Casey was packed and ready to go at soon as dawn's light shown through the windows of the Poseidon cabin. Her suitcase was sitting beside the bed. Jase's bed. It was the one right in front of the mirror. The bed was covered in sticky notes with reminders of birthdays and combat strategy and everybody's prefered type of pancake. The mirror was covered in pictures. Casey had to look away. Her head dropped to her hands and she began to cry. She didn't even stop when the cabin door opened.
Nate walked softly. He knew she'd be crying. She'd been crying since they burned Jase's shrine.
"Hey Casey, you doing ok?" he asked softly. He didn't know what he should do. Should he stay and talk? Hug her? Leave her alone? Get somebody else like her parents to help?
"Jase is dead. How do you think I'm doing?" Casey spat.
Nate knew she wasn't actually made at him, but it still hurt to hear her speak like that to him. "Want to talk about it?" He tried for a smile
"No, I don't. I want to be left alone."
"Casey," Nate's smile fell into a frown. He wanted to desperately to help, but he just didn't know how.
"Go away," Casey sobbed.
Nate swallowed and took a deep breath. He nodded and waved his hands awkwardly at his side. He took one last look at her and left the cabin. He wasn't sure how to help and he didn't want to make her feel worse by staying.
After he had gone, Casey lifted her head and stood up. She plucked one of the pictures from the frame of the mirror and brought it to her chest.
"Six months. Come back to me, Jason," she whispered. A tear slipped down her cheek and onto the photo. She knew he couldn't come back, he was dead. The room suddenly went cold. A chill went down her spine and she dropped the photo.
"I'm trying." A cracked voice filled the room around her, coming from no particular direction. It sounded like a ghost. Or a god. Her head whipped up and her eyes darted around the room, stopping at the mirror in front of her. The scene was horrendous. The ground was salted with sharp rocks and the scene was surrounded by tall jagged cliffs. There were cracks in the ground where fire could be seen bubbling beneath. But what shocked her the most was the startled figure staring back at her. His hair was long, and raggedy facial hair was nearly hidden by the giant bruise that covered the left side of his chin. Blood flowed from the multiple gashes on his body. His clothes were torn to shreds and he looked to be in so much pain that Casey didn't want to admit he looked familiar. He was curled in a tight ball in the arms of another boy, his head down but his eyes open and staring at her. The other boy didn't seem to notice, although Casey could tell he was awake.
"Who…?" Anger filled her lungs. She could practically feel the steam coming off her body. She grabbed the sword her brother had gotten her and swung it mercilessly around the room. The boy in the mirror winced and raised his hands, showing off the unnatural shape of his broken arm. Casey was spurred with aggression at this point. It had to be a trick, something created by Nyx to haunt her.
"If you're the one that took my parents, just show yourself. Fight me!" she yelled. "Because of you my brother is dead and that really pisses me off so come out and SHOW YOURSELF! Fight me, you coward!" She felt hot tears stinging her cheeks and her vision was blotched from crying, but she barely noticed.
Then the voice came again, she recognized this time that it was the boy speaking. "Nyx is coming! She's sending the Cyclops. She let you escape on purpose. It's a trap!"
Casey knew the voice. She spent only a few seconds trying to decide if she was insane, not noticing her sword drop to the floor.
"Jase?"
But then he was gone. Nothing answered her. The image in the mirror was gone, as was the terrifying scene of her older brother.
"Jase! Jase! JASON!" She kept repeating the name until it no longer sounded like a real work and it became distorted in her mouth as she sobbed and smashed her fists into the floor. It was Jason's voice, she was sure of that. It was Jase she'd seen in the mirror. The boy whose shrine she'd only just burned, whose death she had barely come around to accept.
He hadn't said anything but to warn her about Nyx. Nyx was coming, she'd tricked them. But how could that have been real? Casey knew it was possible, even probable, that something like that could happen, but Casey didn't trust her sleep deprived mind. But the image she'd seen was too realistic, too terrible, to be faked by even her brilliant mind.
So she did what any confused child would do, she ran from the cabin to find her parents. The images were still prominent in Casey's mind. She wasn't sure if it was real, but she needed to find out. It had been six months, it was time she asked her parents about the place her brother had been trapped. She cautiously tapped on the door of the big house. Chiron was having a closed door meeting with Percy and Annabeth, but they did that every day so she knew they wouldn't mind.
"Mom, Dad, can I come in?" she called.
"Of course, honey," came Annabeth's reply. They hadn't heard Casey ask for anything so nicely in months; they couldn't say no. Casey walked slowly into the room, not compiling when Percy motioned for her to sit. He frowned with concern.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Um, what does Tartarus look like?" she asked quietly. Percy and Annabeth strained closer as if they'd hoped they'd heard her wrong.
"Casey, you don't need to-,"
"Is the floor made up of sharp rocks? And are there cracks of lava in the ground and big cliffs everywhere?" she quickly added. Percy paled and stumbled backwards so he could take Annabeth's hand.
"How did you know that?"
That's when it hit Casey that what she'd seen was real. Her hand flew to her mouth to hide the sob that had already escaped her lips. Jase was alive, but he looked like he'd been tortured. He looked more dead than any corpse Casey had ever seen. But he was alive. If what she had seen was real, he wasn't dead like Nico had thought.
"Casey!" Percy ran to her side and she clung to him. "It's ok, it's not so bad," he soothed.
"He sent me a warning, I saw him," Casey cried. "He's alive, Jase is alive!"
(To clarify, the chapter where Nico felt Jase die takes place at the same time that Jase and Charlie fought Achlys, when he did technically die... I hope that didn't confuse y'all too much! Now we're back on trck so I'm going to be switching between Tartarus POV and outside POV where the timelines actually match. Thanks for reading!)
