ii.
europe, 1359
…it is with a heavy heart and the utmost regret that I inform you our dear friend Thalia passed on. The mortality consumed every bit of life from her, to the point where she became unrecognizable. She is in a better place, Annabeth…
Annabeth cannot bear to read any more of it. Luke's condolences may be her demise. Is it possible to die of a broken heart?
She sinks to the floor, head in her hands, the letter fluttering from her fingers. Sobs wrack her body. This must be confirmation she is destined to walk alone.
How much longer does she have until the Black Death takes Luke's life?
How much longer until it finally, blessedly, claims hers?
For what may be minutes or may be days, Annabeth weeps. She weeps for her father, who plague took from her first, nearly a year ago now. She weeps for her brother, filled with life until his final breath. She weeps for her friends, who all perished at the hands of the Black Death within weeks of each other. And she weeps for Thalia, her dearest friend, now taken from her.
It is an injustice that Annabeth should feel such profound loss at her age. She is still in her youth, yet she is an old woman, hardened and marred by pain. Her misery is not a feeling but a presence, looming over at all times, filling every bit of space in her home, taunting her when she is awake, producing nightmarish hellscapes when she is asleep.
After quite some time, Annabeth forces herself to carry on. She cooks herself a meager meal that leaves her insides aching with hunger after she's eaten every morsel. She puts on her kirtle and cyclas, laces her boots, and braids her hair. She cleans her dwelling. Its size was once suitable for her family, but now it is much too large to house solely her. The only slight brightness is she doesn't have to pay tax on it, as the collector passed away some time ago.
Annabeth has no desire to, but she knows she needs to find food. Allowing starvation to be her demise seems like cheating, painless in comparison to the suffering everyone else had to endure. With this in mind, she leaves home the morning after receiving Luke's letter. Perhaps she'll find some stale bread in the bakery. The baker perished two weeks ago, which is unfortunate because he delivered fresh bread to all the living townspeople every day out of the kindness in his heart. That bread staved off hunger for months.
It isn't just the tax collector and the baker; the majority of the town has died off. The once-bustling streets are empty, save for the bodies. There aren't enough people alive to bury them, so the lifeless forms lie in the middle of walkways, crumpled against the sides of buildings, hastily stacked outside the doctor's. As she walks to the bakery, Annabeth has to step around the corpses blocking her path. She avoids looking at bodies, as they are a sickening sight, skin covered in black boils still oozing pus.
Annabeth cringes at the sight of a young child resting outside the grocer's, still alive, but barely. He sits in a pool of his own vomit and excreta, deathly pale, eyelids fluttering. His mother, father, and family must already be gone. The thought of the poor boy spending his last moments of anguish alone makes Annabeth's heart constrict.
Does the same fate await her?
She won't indulge in these thoughts any longer. She's nearing the bakery.
The inside of the bakery still smells like fresh-baked pastries, but it's cold, lacking the usual warmth from the giant ovens in the back. The shelves are still partially stocked with loaves of bread. Annabeth pulls one off the shelf, then another, then another. Perhaps she's being greedy, but how can one be greedy in these circumstances?
She breaks a chunk off one of the loaves of bread and devours it. It's terribly stale but quite flavorful.
Annabeth's halfway through the loaf when she hears a loud crash from behind the shopfront. Her senses go on high-alert. Looters? Convicts? Or worse?
She crouches behind a tall barrel of flour, clutching the bread to her chest. Clomping footsteps draw closer and closer, and then the door opens with a creak.
It's a man about her age, eighteen. She doesn't recognize him. She surely would remember a person as handsome as he. Raven hair, green eyes, facial structure like a statue.
"Not those damn looters again." He mutters, bending down to stare at the footprints her boots left in the fine layer of flour scattered on the ground.
He traces these footprints directly to her.
What a fool she was. She should have thought of the flour.
The young man peers down at her and the bread in her arms. "You didn't have to steal it."
She looks up, ridden with guilt.
