Before we begin, I just want to say that I don't mean any offense with this chapter and I don't pretend to know the complexities of the disease that I have mentioned. Other thing, my writing is so bad in this chapter and I so apologise for that, but it probably won't get any better.
I also wish to say thank you to those that have kept with the story (I updated a little faster this time!)
Other thing, this chapter is about 3100 words and I really hope you enjoy it. Talk to you at the end of the story!
Winter was confused. He'd woken up in a dark dome on a bed of shrivelled plants. The sky was too close. The air too humid. The muffled sounds of people surrounded him, but there was no one in immediate sight.
It took several moments for Winter to remember the events of the previous day. Of running away from people. Though how he ended up in a shelter of sorts was beyond him.
"WINTER!"
Percy got up the second he heard the scream, banging his head on the roof before ripping through it, extending his wings and leaping into the sky to view the camp.
There. The forest. A crowd.
Winter flew, parallel to the ground, towards the edge of the forest. To the world he looked an avenging angel. To himself, he looked scared.
-.-.-.-
It was dark. So, so dark. And it was quiet. So, so quiet. The earth was damp. The silence was deafening. The walls were there. The walls were bare. The ceiling was low. It was like the hallucinations. She was trapped. Trapped in the dark. She was frightened.
Help. Help. Help. Help.
Autumn crouched, holding her head and rocking back and forth, feeling her sanity splinter.
-.-.-.-
Summer was confused and worried. They had found a note near woods, next to signs of struggling. The unlucky satyr to come across it had almost bleated in terror when he'd come to inform Chiron and in turn one Summer season playing cards and gambling jelly beans (he had double of what Chiron had now! But that's unimportant. Back onto scary topic.)
Summer now stood on the very edge of a massive forest, with Spring and Chiron in tow, frightened of what may be happening next. Was the time for his dreams to come to pass? Was he destined to lead these innocent children into a wood of mayhem and destruction?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But now was not the time to think about it. The fates were impossible to understand.
Summer tried to look over Chiron's shoulder at the note, but settled for under his arm. Chiron was tall in horse form.
The note read:
Greetings campers. So, no doubt you have figured out our pattern by now. So, we had to change it. Just slightly.
We've taken one of your own and are currently in the process of damaging her. Don't worry though! We're giving her the very best treatment in torture and soon enough you'll have her back.
Xx
Two kisses was a little much.
Summer took the paper, looked down and saw some extra information. A chill went down his spine. A scream built in his throat. A single word flew out of his mouth.
"WINTER!"
-.-.-.-
A thud greeted Winter as his wings folded behind him.
"What happened?" His voice was ice, his eyes colder and his jaw was set against the bad news he was about to receive.
Summer wordlessly handed over a small piece of paper, it looked as if it had been quickly ripped out of a notepad and had been trodden on.
Winter scanned it, frost spreading from his feet until he got to the last lines.
P.S Tell Winter his little friend misses him and there's nothing he can do until we bring her back. Sleep well seasons!
"They mean Autumn, don't they?" Winter glanced up at Spring as she said this.
A crowd had gathered around them, but none were brave enough to approach the hero as he stood amongst his comrades and glowed with power.
"What can we do?" Spring's voice was earnest, Summer was nodding. At a single word Winter would have the equivalent of an army to command that would go to the ends of the earth to save his friend. Winter would become the leader, the hero amongst heroes. He had power and loyalty and kindness and everything in between.
Winter had every resource to find his truest friend in a long time.
"Nothing. You've read it. We can't do anything. We don't know what will happen if we try. So we wait." Winter bowed his head as his words came crashing down on the hearts of his team. "We wait and we hope that she'll be strong enough."
A deathly silence filled the camp for the rest of the afternoon. The training continued. The people were functioning. All held bated breath as they waited for a sign.
A sign that it was all a bad dream.
-.-.-.-
The girl's breath was irregular. She was shaking. She was scared. She was ready.
It had been so easy to lure her out towards the forest. To whisper to the wind and chant to the night. The perfect vessel for the next act that was to come. And the perfect was to make her Master proud.
Despite this, Fear scowled. How her mother expected her, an embodiment of fear that was an outsider to this world, to succeed where her sisters had failed was a mystery to her. She jumped at her own shadow if it was the wrong time of the day.
But the wishes of her Master were law in this world.
Fear approached her victim in her incorporeal form. For herself and her sisters to fully utilise the full potential of their host, they must feel them beforehand. Pain inflicted hurt her vessel. Joy joked with her vessel; and turned on them. Fear frightened her vessel. She used the very fabric of their being against them and frightened them until they were close to insane.
And she enjoyed it.
-.-.-.-
Three days. Winter was sat in a tree, overlooking the camp and thinking of a time where this view would have been the ultimate. The highest view he could get using only his skills and not those of a Pegasus or a friend that could fly (#jercybromance). It had been three days since Autumn had gone missing.
And he had done nothing.
There was a hole in his chest and an ache in his heart. He had done nothing. He could do nothing. He was powerless. He was useless.
He was his old self again.
