Hello, everyone! I am back from my choir retreat. I'll just say that it was buckets of fun. Also, school starts for me next Tuesday :( That means less updating :(:( I'll just let you get to the chapter now!

Let it commence.

Annabeth

Hypnos narrowed his eyes—or at least it looked like it.

"Annabeth Chase," Hypnos said slowly. "Yes…your memories have been gone longer."

Percy's eyes widened when he heard that. I squeezed his hand and walked toward Hypnos.

"What do I need to do?" I asked, feeling nervous.

His eyes started to look steadily more intimidating, and they sucked away the light from the flashlight. His eyes suddenly looked like they could swallow the earth, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from them.

"Annabeth!" I heard someone yell. Their voice sounded like it was at the end of a tunnel. I tried to turn my head, but it wouldn't move. I tried blinking, but my eyelids felt like they were cemented open. Hypnos's eyes steadily got bigger and bigger until they swallowed me whole, taking the light with them.

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I was lying on a cold, stone floor. My hair was sprawled over my face, and I slowly sat up. It was absolutely pitch-black, and I couldn't see my hand when I waved it in front of my face.

"Hello?" I called. My voice echoed ominously. "Percy? Hypnos?"

I didn't get a response. A draft of cold air came out of nowhere, and I shivered.

"Anyone?" I yelled, feeling a bit worried.

"Anyone, anyone, anyone?" my echo repeated, the voice fading away.

I exhaled, rubbing my arms. I realized that I was still wearing Percy's shirt. I hadn't changed my clothes in two days.

Ugh. I needed a shower.

Trying to ignore my smell and accepting the fact that I wouldn't get anywhere just sitting there, I got to my feet. I turned in a circle, seeing if there was a flicker of light that I'd missed.

There wasn't.

Still feeling a bit uneasy about walking off into the darkness, I tried to think. How had I gotten here? Hypnos. I was supposed to be getting my memor—

A horrible pain ripped through my skull, like someone was taking a chisel and hammer and trying to pound their way into my brain. I cried out and grabbed my head. Tears pricked my eyes, and I sank to the ground. It felt like my brain was trying to bash its way out of my head.

With a swell of pain that almost knocked me out and another cry, a vision flickered behind my eyelids. Or maybe it was just in front of me. It was so dark I couldn't tell the difference.

The pain slowly faded away as I stared in front of me. I got up shakily to my feet, my eyes bulging out of my head.

A little girl who looked about seven was sobbing as she stuffed things inside a small backpack. She was sitting on her bed, and the small clock on her table read 2:30 in the morning.

"Daddy…hates me…leaving," I heard her cry through her sobs.

She zipped the pack closed and climbed off the bed. She didn't even glance back as she left the bedroom, still sniffling.

I realized with a jolt that it was me.

Pain ripped through my head again, but not so violent. My vision went slightly black, and when it came to, the image had changed.

The little girl—me—was hiding behind a sheet of metal. I heard slow footsteps approach the metal, and Little Me tightened her grip on a hammer, trembling.

The metal was ripped away and she leapt out, swinging the hammer wildly.

"Whoa!" a boy yelped. He was holding the metal in one hand and grabbed the wrist of Little Me with the other. He had blonde hair and bright blue eyes. The hammer flew out of her hands and she started kicking and fighting.

"No more monsters! Go away!" she cried.

"It's okay!" the boy tried to tell her while trying to block her tiny fists. "Thalia, put your shield up. You're scaring her."

A girl I hadn't noticed with electric blue eyes and choppy black hair tapped her wrist and a frightening shield wound itself and turned into a bracelet.

"Hey, it's all right," the girl said. "We're not going to hurt you. I'm Thalia, and this is Luke."

The scene morphed. It was raining hard, and I was being pushed up a slick hill by Luke. I could hardly see a thing, and lightning flashed. Monsters were surging up the hill, and the girl, Thalia, was fighting her hardest. She ducked, weaved, stabbed, and punched. She was bleeding from multiple wounds, but she didn't show signs of stopping. She fought her way up the hill until she was at the top, and a lucky spear was thrown into her stomach. She cried out and sank to the ground. The monsters vaporized when the reached the top of the hill, and I watched with tears streaming down both mine and Luke's faces as Thalia was suddenly turned into a pine tree.

And it changed again. I was patting a boy's forehead with a wet cloth and spooned some golden pudding into his mouth. His messy dark hair was sweaty, and he was slightly drooling. My mouth was in a slight smile as I watched him sleep. I realized that it was Percy, but much younger.

Scenes flashed and changed, and I could only assume that they were my memories coming back to my mind. I watched them all with open eyes, my mouth slightly open.

I leaned in and kissed Percy as the crowd lifted us on their shoulders, cheering, and laurel leaves were placed on our heads. A boy with one eye in the middle of his forehead was jumping up and down and clapping.

"That's my brother!" he cheered.

