STILL FLASHBACK

When I woke up, I was already in Tartarus; lying on the harsh desert plains filled with broken glass and abrasive rocks that I remembered tore your skin to shreds.

I don't know how I hadn't died from the fall into Tartarus; it must have been my new immortality.

I shakily stood up and gazed around my surroundings; the familiar black-sanded desert dunes rising in the distance shadowed by the towering craggy peaks of mountain ranges. Just looking upon the landscape of Tartarus began to unlock memories at the back of my mind from my previous vacation here that I had been relentlessly suppressing ever since the end of the second Gigantomachy.

The flood of images did nothing to help other than confirm the fact that I was indeed stuck in Tartarus. This time there were no Doors of Death to escape through, after I had closed them with 'her'.

'No, don't think about her or them, or what they did to you!' I thought ruthlessly, pushing down all thoughts and memories concerning my 'friends'.

One specific memory highlighted though. 'Tell the stars hello for me, will you?'

Bob and Damasen. Most likely dead. Because of me. Now that was a sobering thought. Sobering enough to bring me back to reality and what had actually befallen me.

Betrayed by all, condemned to hell, and cursed for eternity.

'And what 'wonderful' curse I have!' I thought sardonically. Forever doomed to drink monster and mortal blood. Just the though was enough to make me want to retch. And to top it all off I could never eat my mum's blue cookies any more!

My mum…..

Suddenly the magnitude of the situation crashed down on top of me, enough to physically make me fall to my knees.

My mum and Paul were dead…

Who would want to kill someone as kind-hearted as Sally? She would never heart a soul!

It wasn't hard to work out that it was obviously someone who had a grudge against me, so they took it out against my parents.

And poor Paul… he never asked for any of this…

If I ever find out who did this…

That train of thought was halted abruptly as I realised where I was condemned (again).

Oh yeah. FREAKING TARTARUS WITH A FREAKING VAMPIRE CURSE!

Speaking of vampire curse, am I now an actual vampire or am I just still a (fairly) normal demigod who had to drink blood? I traced my finger along the edge of my gums and quickly recoiled as I cut it on the sharp point of one of my new 'fangs'. Instinctively I put my finger in my mouth and sucked on the offending appendage.

Suddenly, undeniable pleasure rushed through me as I tasted the blood from my cut. A primal desire, no, NEED, for more rushed through me and I couldn't help but try and draw as much blood as possible from the tiny cut on my pointer digit.

Part of my brain (sadly not a large part) realised with revulsion that I was actually drinking my OWN BLOOD. With a seemingly titanic effort, I withdraw my finger from my mouth, mostly against my will; 'but it tastes SOOO good!' my inner voice protested.

'Not happening,' I thought 'no matter what happens, I'm not going to drink my own blood. That's like a step worse than cannibalism.' I realised that last thought with a shudder, as I may well (hopefully not) be drinking the blood from other people in the future. 'I will cross that bridge when I need to,' I countered to myself 'at the moment there are plenty of monsters available in Tartarus instead.'

That future might not be too far away, as when I was kidnapped by the 'benevolent Olympians' it had been a couple of hours after lunch and before dinner. I already feeling a bit peckish before, but after getting a taste of my own (shudder) blood, I felt positively (more like negatively) ravenous. There was also a parched burning feeling at the back of my throat signalling my thirst.

I was not idiotic (as some people are lead to believe), I listened to Lightning-Fried perfectly well, and I knew that I could only help my hunger and thirst by feeding… on monsters, as mortals were sort of unavailable and I wouldn't kill any innocents if they were. Just the thought alone of drinking monster blood was enough to make me want to retch; if monsters smelt and looked that bad on the outside, imagine how feral they taste on the inside. Unknowingly I would get proved wrong.

'Do monsters even have blood?' the ADHD part of my mind questioned. 'Of course they do,' I retorted 'Do you (I) think that monsters are filled with dust?'

I wondered if I was already going insane from Tartarus; I'd already had like 3 conversations with myself in the space of about 5 minutes. Not a good sign.

Remembering my bleeding finger, I inspected the not-so-small-anymore cut I got from my new fangs. A small amount of golden ichor swelled up from the apparently still-bleeding cut, assaulting my senses with a smell 10 times better than Ambrosia and Nectar. The burning at the back of my throat increased significantly and saliva filled my mouth as I imagined the taste of the life-giving liquid as it slid down the back of my…

'NO! STOP IT!' I shouted at myself internally (again). I quickly wrapped my finger in already-slightly-torn shirt (from the fall) so the temptation (of sight at least) wouldn't be there; I could still smell my ichor though just not as bad.

Ichor? Oh yeah, I'm immortal now. This fact didn't help with my mood in any way as the thought of being condemned for eternity as a vampire doesn't exactly brighten up your day… or eternal night if your currently stuck in Tartarus.

My hunger wasn't that bad…yet, but the burning at the back of my throat was giving off a dull throb like some sort of headache in my throat, and the smell from my cut wasn't helping at all.

I needed to find some monsters and see how bad monster blood really was, which shouldn't be too hard in Tartarus. I gazed around my immediate surroundings again. Not a monster in sight. Usually, that would be good news, but now it just meant I had to look for monsters for once.

'Better get started on my 'hunting trip,' I sighed, and started walking.

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A/N SOOOO sorry that this took so long to write. After the first chapter, my family and I had to move out of house for about 2 months due to building problems, then school assignments happened. And I also finally read and watched Harry Potter, then read lots of fanfiction.

HINT: REVIEWS HELP ME WRITE FASTER! :D