Annabeth and Perseus didn't talk for the next two months. It didn't bother her much, seeing as she was classified insane and people never found her comfortable to be around. Still, she wondered why he avoided her. His dad owned the asylum, after all, so he shouldn't be scared of her hurting him (Annabeth was insane, not stupid). Nevertheless, she couldn't blame him. He didn't ask to come live next to an asylum, and he didn't ask to have a dad who would be busy running it 24/7.
She couldn't figure his avoidance out, but she didn't need to. It wasn't something she needed to worry about. Why should she care about him, anyway? If he wasn't going to put effort into their friendship then she wouldn't either.
At the moment she was sitting on her floor painting a city over the stainless steel. Buildings had always been her favorite thing to draw, but she consistently added her own touch: Fires burning along the walls, lightning shooting out of the roofs and into the sky, etc. The inside rooms would have faces built into the walls that would speak wisdom and answer people's questions. Some other rooms would have electricity spiking every sixty seconds on the floor, killing anyone who wasn't smart enough to calculate when it would spark. Her mother used to tell her that wisdom was everything. If someone wasn't intelligent or clever, they wouldn't be able to handle whatever purpose the gods had given them, assuming the gods cared about them enough to even give them a purpose. Annabeth didn't have one, she knew, because her mind was shattered. She originally had one, but it disappeared with her mom.
The building she was working on while she waited for her lunch to be brought to her was round, with spikes in random places. The inside she imagined would have floors made of cushions and walls made of trees. A strange combination to anyone else, but fun for her. She was only nine after all, so why wouldn't she have a big imagination?
The door opened slowly and she quickly tossed her paint brushes under her bed. Nobody knew she had them except for her old guard who gave them to her: more on him later. Simon peaked his head in and sighed in boredom when he saw her.
"Come on, kid," he said. "Lunch time." Confused, she stared at him for a moment. They always brought the food to her, never brought her to the food. A welcomed change, but a strange one. Not wanting to upset her guard, she stood and walked to the door. He held out a hand to stop her then reached behind him to grab something from Matthew who was standing outside the door. When he came back around to face her, he was holding two thick, metallic, black wrist bands. "Give me your hands."
She held out her wrists and he slid the bands on. He let them go and they pressed against her wrists like weights.
"They're heavy," she mumbled and he rolled his eyes as he messed with the side of them. A blue hologram screen appeared no more than two inches off one of the band and he typed a long word that Annabeth couldn't decipher (she blamed her dyslexia). After a moment of typing, the metallic things sent an electric jolt through her arm and she yelped. They began to hover around her wrists with blue lasers expanding from her wrists to the bands. It burned her skin like nothing she'd ever physically felt before.
"That hurts!" She hissed, and tried to pull one off. But when she tried, the band wouldn't move no matter how hard she pulled on it. It was like the lasers were solid metal like the bands themselves. She looked up at Simon for an explanation, and he returned her look with a smirk.
"New boss, new rules. Come on, all you freaks are eating together." He said, and she followed him out of the room.
As they walked, Matthew followed close behind. The looks on both the guard's faces were smug, like they were honestly happy to escort her somewhere. Not that they liked her, because they most definitely did not. But they must have felt a sense of responsibility that they hadn't felt by just guarding outside her room.
The walk was no longer than three minutes before they arrived at a large room full of children her age. She had never seen other kids her age apart from on the rarely shown updates on her hologramic screen that appeared on her wall in her room. She stared in awe at the children who looked equally as surprised to be there as her.
Matthew shoved her forward to walk into the room, then left her there without a word. She glanced back at the closed doors once, but didn't worry too much about them. She was more curious as to what she was doing in the room packed with other children her age. She peered around to examine the room. There were tables everywhere—dusty white and round with grey benches attached to them. The children sat around the tables, their trays filled with the same food she was usually fed in her room. She looked to the side of the colossal room to see a line formed to get to a square, black table that trays of food were lifted up from an equally square hole. Next to the table was a hologramic woman wearing a smile as big as Mars. She nodded to each person as they grabbed their tray and headed to a table to sit.
