A new story in the works. I have no clue where this is going to go, but hopefully, this can be something great. But just to warn you, it does get quite dark in this chapter, and I recommend those uneasy with this type of material to skip forward. Please know it won't be like this throughout the entirety of the story.

Shout out to KloseKom for helping with the summary.

All reviews and comments will be greatly appreciated.

As always, Enjoy!

-LostHouse

Blood In the Snow

With the blowing gust bringing in the first falling snow, a sense of peace washed over the man who sat on the edge of a cliff, watching the glowing sunset on the ever-stretching horizon as the forest behind him whistled a cold tune of longing.

Breathing out through tight lips, the cold air turned his hot breath into a small mist that melted away into the dancing wind, his twinkling green eyes shining as the puddle of red blood steadily grew in the fresh snow beneath him.

"Seems I get to see yet another winter…" he mumbled to no one present, ignoring the pulsating wound in his gut.

Losing feeling in his limbs when the cold began setting in, he let his eyes close and once more welcomed Morpheus into his mind, passing out into a cushion of blood-soaked snow with the repeating dream of torture and dungeon corridors replaying in his mind.

He prevailed and lived to fight another day...

Coming of Winter,

Seven years ago, Yancy Boarding School.

It was meant to be just another day for Percy Jackson.

A day of boring lessons followed by dumb questions from teachers who didn't get paid enough, nor liked their jobs. Instead, they chose a way to make the children's lives a living hell.

Currently sitting at the back of his Greek mythology class, Percy chose to zone out and ignore the crazy talks of Mr. Brunner, who was talking about some bullshit to do with Gods being real and present till this day, blah-blah-blah. Pure nonsense in his eyes.

"The Olympians, especially the Big Three which consists of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, are still worshipped by many in some places of this earth, however…" Mr. Brunner carried on, eyes madly glistening as his tone hinted that he knew them personally.

How is this heretic even allowed to teach?

Shaking his head at the outright nonsense of his teacher, Percy glanced around the classroom and caught sight of the clock. The time read fifteen past six in the evening, meaning there were only fifteen more minutes left before they could head back to their dorms and finally rest.

To this day, Percy still couldn't wrap his head around the point of having evening lessons, but luckily his ADHD helped him keep his mind busy with other pointless things, rather than focusing on the absurd timings of his boring lessons.

I wonder what my mum is doing? Is she well? Will she bring blue cookies the next time she visits?

Feeling his stomach rumble at the thought of blue cookies, his mind snapped back to reality only to see the entire class staring at him with raised eyebrows and questioning eyes as Mr. Brunner cleared his throat.

"Perseus? Can you answer my question please," he asked with a patient tone.

"I-ah…no? I wasn't listening..."

Fumbling over his words as the snickers from his peer's echoed around the room, a bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck, the teacher letting out a small sigh at his typical behavior.

"I asked, do know from where this statue originates and the meaning behind it?" he repeated himself, gesturing to the projector screen which displayed the statue of a big, bearded man holding a fancy stick.

When the words on the screen became jumbled up into a completely different language because of his dyslexia, he decided to just speak his mind.

"Yes, that's Doctor Phil with an oversized tooth-pick," he said with no care at all, the entire class lightly laughing at Percy's response, his words visually triggering the teacher whose expression went cloudy for just a split second.

But no one noticed.

Clearing his facial expression and letting off yet another long sigh, Percy heard a hushed whisper from his side, "just say Poseidon Perce," said his only friend, Grover, who was secretly chewing on an aluminum can.

Turning around to face Grover with a pointed look, his pending words got interrupted by Mr. Brunner once more.

"Perseus! It's not a good idea to disrespect the Gods," he stated carefully, "now pay close attention to the so-called 'oversized tooth-pick' in his hand, and have a calculated guess at his name."

Seeing the entire classroom once more lay their scrutinizing gazes on him, he watched their doubting eyes as they prepared to mock him once more. Deciding to put all trust into his friend, Percy replied with confidence, "that's Poseidon, sir."

With the whole class turning frontwards to face Mr. Brunner as they waited to see if Percy was either right or wrong, they let out a cumulative sigh when Mr. Brunner beamed one of his flashy grins, the ones which are only reserved for Percy when he gets something right.

"Well done, Percy! You see, when you try, you get it right nearly first-" began the wheelchair-bound teacher before Percy chose to ignore his words, silently thanking his mother for being friends with Grover.

Checking the clock and seeing that there were only five minutes left of the lesson, he chose to control his growing anxious state by staring blindly outside the window, where he was met by a washed reflection of himself and a single dark road illuminated by flickering streetlamps that slithered into the dark forest surrounding their boarding school.

