Hi all: I posted this here quite a while ago (2020). I was bored. I had no interest in continuing. Reading it back now, it's remarkable how confident the first three chapters are. They have flaws, but I'll leave them up. (Red Scare makes me cringe quite a bit now but i like TTOA okay).

But I'm back. Using a plan I wrote in May of 2021 (a full year ago lol). I will have chapters for you every other week now (I'm thinking four or five more total). Enjoy.

The first thing I see is her. It's always her.

How long has it been?

How long has it been, really?

Shining as bright as a dawn star, the light glinting off of her hair. God, that hair. Like a magic trick, that hair. When the light hits it, it looks like it's on fire. It looks like she's on fire. Beauty burning.

It all happens so slowly, the fall through the mist, that I see it come into existence piece by piece.

A leg, an arm, an eye, in midair. Its other arm swipes above my head, as it comes into existence, then a torso, grey and mottled, and then, I see the whole thing. It's a gargoyle. A fucking enormous, seven foot tall gargoyle. And it's moving.

It screeches, and I hit the ground.

She moves forward, brandishing a… a dagger, apparently. "Back the fuck off!" she screams. "Get away!"

The tour group has moved away by now. They can't see it. Not like I can. And I can , now, somehow, I can see things. I… I guess I believe her. There's no other explanation.

We're alone on the roof. Me, Annabeth, and the gargoyle. She never struck me as a fighter, but she's handling that dagger so confidently. She's poised, in a defensive stance, and calm. She's so calm.

It's funny, that in this moment, all I can think about, despite the gargoyle, despite the earth-shattering revelations, despite the fucking greek gods, despite it all, is how much I want her. Like it's a natural form of being for me. Like it's innate, past pure desire or love or, yeah, lust, whatever: a pattern I can fall into, but a powerful one. One which feels as purely mine as it feels too much too soon to be mine.

Our minds don't react to revelations in normal ways, I suppose: a way of coping. We compartmentalize. I don't live in that mythological compartment. And when I'm faced with it, I focus on another. Her. I focus on her.

The gargoyle screeches in response to her challenge, and swipes at her, an enormous, grey stone arm reaching down and taking a chunk out of the rooftop. She runs, rolling out of the way so fast I don't even see her move. Just as fast, she moves to the gargoyle's torso before he can even react to the dodged blow and slices at him with her dagger, getting a couple good cuts in. They bleed yellow sand. I don't know why, but that's the most surreal thing here.

Another swipe, closer to her. The gargoyle leaps up from her, vaulting a good 20 feet in the air, and as it starts to come down, Annabeth puts her cap on and disappears. By the time it lands, I'm the only thing left on the rooftop. It sniffs the air, looking for a hint of Annabeth, but finds nothing. It roars, loudly, in frustration, and then sniffs again. Again.

And then, subtly, but unmistakably, it turns its head to me. Nostrils flare. It raises itself up on its stony haunches, roaring, and I scramble backwards. I see it look in my direction. I run at full pelt, my years of track paying off, maybe, but I know I can't beat it.

My feet ring on the cobblestone roof in sync with my heartbeat. Step. Beat. Step. Beat. Step. Beat. Stepbeat. Stepbeat stepbeat stepbeatstepstebeatstbeat.

I glance behind me for a millisecond. It's gaining on me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Why now? Why now?

I leap over a bench, and it's quickly demolished behind me. I can almost feel the monster's hot breath on the back of my neck. I close my eyes and throw myself to the side, praying to whatever gods she said were real, again, that it won't just come right back, that this won't be the end to this strange dream of an adventure, to all these new things I just learned.

And then, like an angel, come to save me.

"UGLY!"

She's behind me, she's behind it. Her cap is off. She stands, warrior's stance, hair levitating around her in the breeze. "You want someone?!" she shouts. "Take me!"

It rushes towards her like a bull towards a cape. She doesn't move. Just stands still as the charge continues. It reaches her, and right before it can lower its head to bite her she pulls out her dagger and lets the gargoyle's own momentum do her job. It buries itself on the blade, stopped just short of her by the handle.

It seems confused, for a moment, snapping around at the air, but the wound is large, and after a couple of seconds, the entire gargoyle collapses into a pile of yellow sand. Annabeth turns, worry in her grey eyes, and starts to run to me. They're so grey, even from so far away.

And there's something I realize here. The transition never happened.

I never started loving her.

I never started loving her.

I fell into it.

Like a repeating pattern.

Like the second I fell into her radius, the feeling just erupted. Like it had been there my entire life, just waiting to be activated.

It had felt like mere attraction— it had felt like evolved infatuation— it had felt like love, even, but…

But…

I am so frozen in my position: so transfixed by her, so transfixed by relief, by surprise, by shock, by terror, by love, by revelation and the melancholy that accompanies revelation that I don't hear the second gargoyle land behind me. And I don't feel its claw go through my chest.

….

The second thing I see is my dad. He's up late in his study, reading over lines, acting things out. "I'm going" he says… "to kill them all, sir"

He sounds commanding, and regal, but more than anything, he sounds cool. Do you know what a mindfuck it is for your dad to be cool?

After a couple of seconds, he notices me standing in the doorway. "Hey Pipes. What's up?"

It's dark, and he's only got the lamp on in his study, so I'm in the shadows. He can't see the tears streaking down my cheeks.

"Pipes?"

I swallow, grit my teeth, and step into the light. Mascara drips down my face like Tammy Faye, my body tired, my mind moreso.

He's a good dad. He's so good . So he just hugs me and doesn't ask any questions, and tells me everything will be fine, though he doesn't know that, though…

"What happened?"

After the hug… though… less good.

"Meg… was… not who I thought she was" is all I manage to get out before, despite myself, I feel myself start to well up again.

He gives me another big, big, big hug. That's something about my Dad- he's physically warmer than everything else. Just a big space heater.

"And what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't know." I say. Because I don't. "I worry… we tied ourselves to one another so closely. This whole place feels like hers."

"The house?" he asks.

"No. Los Angeles. The smoggy skies, the traffic, the cars, the eternal suburb… even the damn movies. It feels like it became ours when we were together… and now that it's over it's become hers."

"So?" he says.

"I want to leave. I want to get out. I just- I know we can't go back to Grandpa Tom's family, we can't go back to Oklahoma, and I don't want to go back to Oklahoma, either, I- I just want to leave. I want to leave."

He looks at me with the most striking empathy I think I've ever seen on his face, and he starts to tear up, too. "Pipes, when your mother left, that was a lot of how I felt. It felt like she was the heart of this city, like I was a visitor and she ruled the place. But I had to stay here, I had to make money, and I had to raise you."

He takes out his wallet and flips through the cards, handing one to me. "But I worked as hard as I could so you don't have the same burdens I do. Go wherever. Do whatever. Vegas, Dubai, Monaco: it doesn't matter to me. Live. And come back when you feel like you can make this city yours again."

Unbidden tears start to drip down my face, and I run into my dad's arms and give him a hug bigger and tighter as I sob. Because he loves me so much. Because he understands me. Because he lets me know that wherever I go, whatever happens to me, he'll love me. Forever.

Forever.

I forgot about forever.

Is that when it started?

Is this when it starts?

I hear her voice- bright and clear, still, somehow, sorrow filling her throat, starting to sob.

"Not again. Not again."

And then all I see is nothing. Nothing at all.

Is this when it stops?

new chapter soon! Tell me what you think and I'll be more motivated to write! peace/love/etc. -hs.