walls fall down
part three; annabeth chase
author's note: as an apology gift, i have pre-written three chapters for this story. the next chapter will (probablymostlikely) be uploaded tomorrow.
disclaimer: not mine.
The first few weeks are the absolute worse. Of course, the months following that are also pretty bad, but the first few weeks are the worse. The nightmares haunt her so much and create wounds so deep it'll take lifetimes to heal. There's a lot of different emotions flowing through her blood: guilt, sadness, fear… and Annabeth's body hurts as if her head isn't sure which emotion cuts the worse wound.
Annabeth hates nights the most, because the darkness flows in the sky and grows all around her. When her eyes are closed, she sees Tartarus and feels the fire burning down her throat and touches the black glass that cuts into her palm. Even when her eyes are opened, she sees the images that are burned into her brain no matter how hard she tries to distract herself.
She isn't okay, even with Percy by her side the entire time. It's hard for him to whisper comforting things to her when he's suffering with the same problem, and when his nightmares are so bad he needs to sleep with the lights on. And even then, he doesn't sleep. It's easy to tell, with the dark circles under his eyes and with the large excess amount of stress he puts on himself.
It doesn't help that whenever she looks at him she remembers Percy choking Akhlys with the poison and the straggled screams coming from the goddess of misery.
Annabeth can't seem to get rid of the blood that cover her body, no matter how hard she rubs at herself from a bar of soap. She'll rub until the skin is raw and wrinkled, but she can't get the images of cuts and bruises out of her mind. Sometimes she'll scream and continue to frantically rub at her skin. Sometimes she'll fall to her knees and breath hard with pictures overwhelming her damaged mind.
Annabeth isn't even the complaining type, but none of this is any fair. Getting thrown in Tartarus wasn't fair, coming out with scars that she can't seem to get rid of wasn't fair. And seeing her boyfriend trying to block out images from the one place he can't escape from most certainly wasn't fair.
At night, Annabeth feels the most guilt. Because she usually always finds herself resting just over the ledge of the Argo II overlooking the mountains, and she would always find herself looking up at the stars. The stars, which were a constant reminder of the friend who sacrificed himself to ensure Percy and Annabeth's safety. Now Percy and Annabeth were safe, but Bob was still down there, probably having died a million different types of deaths just for them. She won't ever able to repay Bob.
(And there's a tiny part of her, the tiny selfish part of her that she refuses to reveal to anyone—not even Percy—that was glad that it had been Bob over her. Or Percy. It's really hard for her to admit that she can sort of be a bit of a bitch sometimes)
It may be a little ironic, but sometimes being with Percy frightens her the most. Seeing him reminds her of everything she's learned and everything she's lost and the angry look in his eyes when he loses control of his powers.
But it's the absolute worse at night, where they're laying next to each other because neither of them can sleep by themselves. Whenever Percy attempts to sleep, it always ends badly. Sometimes, Percy would sit straight up in bed with a glassy faraway look in his eyes and a lost expression that would make Annabeth question whether Hera stole his memories again. Sometimes, Percy would push himself out of bed, run out of the room, and Annabeth would find him leaning heavily against the ledge with sweat beading down his forehead. But the one that shakes Annabeth the most is the one where Percy just screams. He doesn't wake up in cold sweat or hugs her tightly. He just screams and scream and screams and he won't get up no matter how hard Annabeth shakes him or how loud Annabeth cries out his name.
His eyes are so tired and weak and scared that Annabeth doesn't feel safe around him. No, not really. How can she find protection in someone who looks and feels and suffers just like her?
"How did you survive it?" Annabeth asks Nico di Angelo.
He just shakes his head. "Nobody really survives Tartartus."
It takes her a couple days to truly understand what Nico means. Literally, it's false, of course people survive Tartarus. Percy, Annabeth, and Nico are all the flesh and prove they need. But figuratively, Nico's statement is true. Percy, Annabeth, and Nico are here, but there's not here all the same. They may look the same and act the same but their minds are just so hazy with images of dreams and realities that'll take eternity to sort through.
When Annabeth catches herself in the mirror, she doesn't recognize herself. The dark circles and the red eyes and the pale complexion. She's thin from drinking fire for weeks, and her gray eyes no longer look full of thoughts and plans that need to be written out. They're full of memories that she wants so badly to get rid of.
She would go through her entire journey with Percy—face down every monster she's ever faced in her lifetime and redo years worth of quests and be worthless once again with Luke and Thalia—for one night when she can just close her eyes and not see fire and giants and Titans clashing behind her closed lids.
{first annabeth chase piece. i guess this is more of an aftermath character observation rather than the character throughout the book, but we already knows what happens with annabeth in tartarus.}
review?