too.
many.
seconds.
thalia held herself, she pressed her hands to her ears so roughly that it seemed that her head would burst.
but she couldn't shut out the ticking.
the seconds were going by, the clock was ticking, the world was spinning...
demigods were dying...
and she could do nothing to stop it. to stop any of it.
sleep evaded her, that sweet nothingness that numbed her feeling and turned her consciousness to mush. the darkness that snuffed out the ticking, blurred the blood dripping...
dripping...
dripping...
thalia shut her eyes, she squeezed them tight, she clenched her fists so tightly that crescent marks were left in her hands, dripping dots of blood.
she couldn't shut it out.
the dripping had echoed, in that large cavern where her body was left, her little sister in all but blood.
gone.
the smile on her seven-year-old face, the echoes of her laughter... the memories of them.
she was worthless, she couldn't even save her...
she hadn't saved her...
she'd been too late...
drip.
drip.
drip.
she closed her eyes to her body, she closed her eyes to the nightmares that she couldn't escape...
she needed to escape.
she couldn't escape.
the monsters wouldn't let her escape.
she would keep going, that dripping ticking screaming sound haunting her for all that she would ever remember, all that she would ever see.
and all she would ever be able to see for long after that was her.
/
but thalia grace kept going. the nightmares came every night, the monstrous bodies of the dead haunting her in her sleep. but in the day she put on the facade. she hunted, she practiced, and she fought with an anger and passion that no one had ever seen from her before.
and she kept going.
because that was what a hunter had to do.
a/n: omg i didn't think i would get this many reviews you guys make me so happy