"Enjoy your meal," she'd say to one kid as they grabbed their tray. "Bon appetit," she'd say to the next. "Disfrute de su comida," "nyde did måltid," "Dōzo omeshiagarkudasai," and she kept going in hundreds of different languages Annabeth couldn't dicier. She didn't even know there were that many languages, let alone kids who could speak them in that place.
She walked up to grab a tray and the lady told her to enjoy her meal. She wasn't going to, but she smiled politely then went to sit down at an empty table. She examined the kids siting at the near-by tables: at the table to her right sat three kids, two boys and a girl, who all looked about seven. The girl had platinum blonde hair falling down to her elbows with darker streaks peaking through. She wore the same shirt as everyone else in the room—a rough, gray t-shirt—with forest green pants and black military boots. One of the two boys had spiky black hair that looked so shiny anyone would have thought it was gelled, though the boy most likely had none. He wore the same shirt as the girl but the short sleeves had been torn off leaving it as a tank top. The other boy had flat brown hair, and his shirt looked brand new, the fold creases still visible and not a spec of dust on it. They looked uncomfortable around each other, but from what Annabeth could tell everyone was uncomfortable. They didn't know anyone (other than their individual guards), let alone hundreds of children their age.
The rest of the tables were filled with other unique looking children, and Annabeth didn't feel welcomed by any of them. Granted she might feel more comfortable if she talked to someone, but she doesn't find the courage.
But she doesn't have to. Not too long after Annabeth sat down, a girl with a bob of silky black hair flopped down across from her, slamming her tray down on the table. She made herself comfortable and didn't glance once at Annabeth, just stuffed her face with food. She looked mad. Mad enough to burn down the building if she was given the chance, and she almost looked like she already had. Her hair was a mess and her clothes had tears in dozens of places. Her skin had cuts and bruises all over it and she sniffed through her swollen nose.
Did she just get into a fight or something? Annabeth wondered. She sure looked like it.
"Stop staring at me." The girl said, and Annabeth jumped at the low, threatening tone she let out.
"Sorry." Annabeth muttered and stared intently at her food. She wasn't hungry unlike the days where the food was brought to her room. She was too distracted now, and knew that if she ate she would throw up not too long after.
They didn't talk for the next few minutes, until a boy with a utilities belt wrapped around his waist jogged over to their table and slid in next to Annabeth.
"Hey," he said, as though he knew her and it was the most casual thing in the world to come sit with her.
"Um, hi." She responded, but he wasn't paying attention. He was grinning at the other girl mischievously.
"You're Thalia Grace, aren't you?" he asked the girl. "The one who murdered her brother when they were both only four years old? I've looked into that story and figured out what you looked like." The girl's hands clenched her silverware and she stared intently at her food.
"How did you hear about me? We've all been locked up until today." She spoke hoarsely.
The boy shrugged. "I have my ways. I can find out anything I want with the right price."
I looked at him with wide eyes. "How old are you?"
He glanced at me with a smug grin. "Nine years and aging by the second." Annabeth nodded in response, and the boy sighed. "Anyways, what's your name? I already know that one's name," he pointed to Thalia, "but who are you?"
"Annabeth Chase," she said and extended her hand out to him. He gladly took it and she expected a rough shake, but instead he lowered his head and kissed her knuckles slowly. She blushed furiously and pulled her hand out of his to slap him. He jerked away and put his hand to his cheek as he moaned, "Ow! That hurt, meanie!"
And so their friendship began.
Okay so I'm sorry this took forever to update, and I'm sorry that this chapter is really unsatisfying. I will try in the future to update sooner! And I really only threw this entire scene in for satisfaction (that I'm sure no one got, seeing as Percy wasn't in it). But I promise there will be lots of Perseus and Annabeth bonding/fighting time in the next chapter. ;)
I would say that I'll update within a week, but I said that last time and didn't exactly keep my word. Soo I don't know when I'll update! I'm already on my Spring Break though so I should get plenty written within the next few days.