Squinting into the darkness awaiting outside, he watched as the dark clouds covered the sky like a veil, furthermore swearing he could make out winged beasts flying towards him.

Weird, he thought to himself.

Instantly playing it off as a trick of the low light and then completely forgetting about it in seconds when the final buzzer went off, he stood up to leave but got caught off guard by Mr. Brunner's stare that kept flicking from the window to him, anxious eyes clouded with uncertainty and...fear?

Percy, who decided it would be better to leave the heretic teacher and annoying classmate behind quickly as possible, grabbed his ragged school bag and weaved past his peers into the empty corridors, rushing to his room with the brown carpets muffling the sound of his flat footsteps, the strangely empty paths of the corridors showing not even a single person lazing about.

Reaching his room after a few turns, he unlocked it with the flick of a wrist and entered, throwing his bag down onto his unmade bed and proceeding to sit at his small window desk, switching on a little lamp and pulling out a notebook from the middle drawer, opening it to reveal a lone picture of his mother holding him as a baby.

This was a sort of ritual for him now.

The picture helped Percy understand why he was at this locked away boarding school in the first place.

"Percy, you're different from the rest…you're strong, and people don't like those who are stronger than them. Yancy Academy will keep you safe, and it will keep me at peace knowing that."

Those were the exact words of his mother before she left to grab the keys to their little rundown car, and just like then, those words still greatly confused him. What did she mean by strong, and keeping me safe? The only person I needed to be safe from is smelly Gabe, but even he left us a few months ago...

Letting out a deep sigh as his throat tightened at the memories, he looked up to gaze outside the window, only to let out a blood-curdling scream when a winged beast smashed into the glass, sending shards flying everywhere and grazing his skin in multiple places, causing spurts of blood to fly outwards.

Falling on his back when the black beast snarled and jumped to its feet, it began hopping on its hind legs and snapping its jaw at Percy's sprawled figure as he tried and failed to crawl away, the strength to shout leaving his body when the beast flapped its wings and leaped at his thigh, proceeding to try and bite away from a chunk of his flesh when the door flew open and an arrow impaled itself into the skull of the beast, causing it to fall dead onto Percy's chest, leaking black blood that stained his jumper.

Going stock still, the boy was too shocked to move, a gust from the broken window slamming the door shut and awakening the senses deep within Percy as he threw the dead body off himself and scrambled into a corner, snapping his head towards his savior, who was none other than Mr. Brunner wielding a bow that what was now slung over his shoulder.

Opening his mouth to speak, his mind raced with questions and his heart pounded with fear, but no coherent words left his mouth.

"I-it…window…WHAT THE FU-!?" screamed Percy only for Mr. Brunner to quickly wheel himself over and clamp his mouth shut, his eyes never leaving the body of the dead winged beast, his breath irrational as if he just ran a marathon.

Which, of course, was impossible due to his bound situation.

"It's time Perseus!" he forcefully whispered, "They came sooner than expected..." he mumbled more so to himself.

Hysterically shaking his head and removing the hand from his mouth, Percy was about to shout his confusion when loud screeches from outside filled the dark skies, followed by cringing flashes that pulsated awkwardly in the rising moonlight as the wind picked up speed and whistled into the room in foreshadowing squeals of pain.

"Go, Percy! Grab only essentials and run for the gates! I'll handle it from here," commanded Mr. Brunner with confidence when more winged beasts became visible below the clouds, now only a stone's throw away. Fiddling in his pocket, the teacher pulled out a flip phone and dialed an unknown number.

Becoming more and more confident in the fact that he finally went crazy, Percy's body worked on autopilot as he grabbed his notebook and pulled out the arrow from the dead beast's skull to use in the form of a last resort weapon, before bounding out his room and sprinting towards the stairs.

Ignoring the shouts and screams from other students that ran out of his way in pure fear at the sight of him covered in blood and holding an arrow, Percy paid them no mind and chanted a mantra.

I'm crazy, I'm crazy, what the FUCK! I'm crazy, I'm crazy...

Running on pure instinct when adrenaline hit his bloodstream full force, he managed to avoid everyone in his way, reaching the last turn before the school's front door when he suddenly slammed into a wall of flesh that emitted a goatish blabber.

Sprawling once more onto the floor in a tangle of limbs, he came face to face with a spooked Grover who jumped to his feet and shook his head in fear at the blood that managed to transfer itself onto his clean white shirt.

"Grover! You won't believe it! Beasts with wings, many of them! Flying here as we speak! And Mr. Brunner had a bow, wait why did he have a bow? And why-"

"PERCY!" screamed Grover, grabbing his friend's shoulders, "relax for gods sakes!"