"Tyson…" I muttered. "I remember his name."

I screamed in pain as the weight of the world fell onto my shoulders. I started to cry.

"Luke! Luke! Help me!" I cried.

A boy turned, and I saw an ugly scar that ran down his face. It hadn't been there before. There was no sympathy in his eyes. He walked away. I cried even harder.

I ran down corridor after corridor, with Percy trailing behind me with a goat boy—Grover—and Tyson behind us.

"This doesn't make sense!" I cried out in exasperation.

I kissed Percy on the cheek behind a large cauldron, and his eyes widened. I pulled away with tears in my eyes and put my hat on my head and ran away, crying.

A knife flashed down to Percy's exposed back, and I impulsively jumped in front of the blade for some unknown reason. I screamed as it hit me in the side, and Percy whipped around and saw me bleeding. Anger flashed on his face, and he fought even harder.

I held a bleeding Luke in my arms, and I was crying. Percy was standing behind me with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Did you…did you ever love me?" he gasped, blood on his lips.

I glanced back at Percy, who was staring at us, his sword clenched tightly in his hand.

I looked back to his dying body. "You were like a brother to me, Luke, but I didn't love you."

He nodded as if expecting the answer, and died in my arms.

I was thrown into a lake, laughing so much my stomach hurt. I was holding hands with Percy, and we sank to the bottom. An air bubble formed around us, and we kissed with all we had, and the blue cupcake was lying forgotten on the bottom of the bubble.

"Happy Birthday, Seaweed Brain," I muttered, smiling against his lips.

I burst into the cabin, and Tyson was on the ground, sobbing his eye out.

"T-Tyson?"

"Annabeth!" he sobbed, flinging himself onto my shoulder.

"What happened? Where's Percy?" I cried.

"Woke up! Percy gone! Cabin messy!" Tyson gulped, wiping his eye with his hand.

"Percy? G-Gone?" I stammered.

"Gone!" Tyson howled.

I was staring over the railing of a massive flying ship, my hair whipping around my face. There he was. Percy. After not seeing him for months, he was there. I ran over to a boy—Leo—and grabbed a rope ladder from him. I flung it over the edge and practically slid down the ladder I was descending so fast.

Right when my feet touched the ground, I heard someone cry out.

"No! No!"

I ran through the crowd. "Percy?"

An unseen source suddenly hit me on the back of the head with the butt of a spear. I couldn't help but cringe as I saw myself crumple to the ground.

The scene changed once again.

I was glaring with all I had towards…Percy? He was glaring right back.

"What? What?" I shrieked, tears falling down my face. "You don't love me anymore. So you can just turn it off, like that? Decide that you don't love me anymore? What happened to all the things we've done together? Are they just gone, too? Should we just pretend like they never happened?"

I stormed toward him, and he just kept on glaring, his eyes hard and full of hatred.

I slapped him hard across the face, and his head whipped to one side. He gasped and touched his cheek.

"You heard me, Annabeth," he snarled, his head turning slowly towards me. "We're done. I'm through. It's over."

I shoved him, and he fell against the wall.

"I don't believe you."

The scene morphed again. I started feeling anger towards Percy as I watched. Why did he do this to me? I thought I was in love with him! And now that I saw how he treated me…

He walked over to me, one of his fists clenched.

"Get away from me."

"No."

"Go away!" I screamed.

He took my face with one hand and I struggled hard. With his other hand, he pulled out a vial and uncapped it with his teeth.

"What are you doing?" I asked, fear creeping into my voice.

"I'm sorry, Annabeth."

"Oh, you're sorry!" I laughed hysterically.

His eyes softened. "I'm so sorry."

The vial touched my lips.

"You…what are you—no!"

The liquid fell into my mouth, and the scene started to turn slowly black. I could barely see Percy take me into his arms and start to cry into my hair as he rocked my limp body back and forth.

The scene vanished, and I was staring into the empty space again, my mouth slightly open.

He was the one who had given me the Lethe. The one who betrayed me and broke my heart. The reason that I had no memories. The reason I was in this whole mess. I was in shock.

Percy, the boy that I'd started to fall in love with ever since I'd seen him in the cell was the one who did this. All of this. Mixed emotions crashed through me, and all I could do was stare at the place where the memories came back, frozen, with my mouth open.

But yet, I still had a ray of hope.

I could still hear his soft last words echo through my head just as the scene had vanished.

I love you.

Annabeth has her doubts about Percy now that she's seen what he's done to her. Will she be able to push past it and continue to love him, or will it be too much? I don't know...

Eh, not my best work :/

School starts on Tuesday... :( meh.

OKAY BYE.

OH! P.S. Just in case you didn't figure it out, this was all happening inside Annabeth's head. The echoing and the cold draft? That's because her brain is 'empty'. Sure, she's still smart, but she has no memories besides the ones that she's recently made. Make sense? Good.