I apologize profusely for not giving credit to these creators before this. I took inspiration from your wonderful works subconsciously.

Haunted House by Pey119 (on fanfiction . net): While relatively brief, this story utilizes nursery rhymes to a wonderfully disturbing effect to maximize the effect of supernatural tragedies in a haunted house. I am pretty sure it uses the exact lines of these nursery rhymes while the ones I have used toward dramatic effect are often mildly altered as consequence of who is singing them. I also contacted this creator for permission, and they granted it.

Hold Tight and Pretend It's a Plan by Rynna Aurelia (on fanfiction . net and Archive of Our Own): I got the idea to interject flashbacks/voices/fuzzy, unclear thoughts into the narrative with parentheses from this wonderful story, detailing an alternate end to The Blood of Olympus where they lose the war, but The Fates send Percy back to his first day at Camp Half-Blood to change the course of history, and it separates some flashbacks as well as internal thoughts from the rest of the story with italicized interjections in parentheses. She gave me permission to continue writing this way. Please go read her story, though. It's amazing. Just…go. Do. Please.

Also, I think another story on fanfiction . net inspired the part where ambrosia and nectar taste terrible to Percy now, but I looked for it. I couldn't find it. For all I know, I did come up with the idea myself. The memory is foggy. If you might know where I could have gotten the idea from, please review and tell me. I'll ask their permission as well.

Chapter Ten: I'm Left to Die

I FOUND MYSELF STANDING, unchained, in the middle of a large cavern filled with various torture implements—some of which had never belonged to the outside world at any point in history. He stood tall before a wall engraved with strange symbols.

I looked around, terror constricting my throat. "I can't be back," I said.

He glanced over at me and hummed. "What? Oh, no. Hardly." He motioned me toward him with a deceptively warm smile that had no place on his terrible face. "Come. I want to show you something."

I hesitated but approached. He turned me to face the wall. I didn't understand the symbols, but I knew only primordials could truly read them. I tried to shrug off his skeletal claws in discomfort, but he held tight. I gulped.

"What am I looking at?" I asked.

"The source of all my frustration," he said, sighing as though we were old friends reflecting on life's tragedies together. "Tartarus itself carved these symbols into the heart of this prison eons ago, binding me here, under his dominion. It details the terms of my own banishment, allowing me to claim the souls of heroes who most soil my realm with their goodness, alongside the meager existences of conquered monsters. I used to enjoy playing with the pieces of Kronos before the rat reformed and you scattered him so thin over your sunny world."

"I never thought I'd say this," I began, "but remind me to thank Tartarus."

He laughed bombastically. "Oh, he's a right bastard. He rather likes you."

I didn't want to know why.

"This way," He said, steering me along the wall and stopping me at the end of it, where a large section stretched smooth. "Do you see this?" He gestured.

"Nothing," I said, confused.

He smiled. "Quite. Do you remember your final moments here, little pet?"

I frowned, but it washed over me anyway. (Running, running—don't stop running. Don't let them catch you. I tore into a cavern, looked around, panted. Monsters burst after me. I turned, exhaustion turning to panic. I reached out, reached for anything, and sent it ripping after them with a yell. The fiery water blasted the symbols off the wall as it crushed them beneath its might.)

My heart lodged in my throat. "I took off some of the symbols by accident."

He hummed, hugging me around the shoulder. I just stared in horror. "Yes. Do you want to know the part you removed?"

The answer was no, but I needed to know. "What?" My voice didn't shake. My fear had transcended any outward demonstration of it. I felt numb.

"This part detailed how my banishment was permanent and unbreakable," he said. I shook my head hopelessly. "Yes, little pet. Exactly. Now, given the proper means, I can walk the surface world again. I hear mankind's fears are a special kind of delicious."

I staggered away, hyperventilating. "You're—you're lying. It can't be true."

"Will you take the risk?" he asked. "You didn't when the gods banished you."

I shook my head harder, faster. I stopped being able to breathe. "Y-you can't…"

He smiled. "Will you warn your friends?" he asked. "They won't believe you. Not unless you tell them that which endangers them by their closest family."

I choked—on tears, on terror, on myself, on the sulfur in the air, I didn't know. "Why do you people always do this to me?" I asked weakly.

He clicked his tongue and patted my cheek. "There, there," he consoled insincerely. "Maybe you shouldn't be asking why we do this to you, but why you make it so easy to do."

