Chapter Eleven

De Profundis

In any record one may find, the titans manifest themselves as some sort of natural disaster or phenomena, as they are closer to their maternal influence. The gods on the other hand have a more mystical quality and focus more on the embodiment of emotion and forces that hold a spiritual connection.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯Anton Ravenson, Codex Deorum Essay One⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Something was stirring within me.

I could feel it as clearly as the sand against my skin. The night was silent around me, but full of strange motions. Shapeless blurs shifted about in the shadows, the light only adding more confusion. Violent spasms shot through my body, and my skin seemed to sizzle.

Every once in a while, small bits of noise found their way into my ears, only revealing garbled snippets of conversation. After some time, hands grabbed me and pulled me up, I tried to stand, but they were already putting me onto a stretcher.

As much as my body wanted to sleep, my mind was so vividly alive with motion and energy that I barely blinked. Something strained beyond the physical barriers of my body, something yearned for life. It twisted and spiraled within me, trying to break free. It was something that was so entirely alien, and yet completely me. Ethereal, and yet sad, majestic, and yet melancholy.

As my mind spun, the blues and greens of that energy blotted my vision. It was there.

It was always there.

It had been there. In the back of my mind, when I closed my eyes, colors dancing before me, even now, they twisted and spun, the ballet of power whirling about in my head.

Finally, my body took over, and I slipped into a dark, dreamless sleep.

It was night when I woke up. The hospital was dark, its occupants all asleep, or trying to be. I shifted painfully upwards, into a sitting position to survey the room. As I did, something stirred next to the bed. I jumped and let out a small yelp. I peered vainly through the blackness; suddenly, a voice whispered from its depths.

"Are you all right?" Ethan's light, clear voice formed the words in the darkness.

"Ethan?" I whispered back.

"Yes, are you all right?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I've been watching to see if you wake up. Now you have to tell me if you're all right."

"I think so. I'm still a little sore."

"Thank the gods. I've been worried sick. What happened out there?"

I laid back down and ran my fingers through my hair. I was silent for a little, overwhelmed by everything that had occurred.

"What happened Jason?" He pressed for an answer, laying his fingers on my shoulder.

"I— I saw something out there. It was— It was like nothing I've ever seen."

Ethan's fingers tensed, and he asked what I saw.

"It was light. Like whole streams of light, everywhere, blue, and green, and touching everyone."

"What do you think it was?"

"It was power, like the power that d—demigods… That's the term right?"

"Yeah," Ethan whispered back.

"Yeah, it was the energy that demigods use, I think?"

"Maybe."

"Hey, Ethan." I whispered.

"Yeah?"

"So if you're a demigod, one of your parents is a god right?"

"Yeah."

"Who's your godly parent?"

"Minerva, goddess of wisdom." He responded.

I laughed softly and tried to find his gaze in the darkness. When I thought I had found it I spoke again.

"You know, Hazel and I, when she brought me to camp, we walked through your mom's temple."

I heard him take a sharp breath.

"You what?"

"Walked through the temple of Minerva."

"Gods." He whispered to himself.

"What? Were we not allowed to? Or—"

"No, no, not at all, we've been searching for it. I've been trying to find it for years."

"Hazel said she was keeping it a secret."

"Wouldn't your mom tell you where it was if you asked her?"

"I— I don't think so. Even after the gods promised to be more involved, they still didn't really follow through. I think after millennia of immortality, their word means little to them, even if it's to their own children."

"Really?"

Ethan scoffed. I couldn't see him, but I could imagine him rolling his eyes.

"I don't think you want to hear all of my troubles, nor do you nee any troubles right now."

"Don't say that. I can take it."

"I have no doubt that you can, but you shouldn't. Goodnight."

"But I thought you wanted to know more about the temple."

"I do, and I'm planning on asking Hazel tomorrow. But right now, you need to sleep."

"Goodnight, Ethan."

"Goodnight, Jason."

I had forgotten that his hand still rested on my shoulder, and when he pulled his hand away, I couldn't help but notice how cold that spot seemed without his fingers' warmth.

Neither of us slept for some time. I knew Ethan was still there because I could still hear his breathing beside me. I slipped into his mind for a moment, and found a gentle whirlwind of emotions, some of fear, some of relief, some of anxiety, and a different emotion, one that I had never felt before. I would figure out what it was sooner or later.

After a while, I finally closed my eyes, and drifted off into a blissful slumber.

When I awoke, Ethan was gone.

The hospital was mostly empty, and bright slants of sunlight penetrated the room through the small, slitted windows that were scattered throughout the building. With all the light that poured in, it was strange that the room felt so lonely. Devoid of life. Warmth permeated every part of the room, and yet there seemed to be a coldness, an icy sensation worming its way into the air, and settling like a layer of dust on everything. And in the brightness of the morning, the question that throbbed at the back of my mind came fully into focus.

Who am I?

It was so sudden that it hurt. It echoed in my mind, resounding off the walls of my skull like a gong. Once again, the shape shifted within me. It seemed to be larger than my body could hold, whispering like a vapor just past my skin, causing chills to run down my back and arms.

In that gold lit room, warm and cold, alive and dead, I thought of the future. For the first time in my life, I thought about my existence. For years, I had carried others' burdens without them even knowing. They would never know because they had died. No one would know because no one cared. I would know, and I would weep for people who had never cared for me, never known me, never seen me, would never care for me, would never know me and would never see me.

The strange emotion that I had felt earlier thrummed in my heart again. My entire being became a wellspring of emotions, pouring out of my soul in a torrent of pain, happiness, horror, love, memory, anger, grief, and thousands of others that I couldn't name. The weight of it all, my future, my past, my life, crashed down upon me, my shoulders aching with the load. An insatiable craving inside of me came to life, and I yearned so hopelessly for something, an unknown thing that lay just outside my grasp, just barely seen through the shifting curtains of time.

Loneliness.

All I felt was plain, utter loneliness. It encompassed everything, and yet nothing. I had never known the feeling before. I had thought I did, but my mind had been too focused on the lives of others to worry about myself. Why was it strange to me then that after years of neglect, all I found in myself was empty?

My eyes drifted down to my hand, withered and black, and I broke internally. The floodgates that had kept these emotions within me shattered, and let loose the storm.

On that cot in the sunlit room, in a strange world, at a strange camp, in a strange hospital, I wept, and sobbed until I had no more tears to give.