A/N: And here it is at last, Chapter III! This is getting veeery interesting, I'd like to recommend to keep track of the names mentioned... might have a little surprise coming your way. Also, I'd like to add (in case the POV switch has turned a little confusing): Italic is for our amazing friend inside Piper's mind, Annabeth (also for thoughts), and consequently, regular is the other way 'round. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and/or comments on this update with a review or a PM :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson & The Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus or The Host.


She knew it would start with the end, as wrong as it sounded, but knowing there was no such thing as preparation for this initial ritual, she felt anxious. Medications finally worn down, Piper felt wide awake, alert, and even though the eyes remained closed, she was astounded by all the things she could see.

A loud ringing sound welcomed her to this new world. No, it was the memory of a sound. The last memory had already started to play in her mind.

There was pain, not physical pain but a strange feeling that seemed to be tearing apart her whole body. There was not a proper word in this new language to describe the meaning of it, but there was something else, her feet, they sensed movement even though she was not moving herself.

She was in a car, a truck. The truck had just started moving and it moved fast but it's not the fastest speed the host has driven. She felt bounded, trapped. Her hand rested on the cold surface of the truck's window. She was surprised it did have windows. She was breathing but made no effort in recognizing any particular smell at all.

Piper hesitated but didn't try to stop the progression of the last memory for she knew there was vital information she had and was willing to provide.

The memory was nothing else but devastation, not proper fear or hatred, as she had been warned most hosts felt during the last moments of their life, but the state of mind one takes after the cold realization of death. Of course there was fear and hatred but they had already been disposed of after realizing their uselessness. Longing, the host felt longing too. Piper tried to investigate the source of it but encountered blackness instead. Not blackness, but nothingness, as if the information had been erased.

Had the memory stopped?

Searing hatred filled the edges of the memory and Piper knew she was back in it. The host's eyes, her eyes spotted a couple of people, ─parasites─ a young child holding onto a middle-aged female. They were walking down a dark street and the host thought their lack of fear was humorous. The memory took then a different twirl. It was a memory within the host's memories, a progression of images of war and suffering. She used them to support her late reasoning. Piper felt the body flinching multiple times as the images unraveled.

Piper tried to follow the longing feeling again, this time growing stronger and stronger in the last memory, but hit a wall, the same feeling of nothingness as before, except for bigger and much too… guarded. The toll of memories stopped and was replaced by a much more energetic emotion, this time speeding past her control boundaries: Curiosity. Where did that wall come from? What was it so desperately trying to hide?

She willed herself to ditch said emotion and went back to the memory feeling the sudden feeling of superiority wearing off like the medications she had been given before.

The truck made a stop quieting its engines and she heard the sounds of the wilderness again, louder and much more beautiful this time. It was the lone cry of a wild animal. It was a wolf crying for the moon. Moisture gathered at her eyes making it incredibly difficult to see something else beyond the window but Piper found it hard to focus on anything else but the sharp feeling in her chest again. It was uncomfortable, a heavy something crushing her chest and impeding her lungs to inflate properly. Piper sought for the right word to describe it this time. Heartache, the host would call it.

The host can feel the end approaching fast, and her heart pounded almost painfully in her ears.

The seekers were talking but the host made no effort in deciphering their words or in looking at them, except for one, a young male whose piercing gaze she couldn't avoid. Piper did not recognize his face but took in the common features of it: Nose in the middle, mouth almost at the bottom, eyes by the sides of the nose and a couple of ears hidden beneath a mass of hair. His eyes bore the thin silver ring around the pupils and it made him an enemy. The host tried to avoid his gaze once again but failed miserably. He did not look like a seeker with his untamed mass of light-colored hair, blond hair, and calculating eyes. Not calculating, Piper thought, see-through eyes. They seem to see through her host and deep into the core of her whole being, she thought they could, somehow, see her emotions and she felt vulnerable because of it. She looked away before spitting at him.

She then retrieved her hand from the window and stared at it intently. She stared at the multiple scars that run through the sun kissed skin. A life of hard escapes and fear of being caught, images of so many different places and a variety of things passed through her mind in a flash, they were gone too fast and Piper could not do anything but notice the air growing heavier with stress and even more pain. Fear started to crawl up her spine as they finally seemed to approach an old village, probably close to their destination.

Piper was glad it happened fast.

Her fist and elbow connected with flesh and bones turning what seemed to be a peaceful ride into mayhem of violence and burning anger. Within the urge call of freedom and survival, there was a sudden moment of lucidity that took her aback. The truck's driver craned his neck to look at her eyes, his in such horror it made Piper shudder, but the host felt like laughing or maybe considered it more adequate to cry at that point but she knew she had cried and suffered enough. There was a moment where she was able to feel everything and it pained her to be capable of doing such thing while stepping straight on the threshold of death.

I don't want to die

She pushed the truck's backdoors open and was immediately swallowed by nothingness. A screeching sound escaped Piper's airways as she felt her body finally colliding on the pavement with a quiet thud.

Pain. So much pain burned every single part of her body, limb by limb. Pain was everywhere. Pain was everything. Piper's throat burned too but it was a different fire, not the ghost of the pain of death but real pain.

This is just a memory She reassured herself as she heard the machines starting to register the fast beating of her heart I am alive.

One last agonizing look to the shining stars above and it was all over. As easy as a single blink of an eye. Darkness engulfed her whole in just one bite leaving a sense of emptiness behind.


"Piper, are you feeling alright?" asked a preoccupied feminine voice.