(Eric!)

He hummed. "Your beloved's calling. You ought to hurry."

I did the three-fingered claw over my heart.

He only laughed. "You know by now, little pet. That doesn't work on me." He traced the scar he gave me lovingly. "We may see each other even sooner than I thought. Mind you get that antidote in time, little pet. You wouldn't want this fit to be the last, now would you?"

~1~

I gasped awake, surging upright.

I had no idea how long He'd had me in real-world time, but in that time, my body had crumpled to the ground, the harpies had descended like a rabid flock of vultures, and Annabeth had taken her fair share of abuse.

"Finally!" she screamed. "You cannot take pressure, can you?" She slashed at a harpy careening toward her, only to miss the one coming up from behind her.

I roared in outrage as it raked its claws deeply over her back. Annabeth wailed, arching before sinking to her knees at the mercy of the flock. They went in for the kill.

Fuck. No.

"Get back!" I screamed. "No one touches her!"

The harpies hesitated. They recognized me. They knew who I was, what I could do if pushed over the breaking point. They knew Annabeth could be that breaking point.

But they outnumbered us by a lot, and the voices hadn't quieted any. I shook on my feet. Annabeth clung to consciousness.

A second before they swooped back in, I lunged out, grabbing a spear off the weapon's rack and spinning it around. It clubbed two harpies and impaled another.

I just kept going.

I searched desperately for the blue-feathered harpy who threw me back into the Pit for a heart-to-heart with my least favorite primordial. But she'd fortified herself in the heart of the flock, protected on all sides. It would be suicide getting to her.

I glanced back at Annabeth, who struggled to stand and fight back. She couldn't hope to survive this dazed. I couldn't leave her.

Well, I decided. I would just have to thin them out enough to reach the little bitch who started this.

I would have been better with a sword. I could work with a spear. I devastated the flock as they struggled to claim an upper-hand I wouldn't give them, not with Annabeth's life on the line.

Annabeth grunted and collapsed, too weak to stand, let alone fight.

"Er—Eric, I-I'm sorry…" she strangled. "Percy, I'm c-coming…"

My eyes widened. "No!" I bellowed.

All the harpies lurched to a stop as if frozen in mid-attack. Droplets of ice solidified from the air and smashed into the ground. I slaughtered anything in my path. They eventually rediscovered mobility and ripped me apart, but I'd reached her.

The lead harpy opened her mouth to vanquish me again, but I vanquished her first.

I collapsed as the other harpies came out of the trance and looked around at us in confusion, like they didn't know what just happened.

I picked my head to look at the nearest one pleadingly. The rest of the harpies took off and fled the scene of their crime, even if it wasn't their fault. She remained, watching me with a trembling lip as my vision dimmed, my heart slowed, and unconscious seduced me away from the world.

The last thing I heard was a high-pitched, deafening screech that exploded throughout the entire camp and a hard flap.

Then I was gone.

~2~

I came to with something harsh and acidic burning my skin over my wounds. A putrid odor wafted up my nose. I gagged and coughed, crushing my eyes shut.

"Easy," a guy's voice said. I felt a warm hand press against my back, guiding me upright gently while I grimaced and ground my teeth together against the pain.

I cracked an eye open, recognizing the golden halo of hair and surfer's tan as belonging to Will Solace. It took me a moment to clear my mind enough to trust myself speaking. "You're the one who—" I coughed again. "—who helped Sam."

He nodded and smiled. "Me and Nico, yeah." He helped me prop myself against the headboard. I glanced down at my body. I was shirtless, ripped open everywhere I could see and then some. My jeans had dried, flaky blood on them. The wounds the harpies had given me didn't look as deep as I remembered them being, and almost all of them had been stitched up.

Then I saw the golden tinge to the white cloth in Will's hand—soaked with nectar. That explained the foul smell and partially mended wounds.

Will followed my gaze down to the cloth and chuckled. "Oh. Yeah. I put a little bit of nectar on this—drink of the gods? Mortals would burn up from touching the stuff, but demigods can use it in small quantities for healing. I would just stitch you up with some good ole-fashioned Apollo magic and a few normal surgical techniques, but that thing I did for Sam drained me pretty bad. I won't be up to any miracles any time soon."

My eyes shot up and around. I was back in the infirmary, albeit not cuffed to a bed. "Where is she?" I demanded.

