.

Let me start over. No, not at the beginning. Not in the bad days. Those drove me crazy, and I just want forget... Give it time, Luke. Give it time. It still hurts, but it'll go away... some day.

I wonder if death counts as a wound? Because people say, given time, any pain will eventually fade. The agony of death? Well, I wouldn't call it an injury, exactly. Dying hurt. Death was a whole different story.


Many of my memories are sharp and clear. When I think about them, it's like being transported into that period in time. One of the perks of being dead, I guess. More like a curse.

When I died.. Well, to make a long story short, it hurt. The last thing I remember from being alive was touching Percy's arm, and telling him not to let it happen again. I knew he had the power. Percy was clever.

To Annabeth, I admitted I kind of loved her for awhile. I didn't care how wrong and weird it was. I was in my twenties, and Annabeth was barely sixteen.

And to Grover, the most puzzling thing of all. "There's... There's no healing..." I told him to put down his nectar and ambrosia. I told him to leave it all, because there was no healing... No healing what?

Being dead is like watching my life as a movie.

I can't remember what I was thinking or how I even felt. It's like a huge chunk of my very personality burned with my body. I have the memories - I just don't have the emotions that used to be tied to them. They were hacked away, and offered to the gods.

And so I pondered my words.
"No healing..."
In all truth, if Grover had given me enough, it would've kept me alive until the gods arrived, who would've (possibly) saved me. But I saw their faces. I was the prophecy. I created it and I conquered it, if you can call my death a conquest.

We all knew I was headed towards death. And me... Something tugs at my head, like a feeling left behind. Maybe I hadn't meant I couldn't be physically healed. Maybe I meant, there was no healing what I'd done. Who I'd mercilessly killed. There was no healing the scar on my face, a mark of bitterness.

I was Luke Castellan.

I am a ghost.

And someday, soon, I'll find peace in washing away all the regrets, drowning in the River Lethe.