The incessant ticking of the eternal clock within him was a constant reminder of how long he had been down here. He was not even allowed the small comfort of letting the time pass by without him noticing. Every second of every hour of every damned day he spent in the hellscape in which he walked crawled past in slow, excruciating detail.
He was bloody, bruised, and scarred, too many battles occurring in two short a time for his body to full recover. Every step he took sent ribbons of fire dancing up his legs, yet not once did his feet pause in their movement. A sound behind him set him whirling, ready to pounce on whatever was sneaking up. He was greeted with nothing but air.
And suddenly it hit him, just how desensitized he had been forced to become to survive in Tartarus. He could almost feel his humanity slipping away along with all the seconds lost to the past.
A whisper from behind him. "You let your guard down."
The world went black.
At daybreak, Artemis approached his tent. She found him sitting cross-legged, eyes closed.
"Percy, we're about to break camp. Pack up please and meet us at the north side."
"Don't call me that." He said, getting up and beginning to stretch.
"Call you what?"
"That name. Don't call me that."
"Percy? Why?"
"It's not my name. It hasn't been for many, many years. If you are to call me something, call me Perseus please."
Artemis sighed, leaving him to his packing. Not for the last time she wondered what he had been through to make him this way.
Nearly an hour later, Perseus joined the rest of the Hunt near the north side of the grove they had been staying in. The boisterous socializing of the girls quieted down as he approached. Silently, he walked over to a nearby rock and sat down, abandoning the world for his reverie.
"Is that really him?" one of the Hunters muttered.
"I'm not so sure. He's nothing like the stories I've heard. At Camp Half-Blood all they talk about was how kind he was to everyone around him." Another girl said.
"I heard he's not really Percy Jackson, and that he's really Kronos possessing his body." A third girl chimed in.
"Stop bullshitting us, there's no way that's true." One exclaimed.
"It's true, I'm telling you!" she insisted. "One of my cousins is a nymph on Olympus, and she was telling me about how Zeus and Poseidon got into a big argument about it."
For a second, silence reigned supreme. Then, the first girl spoke up again.
"Are we going to be safe?"
"Shut up!" someone hissed. "He'll hear you!"
"Alright, that's enough out of all of you." A new voice snapped.
Curious, Perseus opened his eyes. He found Artemis standing near the group of gossiping Hunters, anger visible.
"Perseus Jackson is a guest of our Hunt. I will not have you bad mouthing him, particularly right in front of the person in question," she snapped.
The gossip calmed down significantly after that, not that he particularly minded. But Artemis seemed to mind, and so the talk faded from outward perception, though it still simmered below the surface.
The air of palpable curiosity remained as final preparations were completed and the Hunt set out, made worse by the raised tension of the group guarding against unwanted attacks. After several hours of trekking with not a monster or animal sighted, Artemis joined Perseus at the back of the camp.
Artemis leaned in. "Do you find it strange," she whispered. "That we haven't seen a single beast yet? Do you think this is an ambush?"
Perseus shook his head numbly. "No, they've been around. But I doubt that a one of them doesn't know my scent instinctually. They've been giving us a wide berth since we set out."
Artemis didn't need to ask to know why they avoided him. Disturbed, she headed back to the front of the group. Perseus watched her go before falling back into his blank silence, leaving little more than a shell treading along.
"Hello Phoebe." he said, not turning to face his newest guest.
She nodded her head in greeting, falling into step with him. After a brief moment, she spoke up.
"They don't mean it." she said quietly. "They're young and fresh, and most of them aren't even old enough to remember you. To them, you're little more than a legend."
He didn't respond.
"There are still people who remember you, Perseus. People who would accept you. Thalia, Nico, the older campers at Half-Blood, Annabeth–"
"I don't mind their words. What they say or do has no effect on me." he said abruptly.
Phoebe looked at him forlornly. "You don't mean that. A person can't take constant abuse and be fine, Percy. It's not how we are made."
His response was a blank, soulless stare. Uncomfortable, Phoebe looked away. After a minute or so of silence, she sighed and began to walk off.
"There are people here for you, Percy. You just have to reach out." she called back.
Perseus continued to trudge along.
That night, Artemis found Perseus sitting on a large boulder. She quietly joined his side.
"You didn't have to cover sentry duty for the girls. It will make them lax."
No response.
"Perseus, you can't keep hiding in this shell forever. You need to speak to people, try to work through this."
No response.
Upset, Artemis raised her voice. "Percy! This isn't you! You would never be so cowardly as to run away from all of your problems like this!"
Perseus looked up at the sky. "You know, I was away for twenty-three years, six months, eleven days, twenty-one hours, forty-seven minutes, and twelve seconds in your time. My abilities kept me aware of every single, explicit second. There is no such thing as 'time flying by' for me. I experience every iota of time in a way you could never comprehend.
"And yet I found myself deluding myself. I believed that when I got out, everything would be the same. I would be welcomed back by my friends, the same teenage kid, surrounded by the same teenage friends, in the same happy world. It's curious what the mind can come up with, but I built myself such an elaborate mental image that I started to believe it. I started to believe it, Artemis.
"I had a lot of time to think down there. While they managed the body, I pondered, and planned, and imagined, and looked forward to this amazingly complex simulation of what life would be like when I was out. I was stuck out there but mentally I was here with all of you.
"Until the very last moment on this god-forsaken steps, I believed that so firmly. It was my drive, my muse, my sole purpose for existence. Get back to that life.
"How cruel life is to come back to this. I have wandered thousands of worlds, slaughtered my way through whole civilisations, dealt with beings more powerful than you can comprehend. All to come back here. How ironic Fate is. The amount of times I have been cursed by enemies or thrown into the worst punishments they could, and yet in the end I willingly walked into my own, worst personal hell.
"Nothing is the same, Artemis. The world has moved on from Perseus Jackson. I don't even know what I missed. Is anybody still alive?
"Where's Annabeth?"
Artemis reached out towards him. "Percy…"
He slapped her hand away. "Don't fucking call me that!"
His aura grew chaotic and his body trembled. His hands gripped the rock below him, crushing it into dust.
"Percy Jackson is dead! He died twenty-three years ago when the Greek gods took his memories and used him like a puppet, then tossed him into Tartarus!"
"Percy, please…" Artemis whispered.
Perseus' voice bordered on hysterical. "Don't call me that! Stop it! That's not my goddamn name! Percy is dead! He's gone! He deserves it, because it's his fault that we're in this fucking situation!"
Abruptly, Perseus seized up, going silent. After a moment, another voice sighed.
To call it another voice is slightly misleading. It was still Perseus, but distinctly different. Raspy, cold, and dark, like slithering in a primordial cave. A curling crown of thorns crept out from his skull.
"Damn, he was doing so well." he said.
He turned to Artemis. "You were doing well for a second there, but you pushed it a little too far. Go easy on him, he's… fragile."
Artemis gaped.
He paused. "Ah, forgive me, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Perseus, but you can call me Perseus. I've been the dominant intelligent personality for the past three hundred or so years."