Will rested a consoling hand on my chest. "Easy," he said. "She wouldn't leave your side for a long time after they brought you in here, but she hadn't showered, and she hadn't eaten since dinner that night. We made her walk away and take care of herself."

I deflated against the headboard, resting my head back and closing my eyes. "How long did they knock me out for?"

Will whistled. "A while," he said. "About two days."

My head snapped up. "What?"

He smiled, lips twitching painfully. "Y-yeah. It's—it's August 18th now."

My heart started hammering against my chest erratically. I searched my head for the loud commentary I always had going over my life, but it was silent. That added up to one thing and one thing alone: I had mere hours—if that—before the poison started trying to claim my life and drag me back to the Pit.

Will smiled. "Yeah, I know it's scary," he said. "The first time something got me that bad, I was shaken up for a week afterward. Unfortunately, you get used to, living this kind of life."

I ran a hand through my hair. "Blondie live?" I kept my voice as unaffected and disinterested as I could, but I was scared. I doubted Will would be in this good a mood if Annabeth hadn't made it, but I had to be sure.

He chuckled. "She doesn't much appreciate being called 'blondie,' but yeah. She's in the bathroom freshening up right now." He glanced down at his watch, sighing. "Almost time," he muttered. "Sorry I'm missing it this year, guys."

I frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He looked up at me. "Huh? Oh, uh…it's nothing. Don't worry about it right now." He reached over and pulled up a glass of molten gold—nectar. "Here, drink this. It should start repairing the rest of your wounds. For some reason, that thing on your face did not want to heal just from topical treatment, but it should do the trick this way."

I hesitated, staring at it. The truth was, I wouldn't still have this scar if nectar, ambrosia, water, or anything else touched it. It wouldn't go away. It couldn't. It had been created by a very specific blade dipped in a very specific substance; godly magic, even a Titan's magic, could never heal it.

What would people think when they found that out for themselves?

Will sighed. "Annabeth mentioned you were distrustful," he said. "Look, it's not poisoned. I swear on the River Styx. I'm a healer, not a killer."

Thunder rumbled. I had no choice but to tip part of my hand. At least the scar had been a recent development over the last six years. I accepted the glass.

And started thanking Tyche and Hades expressively in my mind when the bathroom door flew open.

"What the fuck are you wearing?" Will demanded, coming to his feet.

I glanced over to see Annabeth in a simple, knee-length black dress, hair wound up on the back of her head in a bun, orderly and perfect. She lifted her chin defiantly. "Mourner's clothes," she said, unashamed.

I frowned. "Who died?" I asked without thinking.

"Countless innocent, good heroes," she told me without looking my direction.

I stopped. "How many did the h—hags kill?" I asked. I couldn't know just what they were yet. I had to be careful.

"Harpies," Annabeth corrected, "and thankfully, no one."

Okay, now I was lost. "Then…what?"

Will sighed and turned to me. "It's the memorial for the Second Titanomachy today."

My heart stopped beating in my chest. Of course. After so long without a normal life consisting of birthdays and celebrations, I'd let myself forget the eighteenth of August also doubled as my birthday—now twenty-second birthday—and the culmination to years of suffering and tragedy.

But I couldn't know all that. "The what?" I tried to look bored. I don't think I succeeded.

"How much do you know about Greek mythology?" Annabeth asked.

"Not a lot," I lied.

"Before the gods, there were the Titans, led by Kronos. He became threatened by the power of his children, so he ate them. Baby Zeus got away and eventually came back to free his siblings and take over the world. They cut Kronos into tiny pieces and banished him to Tartarus"—(screams, screams everywhere, so much pain, sulfur for air and fire for water)—"but he made a comeback six years ago. It took years to defeat him. When we finally had, we—" Her voice caught. "A lot of brave people lost their lives for it."

Will held Annabeth's shoulders. "Annabeth, you've headed the memorial every year since it happened. No one expects it to do after you were always killed while at camp of all places."

"Percy would have done it," she murmured, looking away.

My heart twisted into a vice. I wanted to reach out to her, tell her I'd do it now, just help me out of bed and into something appropriate, I'm right here, just look at me, Wise Girl—

But I didn't. I couldn't.

"Yeah, because it took half the Ares cabin to hold him down and make him accept help when he needed it," Will said, squeezing her shoulders. "Would Percy want you to kill yourself doing this when you're not up to it?"

