Hell Isn't That Far Away
As soon as the pearls touch my skin, I feel a jolt of pain vibrate down my spine and every bone in my body. It was like being struck by lightning while thousands of knives stabbed me.
I gasped and rolled off of her.
The room was swirling in patterns at a dizzying rate. Even though I had released the pearls, the searing pain still had me in its grasp, not loosening its hold on me.
Visions dance across my eyes like a slide show.
Percy, with wings sprouting out his back, blood dripping off of the white feathers, staining the barren ground beneath him. Chiron, with an arrow through his heart, rearing in pain, his face contorted in a gruesome scream. Camp Half-Blood, burning to the ground, black figures flinging themselves out of the flames, only to be engulfed again. Kronos's hand on Percy's shoulder, looking over a dark, violent world, Percy's face dark and sadistic.
As the scenes flash before my eyes, I hear screaming. Dimly, I'm aware that it's me.
I can't tell time, or understand my surroundings. In my mind, I'm back in time, when I first saw Percy.
Arms wrap around me,
and I thrash and scream, trying to get out of the Titan's grip.
Kronos grins horribly down at me, and I hear his frightening voice,
saying, "Shhhhh, Annabeth, it's just me."
His face melts
away to reveal Percy's face. Slowly, I stop screaming and writhing,
and reach out and touch his face. It's unusually soft. "I love
you, Percy."
Spasms of pain surge through me, and I hear the screaming again, like a knife against chalkboard.
Black gradually consumes my mind, sending me into a place overflowing with horrible nightmares of a hellish place.