"The bread." he elaborates, mistaking her expression for confusion. "I would've given you some."
"I'm sorry. Who are you?" Annabeth asks, crawling out from behind the barrel.
"Jackson. Perseus. I worked for the baker."
"Oh, christ...I'm terribly sorry for your loss. The baker was a kind man."
The man, Jackson, looks at his boots. "He was."
"The mortality's going to get us all, in time." Annabeth says, backing away from him instinctively. Best to steer clear of everyone these days.
"Isn't that right." Annabeth drags the toe of her boot on the floor, tracing lines in the flour. "It's dreadful. I feel as if I'm just waiting for my time to come."
Jackson sighs. "I often feel that way as well."
"I suppose you've lost everyone you care for to it as well, haven't you?"
"Unfortunately."
They stand there in silence for a long moment, until Jackson clears his throat. "Do you want to go upstairs? I'll find something to drink with that bread."
Annabeth considers his offer. If catching the plague is inevitable, she may as well spend her dwindling days in the company of another. That prospect is certainly more appealing than the alternative: isolation.
"Alright."
She follows him up the squeaking back staircase. The derelict living quarters above the bakery are cramped and tight, with low ceilings and floorboards that groan underfoot. A threadbare quilt is spread over the bed. Annabeth unceremoniously drops the bread onto the scratched tabletop and sits down on one of the rickety chairs.
Jackson pours a mug of ale for her, then one for himself. Annabeth takes a drink from her mug as she fumbles for something polite to say, grimacing at the ale's bitter taste.
She settles on, "This is a...lovely dwelling you have."
Jackson chortles. "It's not much, but it's better to live here than live on the streets."
"Tell me about your family." Annabeth says, taking another sip from her mug.
"There is not much to tell. Father went when I was an infant, so Mother is–was–all I really had. She worked as a seamstress. Married a man by name of Gabe Ugliano. He was scum and deserved to perish. Eventually he received his miserable death. Mother held out longer, but the mortality claimed her too, in the end."
Annabeth touches his hand with her gloved one. "That's wretched. My mother left me as well. I was young. I can't say I remember much of her. And Father was a merchant. We came to this town last spring, Father, my brother, and I. Father and Malcolm didn't live to see this spring."
Annabeth feels numb thinking of it now. She's adapted to the pain by feeling apathy. She supposes she has to. It's the only way to sew up the wounds.
"Would you like something to eat? Other than hard bread?"
"If you can spare me anything."
Jackson walks over to the chest beside his bed and opens it. "I have beans and cabbage, and a bit of sausage. Would that be alright?"
"That would be fine. Thank you."
"Of course."
He starts a fire in the hearth with a bit of flint, then returns to the table.
Neither of them speak. Jackson squints appraisingly at her as she drinks the remainder of her ale.
"You seem oddly familiar," he says at last. "Are you certain we have never met before?"
"I don't believe so. Not in this life."
They both fall silent again. The only sounds are the crackling embers of the fire and the wind shattering against the exterior walls.
"We should leave this town."
Annabeth isn't sure where these words come from. Perhaps some source deep inside of her. They spill out before she properly considers them.
"Where would we go?"
She likes how Jackson doesn't question the proposition, just the logistics.
Though she did not think about it beforehand, Annabeth immediately finds she has an answer. "Anywhere. Everywhere. We'll see the world."
"Why?"
"Why shouldn't we? We're going to die. For all we know, we already contracted the Black Death. I'd much rather die on a grand adventure than all alone in this miserable place."
"I quite like that idea."
He stands again and places the beans in the iron cauldron. Annabeth watches him stir the beans, add the sausage, then the cabbage. His shoulders are broad and his arms are strong.
Is this what life would be like if they weren't trapped in this reality? Preparing meals for each other, spending time together, sharing the most mundane of details?
Since she's been around Jackson, her misery has diminished. It's like he dispels Misery's presence just by being in the vicinity of her. Though he's nearly a complete stranger, she would spend the rest of her life–however much of it she has left–with him.