"Relax? Grover, I'm crazy! You should kill me before I do somethi-"

SLAP

Stumbling backward from the force, Percy clutched his cheek but effectively shut up, his mind coming to a standstill as he watched Grover pick up the phone that dropped from his hand when they ran into each other, quickly checking the time and squinting down the road when the rumble of a car was heard approaching them at fast speeds.

Now, with the entirety of the student body and teachers gathering in the halls surrounding them, Percy watched them all ignore him and stare through the large windows of the first floor, all of them silently watching the skies as the winged beasts doubled, no, tripled, in numbers and flew towards them.

But instead of running or screaming, they began...applauding? As if this was some type of sick air show.

That's it, everyone here is batshit crazy! How could they be applauding DEATH?

Feeling the panic grow once more, Percy ran up to Grover who moved closer towards the door, sliding the phone into his pocket and squinting further down the road, the previous rumbling of a car engine now masked with the screams of the quickly approaching winged beasts.

Finally approaching his friend, Percy tried to identify what it was that Grover was searching for, and when they both caught the sight of a car's headlights speeding down the single road towards the front gate, he was for a second taken back at this car's similarity with his own family's car.

"Finally, there she is!" jittered Grover, grabbing Percy by the arm and dragging him outside into the growing thunderstorm, the 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle doing a 180-degree spin and coming to a skidding stop, the driver's side window rolling down to reveal the frantic face of his...mother?

"Hurry! We don't have a lot of time!"

Feeling his neck whip back when Grover suddenly went full sprint, he felt the whiplash effectively discard all the thoughts out of his mind for him. Such as, why was his mum here, and why the fuck his disabled friend was now running faster than a track athlete.

But, it wasn't that important he guessed.

Getting thrown into the passenger seat without a second to waste, the car jolted forwards before the doors even closed, both boys shuffling over each other to sit down and pull over their seatbelts.

"CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHAT'S GOING ON?!" screamed Percy, losing all patience of being left in the dark as a single winged beast dived kamikaze-style into the roof of their car.

"Grover, explain everything dear, I'm kind of busy over here," spoke Sally loudly, swerving past another kamikaze attempt from a diving beast, her tone relatively calm given the situation at hand.

Turning towards Grover to receive his overdue explanation, his friend visibly composed himself and gulped, flicking his eyes outside the window and then back to Percy, clearly not even having half the composure of the women driving them to gods know where.

"Listen Perce, I will only-"

Weave

SPLAT!

Crunch

"Ahem, I will only explain this once," he said as the car's tires ran over dead beasts' bodies.

Receiving a nod from his green-eyed friend, he resumed his explanation.

"Remember all of Mr. Brunner's lessons about Greek Gods and ancient Greek mythology? Well, it's all real. For example, I'm a satyr and not disabled, and you are the offspring of a god. We always existed in secret, and there is a place called Camp Half-Blood which is the home to all demigods and mythological creatures, and no mortal knows about this place because it's disguised by the mist, which stops them from seeing the true picture. There is a barrier around camp that will protect us from the monsters, and your mother knows all of this because she is a clear-sighted mortal, allowing here to see through the mist. Any questions?"

Rubbing the back of his head as the car constantly swerved to evade the winged beasts which now paused in their flight and began giving chase to the Chevrolet speeding down the roads, the roaring engine thankfully blurring out the hideous screams of the beasts pursuing them.

Digesting the given information and trying his hardest to keep an open mind, one thing definitely made sense. The monsters chasing them were real, and that meant only one of three things.

Either they were all spontaneously crazy, Grover is telling the truth about the gods, or this was all a lucid nightmare.

Just this one time, he went against his gut and trusted his friend.

"I trust you, Grover...how far until we reach this place? And mum, why did you never tell me ANY of this!?"

Grover, who had to lean closer in order to hear Percy's question over the loud ruckus surrounding them, nodded in some understanding and replied in a loud voice, "we should be several minutes away, the camp is over a large hill overlooked by a pine-"

CRASH!

Hearing a loud crashing thud when two wheels momentarily lifted off the road's surface that caused Sally to lose all control of the vehicle, successfully sent them into a barrel roll as all six windows within the car smashed to pieces and the roof caved in under the pressure, all three of them smashing their heads forwards and letting their limbs flail about in the air.

Stuck upside down, Percy unhooked his seatbelt and reeled forward in a daze, his surroundings becoming a blur as he watched dozens of beasts land on the pavement beside them, licking their lips and edging forwards at the sight of caught prey.

Just as everything went silent and the beasts reached out to hook Percy by the face, a series of twangs rang out milliseconds before silver arrows expertly impaled all offending creatures in vital points. Watching the creature that reached out for him take two arrows to the eye sockets, Percy gasped as it froze mid-step before reeling over and sprawling out like a ragdoll.

