Authors notes: Hey! It's chapter 5, hope you enjoy, it's a long one ;) +1400 words. Shoutout to Jillybean210 for my first review. This is the first and last time I say this; please review my stories or just leave a comment, it brightens my day and by leaving my feedback, I can hopefully get better. Enjoy!
Chapter 5: Why do we sleep?
Annabeth P.O.V
Waking up this morning was terrible, it was like an iron fist had grabbed my heart and torn it out of chest, leaving a throbbing mess of tangled emotions. All he left was a crumpled piece of paper, and for that a small part of me resented him a little bit, but the words written in messy cursive on the inside of the paper were much more heart wrenching, at first I thought he had left me behind because he didn't want me to get hurt.
"Typical Percy." I had whispered to myself, when I heard myself I sounded more wounded than I thought I did, that's no way for a daughter of Athena to sound. Later on Chiron had told me that Percy's quest was preferred that it be done by the single best warrior in our camp.
"Percy isn't the best." I had argued, not because I doubted his abilities but more because I was in denial. Who sends a Demi-god on a quest alone? The trusted number was 3, because it was not to many and not to little.
The following day was the most torturous thing I had endured in months, I dragged myself to all the activities, everyone quickly realised my mind was somewhere else when one of the Stoll brothers disarmed me in close-quarters combat training, to be fair to myself I had annihilated him the second time around, almost dis-locating his wrist. I had become merciless, so nobody wanted to spar with me. I felt slightly dejected but I quickly realised nobody would notice if I left, so I did and I stayed in my cabin room for the rest of the day, not sulking... But thinking, worriedly.
As I laid there, on my bed toying with Daedalus' laptop I realised that I could hear singing coming from outside, huh, I realised I had missed dinner. Probably would have skipped it anyways, I shrugged to myself miserably. That night as I slept I had one of the worst dreams I've ever had, it wasn't gruesome but distressing.
Percy was sprinting along a peer, it was pitch black and I could hear water sloshing against the shore, the smell of seaweed was almost overwhelming, but I detected a tinge of something else, something that I smelled almost everyday... It was the smell that permeated through the whole of the Hephaestus cabin, it was the smell of melted Celestial-bronze. Why in the gods could I smell that? Suddenly I shifted to first-person view of my boyfriend, I could feel everything he felt. I could physically feel the sea writhing underneath me, everyone of my senses was urging me to dive in and replenish my strength, now I understood why Percy loved the camp lake, water almost screamed strength, I also winced slightly as I felty he dull throb of a huge gash on the side of his left thigh, it must have stretched from his lower leg to his hip bone, opening up a huge tear in his jeans. All of a sudden a gigantic bronze pillar, thing reached out of the water and took a swipe, I felt Percy roll and the swish of wind indicated he had successfully evaded the danger, as Percy looked up, I realised what was attacking him, a huge bronze squid rose out of the murky water, it was almost the size of the big house at the front of the camp, it flailed its long, dangerous tentacles in the air. As I looked I saw that two of the tentacles were misshapen, they looked as if they had been melted and not moulded properly, the squid lashed one of its tentacles at the exact time Percy leaped at the creatures head, I felt the tentacle swat Percy and the ribs fracture inside my... His chest, as Percy hit the ground a soft rap at the cabin door swiftly woke me up, and just like that, the link was broken and I was left feeling like something had gone horribly wrong.
I opened the door and a wide eyed, Grover was standing there... Chewing on an empty tin can. I stood there, silently enraged at being awoken from a important vision, or so I thought.
A part of the shiny tin was dribbling out of Grover's mouth as he spoke, "Annabeth, the empathy link has gone dark". That was it, I slammed the door in his face, I heard a wretched yowl and realised he must have been standing too close to the door, not my fault. Before long I was ready to leave and I marched out the door, I was going figure out what happened to Percy.
Grover's P.O.V
I methodically massaged my nose as I sat on a decent sized log that had been carved into a seat, after knocking on Annabeth's door I had gotten a huge bruise on my nose, after she slammed the door in my face... Literally. I don't understand why she had reacted so violently after I told her that the empathy link had shattered, I mean one second I was sleeping happily thinking about food and then the next it felt like someone had punched me in the stomach and stolen all the oxygen in my lungs.
A door clanged open sharply and I ran to catch up with a dark figure, undoubtably it would be Annabeth. I caught sight of her marching up to Thalia's tree, which to me felt like a beacon of wilderness, All nature spirits were absolutely ecstatic when they got close to the tree. As I got closer I yelled to her.
"I know where your going Annabeth!", she turned around swiftly and shot me a look of despair... She looked horrible, her eyes were pink, puffy and tear streaked. She didn't wear any makeup but I imagined that if she did all her mascara would be running down the side of her cheeks.
"What then?" She whispered, it was a voice of absolute agony, she looked like she was defeated. I stared at her and noticed that beneath the look of defeat on her face, was an expression of determination.
"I am going to accompany you, as your protector and your friend." The words sounded familiar to me, like I had said them before. Not that it mattered, I was just trying to convey a message. Have you ever heard the expression "a cornered animal, is more dangerous than an animal with an escape", this is what she reminded me of, she looked like she was daring someone to try and stop her, and if they did she would savagely tear them apart.
"No one is here to stop you." I said, staring around obviously, spreading my arms wide and rotating in a 360 degree circle. She turned around and kept walking, I fought to catch up, when I did I said.
"Do you even know where he is, Annabeth?", she looked at me worriedly.
"No." Admitted Annabeth, she sounded like she was having trouble keeping herself together.
"So we're just going to search each city until we find the right one?", almost on cue something rustled in the bushes, and as Annabeth and I turned to look at where the sound had come from, an absolutely huge Bull Mastiff trotted out into the open glaring at us balefully. Annabeth gasped and said.
"I know this creature... Isn't it the Laelaps?".
"Like the dog that was turned into a star?".
"Sort of, the story is that Artemis gave a dog that always successfully hunted its prey to a beautiful mistress, and the mistress thought that it was a good idea to send the dog after a fox that could never be caught, after a while of a un-ending loop of hunt and escape, Zeus was perplexed by what was going on and turned them both into a constellation." States Annabeth, boy was she a know-it-all sometimes.
"Hey boy" she said in a baby voice. The dog walked forward and looked at Annabeth carefully.
"Can you show us the way to Percy?", after a while the dog tilted it head and looked at us both, before heading of into the brush. Annabeth and I shrugged at each other and followed, running after the large dog.
