Chapter Twelve: How Much Longer
Percy POV
I swear, I was turning paranoid. I decided that if I had to spend one more freaking day in that blank white world, I would just… kill myself.
Except that it was a blank white world. There was no way you could kill yourself.
"Aarrggh!" I groaned. After about a week in the white world, I really couldn't take it anymore. I began to run. I didn't care that it was pointless, I just badly wanted to find a way out.
Of course, it didn't work.
I was about to scream in frustration when I saw a shower of flower petals, and a girl with red eyes and an updo appeared. Her fangs were contracted that day.
"Hey, Kana," I said.
"What's with the long face?" she asked.
"This stupid world is driving me crazy," I sighed.
She stifled a giggle. "Seriously? It's only been a week, you know. I've lived in here forever."
"Huh? What do you mean? I thought you lived in Annabeth's diary," I said.
"I do," she said. "You see, this is Annabeth's diary. Or, at least, it's the inner soul of Annabeth's diary." She waved her hand, and suddenly the white world was filled with words. My jaw dropped open.
"This here—" she indicated a large tower of words standing near us— "is her latest entry, which she wrote a couple of days ago."
I struggled to read it, due to the fact that inside the soul of the diary, all the letters were huge…
Annabeth's Diary—Currently
Percy is gone. I don't know where, but all I know is that he left.
The only clue I have is three words he wrote to me.
"I'm sorry, Annabeth."
What do they mean? Do they speak of what's happening right now?
I'm so confused. It feels like everything's going against me right now. I'm still on the run. I know for a fact that the possessed demigods are still after me.
At least I get to have more food when I don't have to share it with Percy.
But I don't have a single clue on how I'll ever survive when he's not there.
-Annabeth.
"Wait…" I thought of a really interesting idea. "So, if this is the soul of Annabeth's diary, then if I write something here, it will show up on the diary and Annabeth can see it?"
"… yeah, I guess you could do that," Kana said thoughtfully.
"… oh crap. I don't have a pen. I think I dropped Riptide when I was kidnapped," I sighed. "Now how am I going to contact her?"
"Follow me," Kana said simply. She started to run. I followed her. We ran past many different towers of words. "Those are all entries," Kana said. She finally stopped. We were standing right in front of a tower.
"This entry has the word 'pen' in it," Kana said, "but it's way up there." She pointed to some place near the top of the tower. "Do you think you can go get it?"
"Okay…" I said.
I climbed up the tower. As I was climbing, I read the entry:
Diary, today I was just calmly resting at the beach shore with Percy and my other friends. Ah. It was kind of peaceful.
Until, of course, that giant monster had to screw up our vacation.
It's a good thing that Percy had Riptide with him. You know Riptide, right? His sword that can turn into a pen?
I finally reached the word "pen" and grabbed it. When it touched my hand, it turned into a real pen.
"Whoa," I said.
Then I tried to figure out how to get back down.
I could see no real way to do it, so I just closed my eyes and jumped.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" I exclaimed.
Or maybe it was more like
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAURUGUUGUUUUUUUGHGGGGGGGGHHH!"
I flailed my arms wildly as I fell down. It just made me go faster. I hurtled down, picking up speed as I went. Just as I was about to hit the ground, something snatched me up and carried me away.
I opened my eyes. Kana was carrying me and flying. We were heading back towards Annabeth's latest entry.
"You can fly!?" I asked.
"Yup," she said.
"Then why didn't you just go get the 'pen' for me?" I demanded.
"Cuz I enjoyed seeing you fall down like that," she replied smugly.
Sigh.
We finally reached Annabeth's latest entry. I found space at the bottom of the tower and began to write.
Annabeth POV
I was just lying under a tree, feeling bored, when all of a sudden, I saw my diary open up to my latest entry. I ran over to look at it, and was extremely shocked to see words appearing on it, as if written with an invisible hand. With a jolt, I realized it was in Percy's handwriting.
Hey, Annabeth. It's Percy. Just wanted to say that I'm REALLY SORRY about disappearing. I somehow got kidnapped by some random person and Kana won't tell me who. (You know Kana, right? Spirit of your diary?)
Okay. Well, I somehow ended up inside your diary. I'm actually in its soul. That's why I'm writing to you, and you can see it.
That's all.
Love, PERCY.
My heart felt like it was about to burst. I grinned. Percy was okay. That was all I needed to know. I immediately wrote back,
Just happy to know that you're okay. Find a way out, alright? I'll be waiting.
-Annabeth.
Then I quickly flipped through the pages of my diary to see if he had written any more messages. He hadn't.
I noticed something strange, though. In one of my entries, where it was supposed to say "His sword that can turn into a pen?", the word "pen" was missing.