A/N: For the longest time, it seems as if I had been on an unannounced hiatus. And in a way, I was. I finished Percy Jackson & the Doors of Death, started the sequel to it and Damien Shade: Origins and just kind of vanished off of the face of the Earth. I'm taking down the sequel that I started, as this is the official sequel. And I'm taking down Origins so I can restart it and make it much, much better. Only mere days ago I rediscovered this site and my account, remembering all of the good things people had to say about my stories. So I felt as if it was my obligation to finish this chapter of Percy Jackson's life for you all. And if I ever, ever start to slack like I did back when Doors of Death was still going on, PM me or message me on my Facebook (Facebook link is in my 'About Me' on my profile, if you need it.). I'm back, and I hope you enjoy this introductory chapter to Percy Jackson & the Heart of the Universe. Read and review, I can't wait to hear what you have to say.
Chapter One:
Chaos & Colors
"Open your heart, open your mind,
To a new world, to a new world.
Spread out your wings and learn to fly,
To a new world, to a new world."
Asking Alexandria- Run Free
Point of View:
Percy Jackson
I couldn't remember what color my eyes were.
I knew they were green. But the word green was a lot different than the color green. Words you can't forget. From the first time you hear it to the last time, you never forget a word. It's there for good. Once you know it, it's in your mind's eye, your mind's dictionary, and you can never, ever burn that our of your brain.
But colors are different. Colors are there for the moment. Painted onto an empty canvas to make it not so empty. Illuminating the sky in brilliant blues. Burning the fires in majestic reds. Adding life to everything it touches, everything it blesses. Every color you can imagine, shot out from a prism. They're there while you can see them, and that's it. Once you're thrown in the darkness, your recollection of the colors slowly fades. It dims. You lose sight of what you once thought you could never find yourself losing. You usually always see color, so you never forget it. But I have.
I've forgotten.
I've been thrown in the darkness.
Everything around me was bathed in black, white, and every shade of grey in-between. No splotch of color anywhere. And when I say anywhere, I don't mean to give you the impression that I see all that much. I've been seeing the same dull, un-exciting chamber for the last year and a half. At least, a year and a half is what I've counted. After awhile you kind of start to lose track of the days, lose track of your mind, lose track of your life.
Most people take that for granted, the ability to remember. Then again, most people haven't gone through what I've been through.
Now where do I begin?
I could start off when I twelve years old and I discovered that I was the son of one of the Big Three Greek gods, Poseidon. How my whole world was pulled out from under my feet and held over my head to taunt me? How I fought countless monsters up until I was sixteen years old when the Great Prophecy that was revolved around me was supposed to come into play. How I battled the evil Titan lord Kronos, and somehow won. But for some reason I have the feeling that you all already know that, somehow.
No, where I'm going to start defines just how terrible my luck really is; a second Great Prophecy was revealed to relove around me. A second doomsday was thrown into my hands. A second god was awakened inside me. And most of all, I was pitted against the infamous Titan Lord Kronos for the second time. Maybe you can tell, but the universe doesn't favor me all that much.
I was revealed to be one of the twelves Descendants of Kronos. There's not much I can tell you about them, but I can tell you that the only two of us that weren't psychotic evil freaks were me and the mysterious Damien Shade. I don't know Damien Shade very well, either. I just know that he came to be one of my greatest allies in this battle. Oh...and he's the son of Kronos. Big bomb dropped there, huh? He helped me defeat Kronos again this time around. Talk about father-son fueds, huh? I doubt that I could have done it without him. Well, without him and the other god that runs through my veins...
The Old God. He's been a part of me since I was born, but I haven't known about him until now. I don't know much about him, either. Hades, it seems that I don't know a damn thing about any of the things that revolve around me. There's another Old God, and he lies within Damien. Figures, right? Two allies, both coincidentally paired with one another, both coincidentally reborn versions of the Old Gods.
From what Damien tells me, the Old Gods were the first intelligent life in our universe. There were only two of them, Damien and I, and we fought for ownership of the universe. He explains to me that I won, apparently. Though I don't know exactly what I did with the universe. That's yet to be told. Eventually they both disappeared, I suppose, like most gods eventually do. And here we are. Reborn into two mortal boys. Well, two HALF mortal boys. For what reason, I'm not exactly sure yet. But I know I'll be damned to find out as soon as I found my way out of these Doors of Death.
Yeah, the Doors of Death. Somehow they connect all of the weird things that had happened to me in recent years. They worked through the Descendants of Kronos, so I guess they worked through me, and the rising suspiscion that they were somehow involved with the Old Gods that lay inside Damien and I burned at the edges of my mind day by day.
I found myself trapped here after I stopped time to prevent the Doors of Death from continuing to kill Damien and I. That is, before I pushed Damien through one of his dark portals out of here. No way in Hades I would damn both of us to this eternal Hell. Anyways, the Doors of Death were put out of business, at least for now.
And I was at the center of it all.
Percy Jackson, Martyr of the Universe.
