Hey, peoples! Sorry I haven't updated in forever. I've been having major writer's block - on every single one of my stories (NOT cool) - but I'd been thinking about this for a while, so I decided to type it up.
DISCLAIMER: "Hey, nobody owns me!" Percy yelled. I reminded him that technically, Rick Riordan owns him. He grunted and left.
Black. That's all I saw. Black. Floating in a dark void.
Images flashed in front of my eyes. Like someone hit the fast forward button on the remote control of life. I saw my mom and I on the beach, enjoying a picnic with blue food. The trident over my head as I stood in the river, dumbfounded. The scorpion on my leg. The chariot race. The robot in Hephaestus's junkyard. Calypso. Luke on the Princess Andromeda. The council of the gods offering me immortality. Annabeth with her blue cupcake.
Annabeth and I in the lake.
Our first date. Us at the fair. Me asking her father for approval. At the store, buying the ring. Grover eating enchiladas. Proposing to Annabeth. Our wedding day. Our honeymoon. Her in labor. Our two kids. My entire life was flashing before me.
The images went faster. They blurred. It was too painful. Too painful.
Then they were gone, and I was drowning. Drowning. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe. No air. Air. Air ... I was Poseidon's son. Air wasn't supposed to be an issue. Yet I was drowning. Drowning. Drowning. "You knew this would happen."
Suddenly, flames! Embers dancing in the air. "This is all your fault!"
I saw Tyson. I was leaning over him. "No ..." I cried, though he could not hear me.
I wanted to pull the spear out of his chest. But my hands couldn't move. I wanted to call out to him, but my lips wouldn't work. My mouth wouldn't function.
Fire. Earth. Water.
I saw Annabeth, in a vortex of quicksand. Quicksand. She was sinking fast. Sinking fast. Sinking. Sinking.
"Percy!"
I jumped to her, but she just got farther away. She was drowning. Drowning.
"Percy!"
She was almost completely under. Her arm stuck out, desperately thrashing, begging for a savior.
"Percy!"
I was getting closer. Closer. Closer.
I jumped for her. But her hand slipped under the sand.
Falling. Falling.
Sand. I was surrounded by sand. Desert. I was in a desert.
"Do you want to play?"
I whirled around. Nico. He looked up at me with big, innocent eyes. "Do you want to play?"
Before I knew what to say, I heard his voice again. "Do you want to play?"
I turned back around, and there was Nico with those pleading eyes.
"Do you want to play?" Now it came from my left. Turning my head, I saw - Nico.
"Do you want to play?"
"Do you want to play?"
Over and over and over again I heard his words. And as I watched, he multiplied. There were hundreds of him now, in a circle around me, slowly advancing. "Do you want to play?" "Do you want to play?"
As far as the eye could see. He was everywhere. "Do you want to play?" "Do you want to play?"
They kept closing in. One Nico tripped me. Another one shoved me to the floor.
And they all knelt down by me. "Do you want to play?" "Do you want to play?" "Do you want to play?"
Too many. Too many. Too much.
And the sand was water, and Nico was gone. Crash. Crash. The waves rocked me again and again. I dived into the ocean. My powers were working again.
I saw him. Grover. Lying at the ocean floor.
I swam down to him. "Grover!" I screamed.
"Do you see what you did?" The voice. In my head.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
The scene shifted. A black void. A girl kneeling over someone in the distance. The girl turned her head to look at me. Annabeth. Her eyes glowed a bright yellow.
"Do you see what you did?" And she stood, and I saw the body. Rachel. A sword through her heart.
So that's what this was all about.
"She turned on us!" I debated. "She was going to kill you! I had to!"
"You did this to her," Annabeth rasped. Her eyes glowed brighter. She grabbed the sword from Rachel. Held it up. It was Riptide, of course.
"You did this," she repeated. "You did this. You did this. You did this."
She began to advance on me, still brandishing the sword in her hands, still repeating those same words. "You did this. You did this. You did this. You did this."
Too painful. Pain. Too much pain.
There was Bianca, along with the rest of the Hunters, bows pulled into position. Annabeth, with her knife drawn. Grover, looking like he wanted to rip me apart.
"You did this. You did this. You did this."
No. No! NO!
THUMP! Everything vanished, and all I saw was blackness. I felt something hard on my side. My eyes opened. I was lying on the floor, blankets strewn on top of me.
I shakily got to my feet. Suddenly I felt the familiar feeling in my chest. My throat. I barely made it to the bathroom before I started to throw up. I knelt on the floor, too weak to stand, retching again and again.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It began to rub my back. When I could finally stand, I saw Annabeth standing there, a look of worry on her face. Reality caught up with me. This wasn't the 16-year-old Annabeth of my dream. This was the present day, 36-year-old Annabeth.
She drew me into a comforting hug. I began to cry on her shoulder, getting tears on her nightgown and strands of blonde hair in my mouth. We stood there, for nearly an hour, me just crying, her trying to ease the pain.
When I finally ran out of tears, I never wanted to let go of her. I wanted to just stay there forever. But I had to be strong. I pulled away from her. I tried to go back to the bedroom, but she turned me around and looked me right in the eye. "When are these nightmares going to stop, Percy?" she asked, like a mother would.
"I don't know," I muttered. Another drop ran down my cheek, but I tried not to let her see it. She saw it.
"Oh, Percy." She hugged me again, letting me bury my face in her neck. "I know it's been a tough time since ..." She hesitated, as if wondering whether it was safe to bring up the subject. "But Percy, you've gotta get over it. The kids are starting to worry about you, I can see it in their eyes. Rachel was ... listen, ever since she gave up the Oracle's spirit she'd been kind of ... unstable. You know that. Then she started taking drugs, and it wasn't long before she was addicted. When she attacked me ... I would've done the same thing, Percy. You did the right thing. You saved my life."
By ending Rachel's, I thought. But I couldn't bring myself to say it. I was too weak, and she was right. I'd done what I had to do.
"Come on." She was about to kiss me, but then she stopped. I guess she remembered that I'd just thrown up. So she settled for my cheek. Putting an arm around me, she began to lead me back to our room. "Let's go back to bed."
Soooo, whadya think? R&R please! No, I won't be continuing!