Thanks for everything! Annabeth won, but Leo will be next! Sorry for typos and OOCness.
Happy Reading!
Chapter 7
Annabeth
Annabeth felt like a hermit.
She was acting like one after all, but for some reason she really didn't have any control over it. The smallest of things where now giving her flashbacks into the depths of Tartarus. She'd only just escaped a few hours ago, not even a full day.
When she looked in a mirror for the first time since the morning she'd left to explore Rome, Annabeth was struck by what she looked like. Though she didn't have the Death Mist veiling her anymore, she could see that it had taken its toll on her. Truth be told, she looked like a corpse.
Her hair was thin and stringy, matted brown in some places. Annabeth had already taken two showers but the color wouldn't come out. She was literally skin and bones from not eating that much and severely dehydrated. She couldn't seem to drink enough water. It had to be worse for Percy. Being away from an actual source of water for that long. . .
The worst part of leaving Tartarus, by far, were the nightmares.
Of course, she'd had them down there too, and they had been amplified. Everything had felt completely real. At least before she'd fallen down into the Underworld, she'd been able to separate herself from the dreams. She'd always known that they weren't real and actually happening to her. That hadn't made them any better, but it had been a logical way of thinking it through.
In Tartarus, it had seemed as though she were living through her worst days all over again. Everything had had a life like quality to it. But what had she expected? Chocolate cake and a Tempur-Pedic mattress?
Now, having left Tartarus, Annabeth still couldn't get that sulfuric scent out of her nose, how a few of those angry white and red scars didn't want to fade, and that shaky feeling that she was always being watched. She and Percy had seen the true terrors of the Underworld, and the worst part was that the monsters lived forever.
After she was long dead and gone, hopefully to Elysium with Percy, or maybe even reborn into a new person, those monsters would return and wreck havoc on the world and ultimately, there was nothing that she could do about it.
Annabeth really hated inevitabilities. The problem with them was that they were . . . well, inevitable.
Another thing she kept thinking about was how the Doors were closed. Yeah, that was great and all, but how many of those monsters that she'd come across had already escaped into the mortal world? Some of them had been so terrible and they would just come after them.
Honestly, Annabeth didn't know what Gaea was going to do. Yeah, so she needed the blood of a female and male demigod—or as she called it, the blood of Olympus—to awaken. Did that mean that she would let them freely into Athens, now that they'd stopped Clytius and Pasiphae and had closed the Doors? Or would she send every monster that she had under her control to attack them?
She would have to expect the latter.
When Annabeth had woken up from her nightmares of Bob and Damasen, still trapped in that hell, she'd heard all of the commotion from up on the deck. Like a zombie, she'd shuffled out of her room and contemplated going up to join them, but then decided against it.
There had been no fighting going on, so she hadn't seen a reason for going up there. If they needed her all they had to do was yell. Annabeth wandered around through the many different rooms and areas the Argo II had to offer.
As she had walked around, she wondered how Reyna, Nico, and Coach Hedge were. Hopefully they were alright too, wherever they were in the world right now. Somehow, Annabeth knew that Reyna would be able to stop the feud between the Greeks and Romans. She'd find a way.
She'd ended up finding herself in the stables. It was hard to do, but Annabeth smiled in the fond memories she had of the place. She remembered that night that seemed like a lifetime ago. Annabeth and Percy had been together all night, leaving the crew's imagination to run wild.
Flushing, Annabeth had plopped down on the bay doors. Being in the water, it looked really weird to see the sea right beneath her. She wasn't completely sure what it was like outside, if it was even the morning, but the water looked unusually dark.
For years Annabeth had seen postcards from the Mediterranean. Her father had gone there not too long ago, in fact, and she remembered going through all of his pictures. It was hard to imagine the sea anything less than extraordinary, but the waters were sinister and dark, and Annabeth had wondered what was lurking down there.
Her mind had wandered off. Annabeth began to think about Gaea watching them all the time, with her stupid little spies that she had everywhere. The thought of that was enough to drive anyone insane, but Annabeth was pretty sure that she was already a little bit off her rocker.
The water underneath her had swirled and churned, and it reminded her of the River of Despair.
And then, she had realized that something wasn't right. The water just seemed too dark, and seeing it like that transported her into one of her nightmares, as if she were back in Tartarus, but this time Percy wasn't with her. Actually, she had been completely alone for some time now, and she was not sure where he was. She hoped he was okay.
She wanted to get up and check on him and the others, to see if everything up above was alright. But she had found herself unable to get up. Her eyes were still glued to the dark, dark waters, waiting for anything bad to pop out.