I traced my hands along the craggy, cracked walls of the cavern. I found that there's nothing better to do in this almost-hell-hole than to count the cracks in the wall. I always get up to about fifteen-thousand, lose my train of thought, look from one crack to the other million or so to try to regain my place, and end up starting over because I forgot where I was. As you can see, I've been leading a pretty damn exciting life, as of late. No, I couldn't just be a normal teenager and get my jollies and regrets from partying and over-drinking. I've got to get my kicks from saving the world and counting cracks on the walls of the Doors that had attempted to end my life at multiple points during my year and a half stay.
Wow, looking back at that, I'm really starting to take notice of how truly screwed up my life is. And it only gets screwier.
Yeah, you heard that right, the Doors attacked me. Multiple times. They have this nasty little habit of randomly opening up and spewing spiked tentacles at me. And then I always ended up using my Descendant powers inherited by Kronos himself to stop time to prevent the Doors from continuing to attack me. So I suppose that I've become the Door's keeper. It's sad, really. How many times can you say that your life has been threatened by a pair of goddamn doors? Probably not nearly as many as me.
Anger welled up inside me. Why should I be the one to be stuck here? Why was it my responsibility to control these damn Doors? Why did I have to be the hero all the time? All of these thoughts rushed back-and-forth inside my head, knocking around my brain like hammers. It's weird. It's like the universe chooses certain people to hold the weight of the world. Certain people to rise up in the darkness and shed some light. And most of the time, I didn't really mind being the light. It gave me a sense of completion, coming full circle, like I was doing something that only I could do. It felt great, on my good days. But lately things have been different. I've learned that being the light doesn't come without sacrifice. And a lot of it.
Sacrifices needed to be made.
And they were.
I would have sat there, lost in thought forever, if something odd, odd even for someone like me, happened.
The Doors of Death cracked open.
And there stood a man.
He was the only thing in color in the whole damn place. He wore a black trench coat that flowed all the way down to his ankles. Underneath that was a dark purple collared dress shirt, tucked neatly into his tight black pants. His feet were garbed in jet black boots, silver buckles on the side of each of the two. He was a little taller than I was, also looking a tad bit older than myself. His hair ran to a little above his shoulders, not very long, shaped around his head. He looked to groomed and suave to find himself in a place like this. It made me look down at myself in disgust, seeming as I've been in the same exact clothes for a little more than a year and a half.
But his eyes. His eyes are what stood out the most about him. They were yellow. Bright yellow. Not gold like Kronos' eyes were, but legitimately yellow. They were the first colors I had seen in what seemed like ages, and I couldn't of been happier...
Until realization hit me that there was another person here. Another human being besides myself. I was so shocked that I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. So I just stared at him and bent my legs, putting myself in the position to attack if I had to. After all this time, I couldn't be sure on who was my friend or foe. I could never be sure.
After what seemed like hours of silence, but was probably no more than twenty-five seconds or so, the man spoke. "If you want to escape these Doors, Perseus Jackson, than you would be wise to follow me."
"But what about the Doors of Death?" I spat back at him with unnecessary venom in my voice. "I can't just leave them. Whatever they're supposed to do, I can't let them do it."
"You're an idiot." He snapped back.
I had no idea what to say back to that. There was no proper response that I could give him, nothing witty like I usually come up with. Just...nothing.
All I could let out was a real sophisticated, "Uhhh...why?"
"Because you think that by staying here, you're helping everyone in our world. But in all reality you're just damning us all to a worse fate than we would go through if you never chose to stay here in the first place." His words were strong and full of meaning, but the way he said them were lazily, as if he didn't care. Monotone was the word for it, I believe.
I thought about what he was saying, and I couldn't grasp my mind around it. What did he mean? I thought that I was doing something noble. Something to protect all of the people I love and the countless innocents that I didn't even know.
"Whatever these Doors were made to do, they're going to do it whether or not you stall for time. Cause that's all you're doing, Percy; stalling. And that's it. It's only a matter of time before these Doors kill you. Before they get the best of you and you can't find the strength to defend yourself? And then what, huh? You'd just die here. And no one would know it. No one you love. No one you hate. No one. What I'm trying to say is that you're the best hope we have against this thing, and if you let yourself die here, we will have no hope whatsoever."
"So you want me to just leave and let these things do whatever it is they're trying to do?" I asked, so many possibilities running through my head.
"They're going to eventually defeat you and do whatever they want anyways, so yes, that's exactly what I want you to do. At least this way you have a slim chance of finding the way to win this fight, as you have won every fight before this." He said, again with that monotone tone of voice.
"Why should I trust you?" I questioned. "Why should I believe that you're not just another enemy? That I won't be killed the second that I step through that door with you?"
"You have no reason to trust me, but I imagine anything is better than being in this hellhole for the rest of your sad life." He answered.
I thought about what he said, running the possibilities through my mind. He was right. Sooner or later, something would have to give. And better I fight from the outside than to just damn myself to an eternity of fighting a pair of freaking doors.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out. It felt like the most hopeful breath of air I had taken in in a long time. "I'm with you, whoever you are." I said.
I walked past him, into the infinite darkness of the Doors of Death. I could sense him walking beside me. The Doors closed almost silently behind us, only giving us forward to go.
I'm coming home.
World, be ready.