Well, it's been awhile since I last published a oneshot for Percy Jackson. Here's just a piece I wrote one night when I couldn't sleep, so it's not very good. But Ethan has been one of my favorites—I have a thing for minor characters like that. This is just how I pictured his last thoughts. So... enjoy.
Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians belongs to Rick Riordan, not me.
Falling. Pain. Regret. Fear.
Ethan Nakamura felt himself falling through open air, the last image of Percy's horrified face fading from his mind. This was it. He was slipping away toward the earth below, plummeting to his death from the very heart of Olympus.
He struggled to pull his eyes away from the quickly fading mountain in the sky, and looked at the shard of his sword that was sticking out of his abdomen. His own blade had betrayed him. The very blade he had served Kronos with was causing the son of Nemesis so much pain now, sapping away his life. He could feel the blood soaking through his shirt, staining the fabric a dark shade of red. No one would care, though.
Ethan felt his consciousness fading fast, the pain blurring his vision. But that wasn't what he was really thinking about as he quickly fell to his death.
In the little time he had left, Ethan wondered whether his life had really been worth living. Turning to the Titans, betraying the gods, hurting so many innocent people in the process… Would it have been better to not have been born at all? Nemesis had told him that his life was important, that it would bring honor to the minor gods. He would be a hero among the unclaimed, unwanted, and unloved. She had promised all that, and made sure her son never forgot that oath. His eye was a simple token to trade for honor.
But Ethan didn't know—he wasn't sure if he still understood the difference between right and wrong, black and white, success and failure. The lines between the two had been blurred for so long that he wasn't sure whether he had actually done something good.
The wind flapped his dark hair around violently as the falling demigod got closer to the earth, which was speeding towards him like the claws of death, ready to embrace him its clutches. He knew his end would come any minute now, but his heart was still in a state of unrest. If he couldn't distinguish the good from the bad, how was he to know if he had done the right thing? In the very end? He would never get to find out if he had brought his mother the respect she deserved—or the shame she didn't. He knew one thing, though. If he could do everything over—from the very beginning—he would. But Fate is a cruel thing, and there's no take backs when it comes to the twisted game of Life.
Suddenly, a terrible idea hit him. If he had not lived life well… had he been evil enough to go to the Fields of Punishment? Would his mother turn her back on him, and let him suffer for an eternity?
He wasn't sure.
His heart felt like it was being squeezed with suffocating fear. There was only one thing he could do now. "I'm… sorry…" The words were croaked out through cracked lips. "Nemesis… forgive me." That was the last thing he said, the last thought that traced through his mind, but a peace settled over his dying body right before the second Titan War claimed yet another soul.
A/N: Well, I hoped you liked it. Reviews are welcome, too :D