Out of the corner of her mind Annabeth had realized that she had left her new sword back up in her room. Well, that was certainly foolish. What if she needed it?
And now, Annabeth heard the footsteps and knew right away that Percy was there. It was like her sixth sense, to be able to place him anywhere. But that only made her think about that curse the arai had given her, when she had believed that Percy had left her forever. She never wanted to feel like that again.
Annabeth noticed a face and then a body appear in the water and she was right. They were being watched. It was a Nereid, and though they were normally very annoying and slap worthy, this one seemed exceptionally slap worthy. When she smiled she showed rows of shark-like teeth. Annabeth shivered inwardly.
The Nereid swam away and the water where she had once been became very dark, even more so than before. Annabeth gulped. "Something bad is going to happen," she said very quietly. Her throat felt raw and she knew that the words she spoke were one hundred percent true.
She felt Percy's hand gently settle on her shoulder but she didn't move. Annabeth noticed that the temperature all around them seemed to drop, and she felt completely cold. She was pretty sure that if she exhaled she would see her breath. Percy's breath caught.
Then the doors that she sat on exploded.
There was no time for her to react. She didn't have enough time to jump up or turn around and grab Percy. She did have enough time, though, in that one split second, to scream. No famous last words. Just one really loud horror-movie-worthy scream. Annabeth also happened to hear Percy curse. His hand gripped her shoulder tightly.
But it was no match for the powerful ocean right beneath her. Due to how the doors were positioned, she was thrown like a ragdoll straight into the ceiling of the stables. Her back smacked against the tiered ceiling with a sickening crack that only she heard through the rush of the waters. It vibrated through her body.
The force of her hit was so great that she was pushed straight back down, through the endless stream of water that was now not only rushing into her and Percy but into the entire ship. Scenes from movies flashed through her head, none of them good and many of them ending up with death.
Way to stay positive in a crappy situation.
There wasn't much she could do. She was blinded by the white bubbles all around her that reminded her of her and Percy's first true kiss at the bottom of the lake at Camp Half-Blood. But once all of the bubbles were gone, there really was only a deep darkness all around her.
Annabeth was so mixed up that she had no idea which way it was to the surface. She couldn't even see the Argo II and had no clue how close she was to the warship or where Percy even was right now. Were any of her friends safe? They hadn't been down there with the two of them.
What if they had no idea until it was too late.
She knew better than to freak out, but her lungs ached for air. She found herself flailing her arms around, trying to get some sort of momentum to push her upwards, but she had no idea which way was up. She wanted to cough from having swallowed water from right when the doors had exploded, but she knew that it would only make everything worse.
Something brushed her arm and she almost screamed.
It was slimy, and she was pretty sure it wasn't seaweed.
Annabeth turned in the water, wanting to look around and somehow find a way to fight her enemy, whoever it was. But she did have a few problems that prevented her from that.
She couldn't freaking breathe.
She couldn't freaking see.
She could barely freaking move.
She had no way to fight.
Perfect.
It wasn't like she could smell her way to victory or anything. She was so stupid for a daughter of Athena. She had seen the signs that something bad was about to happen. She should've gone up to see everyone, not taken the loser's way out. If she had, she wouldn't be gods know where in the Ionian Sea.
That slimy thing brushed her side again, sending shivers down her spine. Not only was it darker, but everything was getting dark. Her eyes were open and she was definitely getting tunnel vision from no oxygen.
Annabeth took a quick second to pray to Poseidon. It wasn't like the sea god was fond of her, especially since she was a daughter of Athena and dating his son. But if they gods had any sort of mercy, they wouldn't kill one of the seven when they could save them.
She'd fought through Tartarus, for crying out loud.
Di Immortales! Was she going to die down here?
Percy couldn't save her and the ship at the same time.
She felt the slimy thing again, and then something impaled her arm with a sharp stinging pain. She had felt something like it before but due to everything that was going on she couldn't place it. She did feel the familiar torture of poison coursing through her veins. It felt just like when Ethan had stabbed her last year.
Though the dark water was blue, and her vision was turning black, she could see the dots of red blood soak into her vision. The salt water wasn't making anything worse, and it was in her sword holding arm.
Annabeth couldn't help it. She hated herself for it but she screamed in agony.
Water slammed down her throat at an alarming speed and she stopped struggling to stay up in the water. There wasn't anything she could do. She felt all the water from the sea fill her lungs and she wasn't like Percy. She couldn't just breathe under water like it was air.
She floated down into the water, feeling that slimy thing on her again, and realizing right before she blacked out that it was a hand touching her.
Kind of boring, but I hope you enjoyed. Reviews and ideas are appreciated.
-BBH