"What does it matter?" Annabeth cried, head snapping up as she tore away from him. She staggered and caught herself on a headboard. Will steadied her. She took a deep, pained breath. "Percy is dead. They're all dead. I lost a little blood. They lost a lot more."

Will hesitated. "Will you give a eulogy for Luke this time?"

I looked over, eyes wide. No. That couldn't mean—

"Luke Castellan is the reason they're all dead!" Annabeth screamed, shoving Will away from her. She choked on a sob, gripping the headboard. Her knuckles bled white. I stared in disbelief. Annabeth—the one person who never lost faith in Luke's suppressed goodness no matter how many terrible things he did—had overlooked his defining sacrifice in the final moments? Why?

Will took a deep breath. "Go lay down, Annabeth," he said, reaching out to her.

"I'm going," Annabeth strangled out, fighting tears. My heart broke. "That's final."

Will growled quietly. "You think I don't want to give Lee's and Michael's eulogies, Annabeth?" he demanded. "I hate that I have to stay here watching you two, but—"

"Don't," I said without thinking.

Annabeth and Will looked at me in surprise.

I realized how soft and compassionate that had sounded and backtracked. "Look, I don't wanna deal with a couple obnoxious blonds intermittently glaring at me and making me feel better, so go to your dumb funeral thing. I'm fine."

Will hesitated. "I—"

"You don't want to make your patient upset, do you, doctor?" I mocked. I hated to do this today of all days, but I had to. "Just go."

Will sighed and nodded. "I-I should fight you harder on this, but I want to go too badly." He looked at Annabeth. "You're staying where I can watch you, got it?"

Annabeth shook her head quickly. "Okay, okay. Hurry up. You are not wearing that to the memorial."

Will glanced down at his yellow shirt, bright, obnoxious, and topped with a smiling sun. He winced. "Yeah…I just grabbed something from the closet without thinking. I have better clothes in my cabin."

He headed toward the door with Annabeth, only to stop and glance back at me. "I really appreciate this, Eric," he said. "Even if you're not doing it for us."

Then he left.

I sunk down into the mattress, taking deep breaths. I wondered where Mr. D was. Had he attended the memorial? Actually, no—it wasn't that surprising. One of his sons died in the Battle of the Labyrinth.

Would another one of the gods give me the antidote, then? I didn't have the strength to get up and search the infirmary for wherever they might hide it, and I doubted Poseidon would be thrilled with his family abandoning me to die an agonizing death that ended in a permanent, irrevocable trip to the Pit.

I don't know how long passed. There was a clock behind me, but I had to crane my neck at an awkward angle to see it, and I hurt enough as is. I held the glass of untouched nectar on my stomach, waiting.

While I did, I found myself replaying the crucial moments of the past six years over again in my mind. From the banishment to my death to my escape, and then, of course, the day I met my ex-fiancé.

No sooner did that joyful thought occur me than my face erupted in pain.

I screamed, spilling the glass of nectar over my body with a howl. I clapped a hand over my face a river of fire filled it. Yellowy-brown puss overflowed from the gash. Superheated steam sped through my veins, evaporating the blood flowing through my vessels and cooking me from the inside-out. I writhed around on the bed in agony, vaguely recognizing how much more extreme this fit was from all the others I'd endured overtime. Anguish engulfed me in seconds. I wondered if anyone was close enough to hear my wails.

I hoped not. No one should bear witness to this.

The nectar didn't help. It knitted the wounds it touched closed completely, but my skin also started to smoke where it contacted, which only supported the part of my mind convinced I'd just spilled acid on myself.

No god appeared. I was on my own, and I had no misconceptions about my ability to survive this without divine help. Already, the wraiths of the Pit had their claws wrapped around my limbs, dragging me down, down, down, down…

Sam's radiant laugh exploded in my ears, her yellowish-yet-brilliant smile banishing the darkness claiming my soul as I writhed there. They'd hauled her away from my side after hours refusing to leave it to her own detriment. She would never forgive herself if I died in her absence.

I knew, intimately, the pain only survivor's guilt could bring a person. I couldn't leave my little girl with that grief. Over my dead body.

No, I realized—over my living one.