Winter looked up at the sky, pretending he could see all the way to the Palace of Chaos.
Chaos had strict rules when it came to missions. No contact after 24 hours of the official start. It was up to them to work together.
But still. Winter couldn't help but think that these instances were out of place.
There were slight plot holes and he was going to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was something else going on here.
If the titans, giants and Tartarus were rising why hadn't they heard from them? Were these possessions/kidnappings their work against Olympus? And if so, why hadn't anyone seen any of the titans or giants yet?
This was all playing out really differently to the previous instances three hundred years ago.
But Chaos was always right, so if they said that the giants, titans and Tartarus were getting away from the pit (kinda) then that was what was happening.
Camp-Half Blood would have to meet up with Camp Jupiter soon and scout the area. They had to go onto the offensive at some point.
It may also be interesting to see how his other old and immortal friends would react to seeing Winter and Summer back again. Perhaps Nico had finally found his type in three hundred years.
Winter laughed very quietly to himself. What a time that had been to be alive. Before his friends had abandoned him.
Winter's thoughts turned back towards his new group of people that needed him and he needed. Summer. Spring. Chaos. Autumn. The balance of this world was being kept by a thread. And who knew what would happen when it was cut.
-.-.-.-
Five days. Spring was sitting in the Camp's library, reading about what Percy Jackson had done trying not to cry as she remembered how excited Autumn had been when she'd found this place and had started learning about the cold member of their party.
How times had changed.
The Winter that Spring had seen several days ago almost seemed like an impossible dream. How could it be that his personality could change so easily?
Why had he been so open? Why had he shown weakness and asked her about herself. He was the unapproachable one!
Why did Spring feel something tightening in her chest as she read through the first adventure of Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood?
Spring slouched into the beanbag and closed the book carefully beside her.
Before she had become stuck in this form, she had been to many places. She had been a shadowhunter in the streets of London, herself being a character that helped the London Institute. She had been a member of the Mad Hatter's tea party. She had fought against teenagers in an arena full of dangers and had been friends with a small boy with a demon butler.
But despite all that she had done and been through, she'd never been as confused. What was going on? What was going to happen next? Why was she here? What role was she playing this time?
Did it matter?
-.-.-.-
Seven days. Summer was getting tired of waiting around for something to happen. For Autumn to come back fundamentally changed and see if they could help her or if she was completely doomed.
Summer could also tell that Winter was getting tired of waiting around as well. The pacing was almost constant and the muttering of a madman could be compared to how Winter sounded when he stopped.
"Alright. That's enough waiting around." Summer looked up from his spot on the couch in the Big House and looked towards Winter, raising an eyebrow.
"And what exactly can we do? We can't do anything that'll risk Autumn getting hurt more and, no offence, but I don't think that any of us are in any shape to teach these demigods about anything." Summer studied Winter's face. It was portraying the determination about something. Something was going to happen soon. He could feel it.
"We can still do something. Anything is better than lazing around while the monsters gather their forces." Winter stopped pacing. "Chiron! Assemble the senior counsellors. We need to have a meeting."
Summer sighed and stood up, going over to the room where the meeting would take place.
Time to start really helping the cause.
He stopped in the doorway, realisation clear on his face. He was planning to help the campers. He would not see Calypso again. And he was fine with it. She was in his past, he would now look to the future. He would help these people, with everything he had in him.
-.-.-.-
Winter stood at the head of the Ping-Pong table with Chiron, looking at the leaders of the camp.
"Alright heroes, here's what we're going to do. Winter?" Chiron looked at Winter, gesturing for him to inform the campers of the plan.
"We are going to see the Romans." Winter explained as best he could the course of action they would have to take. Meeting up with Camp Jupiter, combining their forces, attacking the monsters as best they could.
Face more people from the past.
This story was about to get a lot bigger.
Winter's pep talk was interrupted by, you guessed it, screaming.
Autumn had returned.
Winter rushed out, fast than anyone else, and raced into the sky. He scanned the grounds below him for a single figure amongst several fallen ones.
There. The archery range.
Winter flew towards it. He landed a few feet away, folding his wings and looking at the form of Autumn; slightly hunched over with eyes that glowed gold.
"Perseus Jackson. You've been expecting us?" Autumn looked towards Winter, glancing down once at the dagger of ice he held in his hand. "I can tell. Your levels of fear are rising to the top, no?"
Winter tried to push down his emotions as he found himself staring into the eyes of madness. Drowning. His friends dying. His friend rejecting him. His step-father. All of the fear he'd ever felt was trying to rise to the surface of his mind.
He didn't let it.
"Hmm. You shall not last much longer I don't think." Autumn looked down at herself. "She's almost spent, poor thing. Not much left to her. I could have entered her body on the first day, or the second, or the third, but we was having so much fun. Her fears were so deep rooted, poor thing. I think her memories may just stick with her."
Winter could almost hear his heart breaking. Autumn was strong, but seven days of constant, piercing fear washing over her? No one could stand that.
