Okay, whew. I know that this is really short, but after reading the Mark of Athena, oh my. Woah. I could NOT deal. This is just a one-shot. It's not really one of my best, but I wanted to share it with the FF community. Read, review and enjoy!

-Vikki

PERCY'S LAMENT

Here it was…four years of service to the gods, and here I was being thrown into Tartarus. Luke had warned me that I was all a pawn in the god's games, but after the battle with Otis and Epilates, it just… it made me realize how cruel the gods could actually be. I'd been brave—I had helped Zeus get his silly lightning bolt back all those years ago, I'd held the weight of the sky to save Artemis, and then, I'd defeated Kronos and saved Olympus. I did what the gods wanted, both willingly and unwillingly. Hades, I wasted eight months of my life for this quest for Hera and it had failed. Annabeth and I were tumbling down into Tartarus. This isn't fair, it really isn't. I turned down Zeus's offer of becoming a god because I wanted to live my life, and it probably won't ever happen now. Because I'm falling into a ditch that is full of my old enemies unarmed. Who knows if I'll even survive this fall… and if I do, than who's to say that I'll be alive for much longer? I suppose that I'm supposed to go to Tartarus to close the Doors of Death, but how? I'm being thrown into a pit full of my enemies that I won't be able to kill. Annabeth's backpack had fallen in, and she's still wounded. I just feel so overwhelmed. I mean, the last year has been an overload of stress—from the Titan War to being pulled from Camp Half-Blood to going to another Camp with no recollection of my past life, I just wish that I could have been able to catch a break, ya know? Look, I never wanted to be a half-blood. It's scary. It's terrifying. Most of the time it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. All I can say is that now, I've never been more terrified.

"Percy, hold on!"

I think that we're nearly done falling. I can feel it—the closer we get, the more scared and angry I feel. I can feel Riptide burning inside my pocket, and Annabeth's grip on my hand tighten as we near the ground. I can hear monsters hissing below—they know that we're coming, and they're prepared for battle. I send a quick prayer up to any god that would listen. Maybe they could make the monsters go away, or maybe they could help me battle these monsters. The ground is coming into view.

"Get ready for hell, Annabeth," I say.

And we tumble to the ground.