"Would you shut up?" One of the guards yelled into her cell. She rolled her eyes and continued to skip around, humming GLAY quieter than before. It wasn't that she cared if she was annoying them or not, she just didn't want them coming in and being mean again.

"Anyways," the guard—Matthew— continued their conversation that they held seconds before he yelled at her. "Poseidon Jackson is trying to buy the asylum from Mr. Banks, but I don't think he's winning their little argument so far. I can only imagine how that's going to end."

She could practically hear the confusion in the other guard's—Simon's—voice as he asked, "What do you mean?"

She heard a slap, and giggled lightly as she imagined Matthew hitting Simon for being dumb. "Poseidon's a billionaire, idiot! Not to mention has even more power than the president. If Mr. Banks doesn't give him what he wants, Poseidon could sue him with a snap of his fingers. Which would leave us without a job."

"Sounds great to me," she mumbled and flopped down on the ground in front of her handmade tools. She picked up her favorite paintbrush and held up the bottom end, scraping along it with her paper clip to make it perfectly sharp. It had taken a while, but she believed she had finally made her sword. She bounced excitedly at the thought.

"Yeah well, I can't say I'll be too disappointed without this job. Wherever I end up it'll probably be better than babysitting insane kids 24/7. And either way, how do you know Poseidon will let us all go? Wouldn't he keep the employees?"

"Are you really stupid enough to think he's going to just buy all of this then leave it alone? He'll probably tear the building down and use the land to build another agency or something."

The mental girl gasped and scrambled over to the door. "You mean he's gonna kill all 'f us? I don' wanna die!" she screamed, pounding on the door. The guards looked at each other wearily.

"We forgot her last injection, didn't we?" Simon asked, and Matthew nodded. With a sigh, Simon stood and pulled the needle from her nightmares out of a drawer in his desk. He came forward and opened the door, reaching for her. She raced back to the opposite side of the room, terrified of the long, pointy needle that made her unable to think clearly. She didn't want to be clueless again. She was smart, and they knew it. She figured that was why they always injected the sharp object into her arm: so she couldn't outsmart them. Not that it actually made her less smart, she just couldn't express herself clearly after the medicine was put in.

Despite her efforts to stay away, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her closer. He threw her to the ground and grabbed her arm, twisting it to a position that made her wince. He scoffed and shoved the needle into her arm. She immediately turned her head away, refusing to watch the metal go into her arm. To her, the pain didn't matter; it was the idea of something unnatural being put into her body. Maybe it was only her that suffered from the idea of it, but she couldn't bear to think about it. So she didn't. She imagined him massaging her arm—roughly, just to make her imagination not seem too unrealistic—and she smiled. She loved massages.

He yanked the needle out of her arm and shoved her back, resulting in her stumbling until her back crashed against the wall. He walked out of the room, throwing the needle back in the drawer before sitting down.

"The little brat never cooperates," he muttered to Matthew.

The young girl grabbed her bleeding arm and sunk down to the floor. She hated that. She hated them. Who could ever not hate them for what they did to her?

"Sir," not too long after, she heard the sound of chairs scraping the floor as the two guards stood to greet whoever appeared. She strained her ears to listen to their now quiet murmurs, but all she could tell was there was another man. A voice she'd never heard before.

After a minute of trying the listen, their whispers turned into a conversation and their voices rose to a neutral tone.

"My son is in need of a companion: a friend to keep him company. I hear this is the most tame child here, correct?" the stranger's voice spoke.

Simon cleared his throat nervously. "Well she's calm, but I'd say she's one of the most psychotic ones in the building that's under the age of sixteen. I'd uh, recommend looking somewhere else for your kid's friend. I know you own the place, but an asylum…uh, mental hospital isn't the best place for innocent children to go looking for buddies."

"Did I ask that?" Simon remained silent at the question, slightly taken-aback.

"I'm sorry?"

"Did I ask for your opinion? No, I didn't. The only thing that should have come out of your mouth was if we're at the right cell for the right child—now is she in there or not?" Nothing but silence filled the air for the next few moments, and the girl imagined Simon nodding slowly while Matthew tried to hold back his snickers.

The door clicked, and slid open to reveal a tall man wearing a business suit, his hand attached to a little boy's hiding behind him. The man smiled at the girl while he and the boy stepped into the room.

"Hello," the man said, and the girl wondered if he was talking to her. If so, then why was he? "My name is Poseidon Jackson, but you can call me Mr. Jackson. This here," he stepped to the side a bit to reveal the young boy fully. "Is my son Perseus." Perseus had long, dark, shaggy hair that covered his eyes while he looked down. He was pale, almost as pale as the girl. They might have been the same color, but her light blonde hair sent off a lighter shade of skin to the eye.

Mr. Jackson looked back to the girl with a smile. "My son is in need of a friend while I work. I own the building now, and I'll take much better care of you and everyone else here than Mr. Banks has been. But I can only do that if my son is occupied. Would you like to keep him company?" His raised his eyebrows in question, and the girl tightened her grip on the bandage she had placed on her arm where the needle tore her skin. She had a hidden compartment of small bandaids, but she had a nasty habit of picking at them when they were on her skin.

She didn't answer him at first. She never liked any of the other children there in the hospital, but she had never met anyone outside. It's not like they took field trips. So she didn't know if he would be nice. Well, he looked nice enough.

Slowly but surely, she nodded. The smile on Poseidon's face grew and he bent down to the children's level. "Alright then. I'm going to let you two play around, but if either of you leave the guard's sight as he watches you then playtime's over. Understand?"

"Yes sir." Perseus responded as the girl nodded. Mr. Jackson stood and left the room with only one glance over his shoulder. The girl's eyes slowly moved to the boy and scanned over his figure. He looked about eight, the same age as her. But she didn't know for certain. She was about to ask but the boy's voice beat her to it.

"What's your name?" He asked, and she smiled. Nobody had asked her that in a long time.

"Annabeth." She said. "Annabeth Chase."

"Pretty." Was all her said in response, and her smile slowly turned into a frown. Part of the reason she didn't like the other mental kids (or any of the patients for that matter) was because they didn't talk enough. Whenever they did it was to answer her question as to why, and all they ever said was "the voices in my head are enough company," or something along those lines. If this boy was going to act like them, then she was definitely going to take back her promise to be his friend.

Hello inter-bugs! First fan fiction…how was the first chapter? I've been writing for a long time, along with reading fanfics, but I've never actually written a fic so I was like, "hey, why don't I attempt to please people by copywriting characters?" And in all honestly, I think this is a pretty good start. This is obviously an OOC, human AU story. So don't get your undies in a knot because I'm not following the books.

I'll probably update once a week, though I'm not sure. These days I get writer's block waaayy too often, you know? Anyways, thanks for reading! Leave me a review, and also some ideas/guesses of what happens next. Will there be a time skip? Will the story continue a little further from Perseus (he will be called Percy soon, don't worry) and Annabeth's childhood?

We shall see…