"Now, I think that I should be going. My mission is to break your resolve, not kill you and I think that the best way to do that is to leave like this." Autumn – Fear – looked up at the approaching people from the Big House, she looked into their eyes and they collapsed like the people around them, incapacitated by fear.
"Percy, dear." Winter forced himself to look Autumn straight in the eye. "I'm a nice being, so I think I'll help you a little. Here's the thing. Autumn has been hiding something from you, all of you. And if you want her to be of any use at all you're going to need her to confront it. She'll need to remember her past's ghosts. They won't be so easily forgotten." Her voice turned mocking and Autumn turned her head to the side. "Poor Winter. Your only friend. And you are unable to help."
With a cruel smile, Autumn glowed for a second and collapsed; eyes rolling back into her head.
Winter approached her. She was shivering.
"The cold. The dark is cold and the cold is dark. So dark and so cold. So cold and so dark. Fear. Fear is there. Fear is here. Fear." Autumn's quivering voice was back to normal; other than the obvious delirium tainting her voice. She was huddled around herself; no sign of the happy immortal that Winter had come to know.
"Autumn?" no response. "Aubrey?" More shivering.
"Autumn, how can we help? What were you hiding?" Winter's own voice was starting to shake.
Around them, people were starting to stand up. Starting to help other people up. Everywhere, campers and immortals alike were slowly recovering and going back to their cabins with their friends to try and start feeling like themselves again.
"Autumn?" Spring made herself known, slowly recovering herself from the effects that had come as a result of her friend's possession.
"Come on, sweetie. Tell Winter what's wrong. Then we can help." Spring was crouching next the other seasons, trying to help but being unable to think of how.
"Memories. I don't want to forget. I don't want-" Autumn was still mumbling, her responses erratic and her eyes wide.
Winter looked at her. Memories. There wasn't another way. She was too far gone to actually tell them what was wrong. There was only one way. To find out directly.
"Okay Autumn. I need you to look at me." Winter held onto her shoulders and tried to get her to look into his eyes. "I need you to trust me."
Autumn nodded and Winter addressed the seasons behind him. "Make sure nothing sneaks up on us."
There were agreements, and Winter used his immortal powers to look into Autumn's mind and find the root of the problem.
-.-.-.-
It was an endless plain. It was pure white. There were barely any memories here. Barely anything at all, except for a single figure sitting a few metres away.
"There was an accident." The figure looked up and Winter saw Autumn, the healed Autumn. "There was an accident and a bit after I became a season."
Winter sat down next to her and stared around him. (A/N while the author felt really, really pretentious about this entire chapter)
The endless plain of Autumn's memories stared back. For such a long life she had not nearly enough memories.
"I had an accident." Autumn paused. "I don't really remember it. I don't remember it." Autumn looked down at her hands.
"I am immortal, that changed how I was affected." Winter's eyes continued to stray along his surroundings. "My condition is different as a result. I forget only after I've fallen asleep. I can't explain it. And every time I wake up, I have this device with a video that I watch. It explains what happened."
Winter finally tore his eyes away from his surroundings to look at his friend.
"You have anterograde amnesia?"
Autumn hung her head. "An odd form of it, possibly." She sighed. "I haven't slept since we were called to Chaos' Castle, I still have the memories of the past few weeks. But what that monster did…"
Winter nodded catching on. "You can't recover from that for as long as you remember. You need to forget it."
"It's not even all of that!" Autumn sounded frustrated. "If I were in the peak of condition, I'm sure I could deal with it! But several weeks without sleep, even to an immortal it's difficult to keep going."
"So you need to sleep, one way or another." Winter finished for her, his gut wrenching and eyes starting to itch.
"I don't want to forget! For the first time since I can remember (A/N haha! Cruel joke) I have friends. I have a life. I have a purpose that I can actually remember. If allow myself what I need to fully recover, I won't remember the mission. I won't remember the complexities of the other seasons. I won't remember you." Autumn looked up at Winter with tears in her eyes. "I won't remember you. I will know you only as a face. I don't want to forget."
The Autumn inside her head curled up, just as she was on the outside. This way she stayed for several moments, until she felt a hand on her back. She slowly sat up.
"It's okay if you forget me." Winter was struggling to hold back tears. Fear had been right, this was worse. Worse than anything else he could have felt at that moment. It made him remember why emotions were a weakness.
"It's okay if you forget me." He repeated again. "We're friends, right? In fact, I think we've just graduated to best friends." He tried for a grin and bumped her shoulder with his own. "And because we're friends, I can remind you every time that we are friends.
"It's okay if you forget me." Winter looked into Autumn's eyes. They were shiny. They were about to shed tears. He gave her a hug, she could hide her face.
"I don't want to forget!"
"You must. We need you." Winter paused, and repeated for the third time as his conscious mind left Autumn's and they returned to the corporeal world,
"It's okay if you forget me. But I won't forget you."
A/N – So, what did you think? I really worked hard on this. And I hope that you felt as sad reading this as I was when writing it. I almost cried. The next chapter will hopefully be a little better! Have a lovely day!
-The Author