12 (Percy)
I finally figure out something sweet to do for Annabeth when she wakes up, and a monster comes barging in? Come on. Jerks.
My arms were wrapped around Annabeth's waist when a giant… something burst through the door and most of the wall behind us. How it could have fit in the hallway in the first place, I will never know. But being the demigods we are, we jumped up, whipped out weapons (yeah…we kind of keep them with us at all times) and got ready to fight.
"Okay, Annabeth, what in Hades is that thing?" I yelled, having jumped on the dresser and slashing at its legs.
"It's Alkyoneus, the biggest and oldest of the Thrakian Gigantes!" she called back, stabbing the monster in the foot with her knife, dodging and running and slashing and jabbing under the protection of her cap of invisibility.
"How do we kill it?" I was screaming to her. I was pleased to find that no one seemed to be in the room above us, which the giant had smashed with his broad shoulders and bulbous head in order to make enough room for himself. Why didn't he just crash through the floor? But I didn't want him to-people were under us. Probably calling the hotel desk about all the noise. I jumped up and grabbed a piece of falling ceiling, swinging myself up onto the floor of the room above us just before the piece I'd grabbed fell to the ground. The giant took a step back and I heard Annabeth yelp.
"Hey, you big bully!" I yelled at it. It dawned on me how young I sounded. That was a pretty lame insult. But I'd resolved not to cuss, so I kept it that way. Well, unless I'm cussing in ancient Greek. If no one can tell you're cussing, it doesn't count…
"We fight it off, like any other monster! There were one hundred of them-I don't know his specific weakness!" Well, that's great Annabeth. That's just great.
"Alright," I muttered to myself. I then decided to summon up anything I had in me: I roared a battle cry that sounded kind of like something dying, used the adrenaline to charge the beast, jumped on its head and stabbed at its skull.
My sword cut through the skin, but bounced right back off the bone. Okay, stupid idea: big giant, thick skull.
I was hanging on by the thin wisps of hair on his gigantic head, pieces of hair as long as I was tall. I swung down and hooked my legs around his neck, hanging on for dear life, wrapping my hands in the hair. I finally got a good look at the thing, despite my spinning and shaking. He was disgusting, that was for sure. Tough skin, covered with smudges of dirt and soot, wearing a big white loin cloth type thing and a Harley Davidson t-shirt. Where he got one in his size, I will never know.
Then I had an idea. Ten years of hanging out with Annabeth had to pay off sometime, right?
"Annabeth! What if I stab his carotid artery?" I screamed over the smashing of ceiling/floor/whatever it was at this point.
"If he has one… go for it!" Her cap fell off and I saw she was clinging to the thing's ankle.
I grabbed the collar of his Harley t-shirt and swung myself around, keeping my legs locked around his neck, and slashed around where I thought his carotid artery would be if his neck weren't all fat. Apparently I guessed right, because he wailed in pain and began thrashing around as he bled soon started slowly turning to dust in a ripple effect. Sadly he didn't dissipate quickly enough: he whipped his head around and slammed the back of my head into the ceiling/floor/thing.
My only thought was ow before I fell to the ground like a rock and everything went black.
13 (Annabeth)
Percy falling twenty feet, unconscious before he hit the ground, bleeding from his head, a monster dissipating slowly and leaving blood and shreds of Harley Davidson t-shirt everywhere… in short, an image I could deal with never remembering.
But I will always remember it. Always.