Collapsing in on Itself Like a Dying Star

Camp Jupiter: War Games

Nyssa

Prompt: "XXX? Do you….do you have to move?"

Words: 500

Hey! So this is a collection of prompts for a writing forum I started with my friend Ellie, and her friend Cubs, on FF! It's called Camp Jupiter: War Games, the link is on the profile of ThatGirlWithaCat, and here it is. This set of prompts is called: Alternate Universe Mortal Friendships. For those of you who know my actual story, Mortal Friendships, no, this is not about that. …Ellie needs a better title.

Collapsing in on Itself Like a Dying Star

The morning was bright and sunny, yes, and someone once told to Percy that it was the greatest mornings that held the most sorrow, and on this morning, it was true. It was true on the bright and sunny morning on that TV show Friends that his mother liked to watch, where, on the morning of a funeral, it was most beautiful, and yet even the beautiful rays of sunshine couldn't chase away the sorrowful mood.

For Percy, this sunny morning didn't start out with a bad mood, because it wasn't that his grandmother had died, even though, yes, his grandmother had died. No, his sunny morning started out great. Amazing, even. His best friend, Annabeth Chase, was coming over, his mother and Paul were out of the house, and they'd have another fun Sunday all alone in his apartment and everything was going to go pretty well. So when Annabeth knocks on the door, Percy thinks everything is going to be alright, great even, and so the look on Annabeth's face barely serves to dim his mood.

"Hi, Beth," he greets her. "What's with the long face?" Annabeth blinks at him, his face seeming to only just register to her, before she speaks, and it's terrible how much two words can do to a guy.

"I'm leaving."

And Percy's world collapses in on itself like a dying star.

In retrospect, it shouldn't be so hard to process. While not in the immediate future, one day, in five or six years, he and Annabeth are going to go off to college, and Percy will probably be stuck at NYU or a community college while Annabeth achieves all her dreams at Stanford, or Cornell. But it wasn't supposed to be so sudden, it wasn't supposed to be happening so fast, so out of his control. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, but it did, and now Percy isn't sure what he is to do next, after she said it.

So he opens his arms and Annabeth goes in for the hug and they sit on the couch, silently. He thinks Annabeth might be crying but doesn't want to peek, he knows she wouldn't appreciate it. But he has to ask her, so he does.

"Annabeth? Do you….do you have to move?" And the word that makes his world go from collapsing to imploding arrives.

"Yes."