Jackson places a plate of food before her. They make affable conversation, planning their travels, discussing mutual acquaintances. Annabeth smiles more than she has in a long, long while. There's an ease in talking to him, an ease she's never felt before with a person she doesn't know intimately.
Once the both of them have cleared their plates, Jackson rises. The planes of his face are especially well-defined in the orange glow of the firelight.
"Care for a match of chess?"
"Challenging me to a chess match is an error on your part. I never lose."
"You must have never played a worthy opponent. That will all change tonight."
"We shall see."
Jackson draws a battered chess set from the chest beside the bed. While Annabeth arranges the pieces on the board, Jackson lights a candle.
The game commences. Jackson is a perfectly acceptable chess player, competent, but nothing extraordinary. He lacks the foresight to predict how she will counter his moves. Annabeth's strategic mind makes her uniquely skilled at the game, so after some time, she cries out, "Checkmate!"
Jackson scowls at the board. "That last move of the bishop was all luck."
Annabeth grins at him. "Simple for you to say when one of us is the victor and the other is not."
"You have such a maniacal glint in your eye. Gloating does not suit you, miss."
"My name is Annabeth."
"Well, then, you have a lovely name, Annabeth."
She brushes a strand of hair which escaped her plait behind her ear. "Thank you. Yours is quite wonderful as well. Perseus. Is it from Greek mythology?" He nods.
"My mother chose it for me because Perseus was one of the few heroes whose story didn't end miserably."
His eyes look beautiful in the candlelight. Dizzyingly, incredibly green.
"Annabeth is an unusual name." Annabeth says. "I often believe my mother and father couldn't decide between Annabelle and Elizabeth, so they named me both."
Jackson smiles. "An unusual name for an unusually beautiful woman."
"You are terribly handsome yourself."
"Why, thank you."
Now they both are smiling. Annabeth begins to put the chess pieces back into their wooden box.
"We ought to begin our travels in the morning." Jackson says. "Time is of the essence."
"How much of it do you think we have left?" Annabeth cannot help herself from thinking like this, though she wishes she doesn't.
Jackson ponders this for a moment, then says, "I do not know. It doesn't do to dwell on things of that sort."
"I would like to kiss you." Annabeth says, impulsively. "Not now, but soon. I feel as though I've known you for ages. It may sound odd, but I'm falling in love with you."
"I feel the same way." He moves closer to her, takes her hand, and gently removes her glove. He laces his fingers through hers, and there they sit, on the grimy carpet, in a momentary state of bliss while a disease rages around them. For while Perseus Jackson is holding her hand, she forgets her loss and her misery and her pain.
But good things cannot last forever.
Jackson's elbow bumps the candle.
"Oh, god, no, no, no, no…" He lunges to right the candle, but the action is in vain. The fire spreads across the carpet, the fibers only serving to fuel it. Then the bed bursts into flame, sending embers bursting into the air. Annabeth's never seen such a large fire before, never one so unwieldy, so out of control.
The inferno devours the nightable and the chest with a ravenous appetite. Annabeth backs against the wall as the blaze grows in size.
"ANNABETH! RUN!" Jackson screams.
Annabeth has turned to stone, unmoving, too shocked to flee. Jackson latches onto her wrist, his nails digging into her skin.
"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!"
Annabeth stares, transfixed, at the fire. The flames dance, twisting and curling, turning the walls to ash, destroying everything in their path. Hauntingly beautiful.
Jackson grips Annabeth's shoulders and shakes her forcefully. "Annabeth, please!" His whole body is drenched in moisture. The temperature is rising rapidly.
Misery comes creeping in, filling Annabeth's lungs with tar, bringing her to her knees. Her face is wet with tears and perspiration. "We're dying."
"Annabeth, no–"
The flames race across the floorboards.
"We will die. We can't escape."
"Don't say that–"
Annabeth feels unbearable, wicked, hellish heat envelope her body, and then she feels nothing at all.