CHAPTER TWO: REST.
Pain.
Imagine the Fields of Punishment, the epitome of your worst nightmares, come true. Imagine millions of needles piercing through your skin simultaneously while you were dipped in boiling lava, all the while flaming metal plates were being attached to your skin. Multiply that pain by a hundred and it still wasn't close enough to the pain Luke felt.
As if the physical pain wasn't enough punishment for him, he was blinded as well. Not the kind of blindness that he couldn't see anything, how he wished he couldn't see anything. He was blinded by hundreds of thousands of faces. The last look in their eyes before they fell in battle, the people who loved them and how it was he who caused their lives to end on such short notice. Luke saw his poor mother and how he understood now on why she acted so deliriously. How he wished he had understood sooner.
Remorse.
The faces of his friends that he had hurt so badly. Thalia, how he betrayed her in every literal sense of the word. Annabeth, how he broke his promise to the one girl he may have even loved, the one girl who never lost faith in him, how he mercilessly gave her the weight of the sky and very nearly killed her on more than one occasion. Hermes, his father, how he openly expressed sheer hatred for his father and nearly destroyed the world just because of it. He had hurt, destroyed so many people.
He didn't use to be evil. He didn't use to be bitter. He was a nice guy, people actually liked him. When he was very young, he didn't have many friends because he was... well... different and so was his mother and so was his home. People made fun of him back then but that all changed when he ran away and met Thalia, someone who could see what he could see and understood what it was like. He was happy, as happy as a runaway kid could be. Then he met Annabeth and then he really started to feel like he was part of a family. Things were so simple. They moved around from place to place, battling monsters and answering to no one. Then they lost Thalia for a time and he knew he was to blame. The meeting with Hermes didn't leave Luke in kind spirits.
Everything got a little better when he and Annabeth got to camp. They made new friends and learned that they actually had siblings. They trained and ate and were happy for a time. Then he got the quest from his father to steal the golden apples at the Garden of the Hesperides, where he earned his scar. After a quiet little celebration, that was it? Luke wanted a greater glory and his mind swirled with visions of it when Kronos started speaking to him. He shouldn't have listened.
He turned spiteful. Vengeful. Arrogant. Merciless. Everything he never wanted to be.
He thrashed around as he lied down on what felt like a soft bed, though he didn't have the brain capacity to wonder why and how he got there. All he knew was that the physical pain wasn't going away and his mind was being driven insane by all the visions in his head. He knew he was screaming and he knew he was walloping around, even if it hurt him to move even by the slightest bit. There was someone else there, someone he didn't know, trying to calm him down but he just couldn't see or feel anything or anyone.
He did that for what seemed like forever, a few hours, a few days maybe? Was this what the judges meant? Ten days of suffering then he'll be reborn? If he thought logically, that was a small price to pay. He couldn't imagine this kind of torture for the rest of eternity, or even another second of it. Every second of the torment, he felt like he was going to go insane at one point or another. Any second now, he knew he was going to lose his sanity.
He wasn't capable of reasonable thinking, he wasn't able to decipher on how long it has been, all he knew was that he wanted it to stop.
Slowly, very slowly, the pain was starting to go away. He was starting to calm down. Little by little, he was starting to feel again. He was starting to regain control of his fingers, the visions were starting to dim down and could actually see the light. The person caring for him noticed this and took the initiative to make the best of it.
He couldn't make her out exactly, but he could hear her calm, soothing words as she gently fed him some kind of liquid that tasted like chocolate, only better. Nectar. The pain was starting to dim down and he could breathe again, as the girl fed him. His eyelids fluttered, trying to see where he was and who was looking after him, but he felt two gentle fingers close his eyes.
"Shh, no. Rest. You are safe here," said the girl. And so he did. The pain and the visions melted out of his system enough that he was actually able to sleep. A dreamless sleep, he hasn't had a peaceful rest in years, it seemed so surreal.
He didn't know how long he was asleep and he didn't really care. He woke up with an aftershock of the pain from before. His body was sore all over, but at least he could move. His skin was pinkish, like what it looked like after he had been burned and he knew all too well what that felt like. He sat up, marveled at the fact that he could do that and rubbed his eyes.