The glass shattered against the floorboards when I threw my weight to the side. I crashed on top of the shards a moment later, grunting as they pierced my supple abdomen and turned crimson with my blood. As my body went to war with the sensations of burning, freezing, and breaking confusing my nerve-endings, I begun the terrible process of hauling myself toward the cabinets in the back.

If I had the wherewithal to think this through, I might have abandoned it. All past fits had been expressly averted by the administration of the antidote in the nick of time. I avoided divine food as much as I could, knowing it would never again taste like my mother's homemade blue cookies. Worse yet, someday, it might, and that would be harder to swallow than the entire River of Fire.

Now, though, I had to try. Maybe it could delay the process, improve a few moments of cognitive functioning enough to avail another solution—something. I couldn't roll over and let that demon take me away from my little girl.

I wouldn't.

A million years later, I gripped the wooden corner of the tall cabinets. Controlling my strangled gasps for air (the last non-painful inhales I might ever take), I tried to use it to pull myself upright enough to open them and pull out something—anything. It started to tip over toward me as soon as I put any weight behind it. I let go in a hurry and it crashed back against the wall.

I changed tactics. My limbs had started to fill with lead instead of steam, making it even harder to exert dominion over them, but I had to. I knew what came after intense bodily heaviness, and if I reached that point, it was over.

It took so much energy—more, maybe, than the wrath I rained down on the monsters beyond the barrier or the vengeance I wreaked saving Annabeth at the arena—to flop my arms around in some semblance of purposefulness. I used them to haul my legs into a functional kneeling position, gasping, choking, straining.

I estimated an eon before I succeeded. My eyes had frozen wide. I could no longer do more than whine in the back of my throat from pain, because my entire mouth seized up. Unbearably dry, I couldn't even swallow. I didn't have long before the rest of my body began to follow suit.

I pushed up with a desperate grunt and almost fell back. How I stopped myself, I couldn't tell you—sheer strength of will, maybe? I flung the cabinet open, smacking myself in the face in the process. I didn't feel the impact.

I lunged out. Things knocked around. First-aid kits, rolls of gauze—they crashed on top of my head, but I refused to give up. My pinkie stiffened, slightly bent. Panic gripped me by the throat and heart, but I couldn't hyperventilate anymore.

Then I had it.

The ornate box of ambrosia broke open against my skull. Golden squares—like a new kind of candy—bounced off the ground. I snatched one up, broke off too big a chunk, and shoved it in my mouth.

Too late, I realized my mistake. My entire face was paralyzed. I couldn't chew the foreign object, but my throat still worked—just barely worked. My middle finger stopped recognizing my commands to move. I used the others to push it all the back of my mouth, against my uvula, farther. I choked. I was about to exchange an agonizing death by poison for the much less glamorous option of inhaling a large piece of food and suffocating. That would make an excellent end to the ballad of Percy Jackson, yes—Thalia might drop by for a visit to point and laugh at my bloated corpse, telling everyone how she totally called it when I was fourteen.

I would not let Thalia get the last laugh.

I swallowed as hard as I could. It stuck on the way, but I fought. I swallowed more. It inched millimeter by millimeter toward my stomach. Just a little more, I thought hysterically. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon—someone up there, let this work.

Almost there. Less than an inch. Another swallow. A centimeter. One m—

It hit my stomach. The hydrochloric acid immediately broke it down. Its magic sent it rushing through my body all at once.

The paralysis and pain didn't reverse or lessen, but I thought it might have slowed down a little bit. Long enough for Mr. D or some other god to remember the date.

Something terrible occurred to me. I had just retrieved the Apples of Hesperides for the antidote and given it to Poseidon. Maybe Hecate hadn't had the time to synthesize the correct antidote.

It wasn't coming.

Time dragged on even longer. My arm was the first limb to stop moving entirely. Its twin followed suit soon after. My torso. My legs. I fell onto the ground like a lead weight, bent and contorted in a way I might have found funny if I hadn't just lost the fight.

Was that the door? Oh gods. Someone just walked in to investigate the apparent chaos inside the infirmary. Someone had to watch me die in the most terrible way I could. I wouldn't even get to tell them sorry before it ended.

Footsteps, measured and calm, approaching, getting closer, closer, closer…

Of course, then the convulsions hit.

I told myself not end on another cliffhanger. That was my goal for this chapter.

I failed that goal, but the dumb thing reached over 4000 words, and it would have taken another 2000 or better to reach another decent conclusion.