Feeling instantly sick at the sight of blood and death that rained around them, he felt himself being dragged over the shattered glass by the cut hands of his mother, the adrenaline hiding the hot pain of jagged glass digging into his skin as arrows skimmed centimetres in front of his face.

Pulled to his staggering feet, he felt a push into the direction of the forest as Grover was also getting to his feet, his mother's torn voice giving but one command.

"Run Percy! Don't stop!"

Ducking his head after his dizziness momentarily cleared, he sprinted towards the tree line as arrows cut down beasts trying to swarm him, his best friend and mother trailing close behind him when a few black beasts managed to get past the rain of arrows and their sharp talons began scratching away chunks of flesh when fresh screams filled the midnight sky.

Overcome with fear he slipped into a trance, only focusing on moving one leg after the other, ducking low-hanging branches unsuccessfully as they whipped him in the face and blood streamed over his face like a river, a thick taste of metal flooding his senses.

Minutes later, he suddenly realized that the arrows stopped flying and the screams of the beast faltered away, the three runners stopping simultaneously and pausing to breathe in heaps of air, leaning against each other in support as a large hill came into view not far away from their current standing.

"We *gasp* are nearly *gasp* there..." trailed off Grover mid-breath, lucidly pointing towards the hill before them.

Both mother and son not gathering the energy to reply to Grover's statement instead began half-limping half-jogging towards the camp when everything grew eerily quiet.

Somethings not right...it feels like a bigger cat came out to play...

Drowning the fresh uneasy feeling into the depths of his mind, he prayed to everyone he knew to reach the aforementioned barrier in one piece.

And exactly that was when the ground shook so viciously that they got thrown off their feet, large cracks sprouting in the ground surrounding them with trees falling over as black slabs began slowly rising out of the ground, gradually towering over them.

"Go around it! Straight to the border!"

Not needing to hear it twice, the three of them ran around the still-growing black infrastructure and made it halfway up the hill when the deep rumbling and earthquakes stopped, and Percy made the severe mistake of turning around and stealing a glance of what they left behind.

And what he saw scared the soul out of him, painting a picture in his mind he knew he would never forget.

What he saw was roughly a two-story building protruding from the ground with obsidian black pillars and dark pulsating walls supporting a pyramid roof that sparked with crude energy.

Then, two colossal blood-red doors quadruple the size of Percy began swinging open, followed by screams of damned souls that rang out across the entire world, a shadow slowly engulfing the lands and slithering towards them as hundreds of grotesque, pale-faced, and toothless creatures grinned at him from behind the doors, their eyes sewn shut and hair ripped out so that only their skulls showed, blood spilling out in bucket loads and drenching the grass.

Swallowing his heart, Percy turned back towards the front and physically felt the blood drain from his face as his eyes went dry.

Hearing another cycle of reverberating screams promising death give chase after them, the numerous slow padding of bare feet on grass attacked his ears as they finally neared the border and he made out the pale blue sphere that encircled the camp, dozens of armed soldiers holding tight formation waiting from within, screaming for them to run faster.

Feeling tears pour down his face meters away from the border, he leaped towards it face-first and felt Grover's body slam into his as they rolled over each other in a heap of limbs, both simultaneously looking back at what chased them only to see that his mother got thrown back by the border that was physically not letting her pass.

Watching his mother begin punching away at the border, Percy jumped to his feet and attempted to run towards her but got held back by two burly armed men that broke formation to stop him.

"WHAT!? NO! MOM! HURRY, PLEASE, PLEASE!" he wailed whilst struggling to free himself from the men's death grips, men who knew what was to come.

Seeing the eyeless beasts make way over the hill, she only said four words to her beloved son before turning to face her death straight on, her skin torn and hanging off the bones but burning defiance still dominating her features.

"I love you, Percy..."

Watching the grotesque beasts jump at his mother to tear and eat away freely from her flesh, he was forced to turn around by the men as to not watch her painful death, the sound of ripping flesh suddenly filling the sky before ending just as quickly as it started.

Then silence.

Not even a single scream was heard.

Feeling sick to his core and sensing that he forever lost a part of himself, he turned around towards the border to see nothing but a single ringed finger of his mother laying in a puddle of flesh and blood...what left of her corpse dragged back towards the protruding black building at the base of the hill.

And that was when he could take no more.

The darkness came, and he accepted it.

And there it is! The first chapter done and dusted.

This is a different start from other stories, but it was necessary to paint a picture of what's to come. Hopefully, it was an enjoyable read)

PS. I understand there would be grammatical errors, but I will aim to fix them at a later date when a few more chapters are written and posted.