He was in a room of which he did not know. He was dressed in white: a white cotton shirt and white drawstring pants. He was lying on a bed of white linen and a sword was hanging on the side of the headboard. He held the hilt of it and examined it. It was the sword he used to use before Backbiter, before he went over. Celestrial bronze. Well balanced. He didn't stop to ask why it was there in the first place, he just knew he needed to find out where he was.
The room was a kind of cave and he had been in a lot of caves, this one was particularly... nice. White, purple and green crystals decorated the ceilings. The walls were separated by white silk curtains. There was a large harp on one side of the room and a fireplace was built into the cave wall while a large pot hovered above it and it carried the smell of beef stew all over. Against another wall was a shelf of dried fruit preserves while herbs dangled from the ceilings. It was a peaceful little place and so with that, Luke got defensive.
He had lived in his world long enough to know that the nicest of places are often the kind of places you would get killed. His bare feet touched the freezing cold floor, it was freezing cold to his bare skin at least. He turned and found a polished bronze mirror and his eyes widened at what he saw.
His eyes were bloodshot, as though he had been crying, which wasn't all that surprising. His skin was pinkish all over but other than that, he looked rather fine for someone who was just tortured for what seemed like days. He found himself staring at his own reflection, not admiringly, but curiously. His own blue eyes stared back at him and he realized that that was the first time he had seen himself as himself in a very long time.
He took a few steps forward as practice. It was difficult, seeing that he was very weak, sore and tired, but he managed. With his sword still in his hand, we walked out of the cave. Outside was a green meadow. The daylight was shining over the greenery and it looked like a lonely paradise. On the left, stood a few cedar trees and on the right was a large beautiful flower garden where there were four stone satyrs with water shooting out of their stone pipes. Straight ahead, the greenery led to a small rocky beach, the water gently touched over the stones.
The only other person on the island was a girl, tending to her garden. Even from a short distance and with slightly blurry vision, Luke could tell that she was beautiful. She had soft caramel colored hair which was braided to the side. She looked like she was around sixteen? He couldn't tell, she just looked... timeless. She wore a white Greek dress as she worked and didn't seem to notice him. He didn't know who she was and as far as he knew, almost all the unknown beautiful girls in the world killed men. He gripped his sword harder.
He walked silently toward her and she was still tending to her garden, humming and it seemed like the flowers swayed along with her tone. It was a little hard to believe that the girl was anything but good but he had seen too many beautiful girls seem like what they're supposed to seem to know better. He got closer and closer, every step causing the muscles in his legs pain but his stealth was broken when he lost his balance a little, slipped and groaned at the pain. She turned and he raised his sword as a force of habit.
The blade had severed a few ends of her hair as she turned but she didn't seem to mind. It was that or she didn't notice. Her eyes widened at the blade and then looked at him sympathetically, not uttering a single word. She was stunning. From her almond eyes to her soft lips, she embodied beauty... and that frightened him even more, but he didn't dare show it. His eyes were blazing and he looked deep into her eyes, the blade of the sword only centimeters from her throat.
"Who are you? Where am I? What am I doing here?" he demanded.
Without fear or hesitation, the girl raised her hand and used two fingers to brush the blade aside. She looked kindly into his eyes, as though she was trying to convince him that there was nothing to scared of.
"There is no need for this," she said, as she gently pushed the sword aside. "I am not your enemy, Brave One. No one will hurt you here. I am Calypso."
He tried to remember who she was because he was certain he had heard of her before only he couldn't quite remember it. "You're Atlas's daughter?"
She nodded. "Yes. As to where you are, you are in my island. Ogygia. As to what you are doing here, I do not have the slightest idea. You fell from the sky and landed on my shores."
She pointed at the rocky beach and as he turned his head, he fell on his knees. She took the sword from his hands and for a moment, he thought she was going to do what he almost did. But instead, she put it aside and took his arm and put it over her shoulders and helped him get up. She practically carried him back to the cave, she was very gentle. She apologized every few seconds, out of fear that he may be in pain or something of that sort. She whispered soothing, encouraging words and soon after, he felt himself lying on the bed again. Something cold, what felt like a moist towelette, was damped on his head and nectar dribbled on his lips.
Her fingers brushed through his hair as she closed his eyes and whispered.
"Rest. You have been through much."
A/N. TOMU STFU HE IS NOT A VAMPIRE. XD This is still considered as the beginning so it's still choppy. Hope you like it! :)