AN: I managed to get around to another chapter, so I hope you enjoy! Additionally (this is important in the chapter), the River Cocytus is the lamentation river.
Fiction is the Truth: I tried to make that chapter fluffier, so I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it :) Thank you!
Flaming eyeball: I'm glad you're excited! Thank you! I actually couldn't remember how they met, so I just made it up in a way that sounded cute. I don't know if I'd have that as a main chapter, but I could see it as a potential epilogue... Thank you again!
My hands are shaking so badly, I can barely write, but this is important. This sort of thing keeps plaguing me, and it's driving me insane.
I had another dream about Tartarus. There's an emphasis on "another," but it should be noted that this is the first dream I've had since I started journaling in case that's important.
I know how crucial demigod dreams are, believe me, but this doesn't have the same feeling as the other dream I mentioned before. At least, I really hope not, because it was pretty horrible. Hopefully, I'm not being delusional, but I don't think it means anything.
I should probably explain what happened because it'll make more sense that way, and maybe writing about it will help clear my head. I mean, I'm feeling significantly less rattled now compared to when I first woke up. It just felt so real, because I remembering thinking (in the dream and right when I woke up) that I was back in that place.
In the dream itself, I was lying on the ground. Rolling my head to the side, I discovered I was lying on the bank of the River Cocytus. The murky river churned along its course, and for a moment, there was this strangely ominous peace. That's when these voices started calling out to me. At first, they were really quiet – so quiet I thought I was imagining it — but the voices eventually grew louder and louder. As the volume grew, so did the anger in the words they were saying. It eventually got to the point where they were screeching at me, but I couldn't escape or move or anything.
Yet, it wasn't like I really wanted to. I just laid by the bank, feeling rather worthless because that's what the voices were saying I was. They kept calling me useless, unwanted, and not good enough. It got to the point where I couldn't tell if I was laying on the bank or drowning in the river.
That's not even the worst part. In the beginning, when the voices were quiet, I couldn't really tell who was speaking, but as they grew louder, I started to recognize some of them. Bianca was the first one I picked out, and she was quickly joined by Percy (who was the loudest and angriest of them all, and unsettling as that was in the dream, I'm physically nauseous now). More and more voices, like Annabeth and Hazel and Jason, surfaced, but when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, the voices all mashed together. At that point, I couldn't really tell what voice went with which person.
That confusion lasted for a really long time, but then it dawned on me. The voice had somehow become my own, and I was screaming at myself.
Even now, I don't know how to feel about that.
After I realized it was my voice, the air around me seemed to dissipate, leaving me there struggling to breathe while the whole of Tartarus converged on me all at once, creating this pressure on my chest that's hard to describe.
After I woke up crying, I threw up a little bit. I sat and kind of stared off into space after that, then finally thought to write something down. I don't know, it just feels so raw and personal? Hearing everyone saying those things, then hearing those voices start to become my own...
I don't know if I'll get any more sleep tonight, but I do feel a little bit better. The nausea is still present, but it's a little bit less intense than before, which is good. Maybe I'll go drink a glass of water or something. I should also change my shirt — it's a little damp from sweat.
You know, I had my initial misgivings about this whole thing, but maybe this "emo journal" isn't so bad.
-Nico