Chapter 8
Percy's POV
Nine Days.
That's how long he fell. As he fell, Percy thought about Annabeth and what she would say in this situation. She would probably think about Hesiod, the old Greek poet who wrote about Tartarus. He lost track of how long he was falling. It felt like an eternity. His vision began to fog up. He closed his eyes for a couple seconds. Wind whistled in his ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if he was pummeling into the throat of a massive dragon.
He thought of his mom for the first time in a while. She'd named him Perseus so that he could have a chance at a happy ending. After learning he was a half-blood, he didn't expect his life to be easy. Annabeth had told him that most demigods died young at the hands of monsters. It was true. It's been like that since the ancient times. Heck, you could say the Greeks invented tragedy. We, demigods, were all taught by Chiron that the greatest heroes didn't get a happy ending.
Still, this wasn't fair. He'd gone through so much just to end the war with Kronos. The Fates must hate him. Just when the war was over, when things had been looking up and peace had finally come, the gods killed Annabeth.
Just because of the arrogant Zeus. Maybe this was Kronos' revenge, but he didn't know. He could imagine him laughing as he fell into the darkness.
Percy opened his eyes. For a moment there, he thought he was hallucinating because he saw Annabeth next to him. Tartarus must be playing tricks on me already. "Annabeth…" He desperately tried to grab her into his arms.
Annabeth pressed her lips to Percy's ear. "I love you."
"I thought you died."
"Survive. Percy. Survive." She disappeared in a golden light. A tear fell off his eyes. Survive. I have to survive. This is the first of the many things I will experience. I will not die here . He desperately wondered whether they could fashion a parachute out their shirts – that's how desperate he was – when something about his surroundings changed. The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. The whistling in his ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.
Suddenly, the chute he'd been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe a half a mile below, he could see the bottom. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape – at least what he could see of it – was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To his left, the ground dropped away in a series, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.
The stench of sulphur made it hard to concentrate, but he focused on the ground directly below him and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid – a river.
His eyes widened in realization. He knew what he needed to do. Survive. He could control water – assuming that was water below him. He might be able to cushion his fall somehow. He'd heard the horrible stories about the rivers of the Underworld. In fact, he swam in one. They could take away your memories, or burn your body and soul to ashes. But he decided not to think about that. He needed to survive and this was their only chance.
The river hurtled towards him. At the last second, Percy yelled defiantly. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed him whole.
The impact didn't kill him, but the cold nearly did, which was a surprise he could feel the cold since he was a son of Poseidon. Freezing water shocked the air right out of his lungs. His limbs turned rigid, and he lost his grip on the riverbank. He began to sink. Strange wailing sounds filled his ears – millions of heartbroken voices as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and made him numb.
What's the point of struggling? They told him. You're dead anyway. You were a fool to come to this place by your own free will. You will never escape.
He could sink to the bottom and drown, actually drown, letting the river carry his body away. That would be easier than living. If he could just close his eyes…
Suddenly, he saw a ghostly figure of Annabeth. She gripped his hand. "Remember your promise?" He remembered his promise to the gods and to Annabeth. I swear I will tear Olympus brick by brick. "You can't die until you fulfill that promise. Survive and live for the fallen ones. For me."
He jolted back to reality. He kicked upward and broke the surface. Percy gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulphurous. The water swirled around them, and he realized he could create a whirlpool to bring them to land. He probably looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually water reinvigorated him, but not this water. Controlling it almost took every bit of his strength. The whirlpool began to dissipate. Thousands of weeping voices whispered in his ears, trying to get inside his brain.
Life is despair, they said. Everything is pointless, and then you die.
"No, I will fulfill my promise and reunite with Annabeth."
He kicked and struggled, trying to keep himself afloat.
He imagined the future he would have had with Annabeth if she would have been alive. Them getting married and having kids. This only reinforced his resolve to kill the gods.
All he wanted to do was to curl up and go to sleep and wake up with Annabeth at Camp Half-blood. But no. He was really in Tartarus and Annabeth was really dead. At his feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulphurous air stung his lungs and prickled his kin. When he looked at his arms, he saw they were already covered in an angry rash. He tried to sit up and gasped in pain.
The beach wasn't sand. He was sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in his palms. So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Percy took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the river known as Cocytus, which he only remembered the name because he thought of a cactus (don't ask him why he was thinking of that). Percy coughed and talked to himself. "This place smells like my ex-stepfather, Smelly Gabe." He managed a weak smile.
He got up and started moving because he knew if he stayed, he would get hypothermia. He struggled to his feet. Above him, he saw no sign of the tunnel he'd fallen down off. He couldn't even see the cavern roof—just blood-coloured clouds floating in the hazy grey air. It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement.
The black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where he stood, Percy couldn't see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.
The ghostly figure of Annabeth appeared to him again. "Good job. This is only the beginning. This Tartarus. Monster home court. Down here, is way harder to kill them than up there."
She wasn't really helping his morale. He began to shiver. The glass cuts on his hands were still bleeding, which was unusual for him. Normally, he healed faster because of water. His breathing got more and more labored. "This place is killing me," he said. "I mean it's literally going to kill me."
"Well, you wanted a tough environment to train in. If you want to try to heal yourself, then you should go that way." She pointed inland towards the cliff, illuminated by flames from below.
"Why there?"
"There, you will find the River of Fire. Otherwise known as the River of Healing."