Piper nodded at her but chose not to open her eyes just yet. "I was just reminiscing the day of my insertion, as I have done multiple times by now, but I still cannot find the error, Comforter"

Piper opened her eyes and focused on the delicate figure sitting behind a desk in front of her. She had made it through the unfortunate weather to the healing facility where her insertion had taken place all those months ago, but was not able to speak to Shining One and had been taken to the always available Comforter's office instead, despite her refusal. There was a reason she hadn't booked a visit in a long time with her assigned Comforter back home and that was simple: she had never needed one, not even as a young soul and she was definitely not doing it now. Still, she had made no effort in squinting pass her door and back to the waiting room but pushed it open, spotted the seat closest to the exit ─A dark brown sofa─ and made herself at home, as the receptionist had previously asked.

It was not until she noticed the Comforter's figure standing before that she realized the lack of courtesy in her acts. I should have asked permission to enter and waited to be offered a seat. Manners were still getting the best of her.

The Comforter's stern eyes and soft tone snapped her back to reality.

She tried to ignore her embarrassment by focusing on the Comforter. She was young, probably a few years older than her host with her warm chocolate eyes and bright smile, her short straight black hair swayed in the cold air that filtered through the curtains of an opened window, but she made no complaint as she tucked a rebel lock behind her ear for the fifth time in ten minutes. Piper could not follow her example.

"Because there is no error, my dear Piper" the black-haired woman assured her, stretching her arm across the desk to hold her hand. Piper rested hers on the Comforter's upturned palm awkwardly "I see you have been in so much stress…" she chuckled "you have been so brave, my dear, but you must know there is no need to"

"I am afraid I do not understand your last statement, Comforter" Piper said retrieving her hand slowly, eyebrows furrowed.

"Please call me Rose Blossom"

"I am afraid I do not understand your last statement, Rose Blossom"

Piper was not happy about the way Rose Blossom kept addressing her. As if she was a…novice, merely a baby who was not able to function independently and whose mind was not yet able to process everything its eyes engulfed. But then again hadn't Piper herself expressed her lack of understanding before? How many human hosts had Rose Blossom lived in, two, three? Didn't it mean she was actually more experienced?

Her heart sped with anger regardless of the late reasoning. Didn't she know who Piper was?

Being new to Earth or acknowledging Rose Blossom's vast experience was not the source of her sudden anger, she realized. There was something behind the words that were openly spoken by the Comforter, the tone she used every time she remembered Piper's words about her own preoccupation about her host… was it empathy? No, pity, her mind suggested.

Piper did not like being pitied.

I don't like being pitied a voice spoke angrily in her mind.

Piper flinched slightly but chose to ignore her. Rose Blossom was strangely quiet… it took her no longer than a fraction of a second to regain her control once again.

"Excuse the unkindness in my words" she added fast "I'm afraid I haven't gotten the hang of manners just yet"

Rose Blossom's lips tugged in a reassuring smile, she nodded vigorously "Humans have so many rules when it comes to socializing! It gets me frustrated sometimes I must admit" she retrieved her hand too, held a bunch of papers the receptionist had delivered a few minutes ago and read them quietly. "So, Piper, I see you have not chosen a Calling yet, do you know something you enjoy to do?"

Piper felt most of her anger cool at the memory of a soft melody wandering the peaceful air of a classroom, where only two rows of heads separated her from the music instructor and his piano. Piper always tried to sit as closest to the center as she could, the eagerness tingling in her fingers as they yearned to learn how to play every single key her now trained ears could decipher. She smiled.

"Yes, I have found music quite… entertaining" Piper answered still smiling at the lingering memory "I also enjoy acting"

"That is wonderful!" Rose Blossom said still checking her profile "and your medical record is just fine, which is wonderful too" she said laughing a little bit.

"Thank you, I guess"

"It is my pleasure, Piper" she added putting away the papers.

"Rose Blossom?" Piper said her name slowly, doubtful.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

Rose Blossom's eyes lit with curiosity, she nodded energetically at her "yes of course"

Piper bit her lower lip and hesitated. This was a terrible mistake, coming here was a terrible mistake. "Why didn't you keep your host's name?"

"I don't know, I think I didn't want to let go of who I was before coming here"

Piper's cheeks felt hot. It felt so wrong and impolite to ask such a personal question but she had never wanted─ she had never needed to be given an answer until this very moment. "Do you remember her?"

The Comforter's eyes stared at the distance for a split second as she seemed to gather her thoughts "Vividly" she said "do you?"

Piper's defenses weakened and she slumped in her seat feeling the rest of her anger fade away like smoke. "Yes, I do" she said, her voice breaking "more than vividly I would say"

Seeing no further explanation, Rose Blossom settled in her seat and sighed deeply "I used to dream about her old experiences, mostly about the people she had a strong bond with" she said smiling a little "The first days were hard, you know. All of her memories washed over me while I was asleep and every night I would dream about him"

Piper, who had been watching her dreamy gaze intently, couldn't help but ask "Who did you use to dream about?"

"A young man" she responded "Charlie, I believe she used to call him. See, my host, she had a pretty strong connection with him, they had formed an attachment over the course of their lives together and such bond is just hard to ignore once you meet it. As prone to violence and hatred as humans were, they were also prone to feel different levels of attraction towards one another. Attraction would then turn to something else, an even stronger emotion that develops deep within the very core of their existence. Love, they would call it. My host loved Charlie, and some of that love migrated to me, but she also grieved for him during the last moments of her life, she grieved for his lost"

"How is that even possible?"

Rose Blossom shook her head "I have no idea, but something tells me you're experiencing something similar"