FIGHT OR FLIGHT

PERCY

"I'm just going to say it right now. This is going to be the hardest thing we've had to do yet." I said as everyone rose from their slumber for the final battle. "I honestly don't see all of us making it out of this alive." I pointed to the boat. "That ship is a one way ticket to the most amazing place on the planet. There are roughly three thousand flesh eaters that stand between us and it. Unfortunately, the only way that we make it there is to kill every one of them. Are you ready?"

"No." Will said.

"Good. You shouldn't be."

"You guys are the best friends that I could ever hope to have." Piper said with tears in her eyes.

"This isn't goodbye, Piper. We're going to make it through this. I have a plan." Annabeth said drawing everyone's attention. "We defend the hill. We have the cliff to our backs so they can only come from one direction. We also have the higher ground." Annabeth explained the rest of the plan to us. Everyone looked to me for conformation.

"Let's do it." Everyone got to work with the supplies we had stocked in the truck. Jason and Will started setting up large spikes defending the cliff. The zombies would walk into them and be impaled. Annabeth and Reyna got to work setting a wall of flames in front of the spikes to kill off most of the infected. Nico was working on our emergency escape plan as usual. I walked around the truck to find Fisher. I found him hiding something under his shirt.

"Fisher? What's that?" I asked.

"Uh, just some armor, for underneath my clothes." He replied. I moved on without questioning it. I sat down next to Juliet on the cliff, overlooking the bay.

"Jules? You okay?" I asked. She started crying.

"No." She replied.

"I don't blame you."

"I'm scared."

"I know. I am too."

"You are?"

"Yea, but I know that we're going to make it out of here. I promise." She held out her pinky.

"Pinky promise?" I wrapped my finger around hers.

"Pinky promise." I assured her. Annabeth sat down next to me.

"We're ready." She said. I stood up and looked around at our defenses. There was a steady wall of flames surrounding the hill. Large wooden stakes stuck out to take down those who made it past the fire. The truck was pulled up to the top of cliff where we would stand. Nico and Will were on their turrets waiting for movement. Juliet sat behind the car covering her ears. The rest of us stood on or around the truck armed with guns and swords. I decided to say some last words to the group.

"A few days ago, I would have said never to use a car and never to use guns. I would have said that we need to kill as little people as possible because they need to be saved. Here we are. We can't save anyone but ourselves. We need to take out as many of these things as possible. We need to win for the survival of mankind and the extermination of this virus. Let's get this over with." I said.

"Hey, where did this virus come from anyway?" Piper asked. Everyone seemed to stop and think about that.

"I actually have no idea." I said.

"Yea, it just kind of happened." Jason agreed. The first few zombies broke through and the gunshots rang out through the darkness. Never ending waves of infected people broke through the flames. Some burned to death on the spot. Some got far enough that they were shot down by one of the many guns. They just kept coming and we kept killing. The body count was reaching the point where the flesh eaters struggled to get past other fallen corpses. The docks were clearing out as all the zombies were trying to get to us. Their numbers were quickly falling and I heard a cheer as more and more struggled to get through. Then the worst possible thing happened. It started to rain.

"No! The fire!" Jason yelled. The flames quickly died and the army of flesh eaters was concealed in darkness. Time seemed to stop as everyone looked to me for our next move. I looked down to the docks which were no clear with the exception of a few stragglers.

"Nico! Let's get them to the ship!" I yelled. Nico tossed three long ropes over the cliff.

"Women and children first." Nico said jokingly at a horrible time. Annabeth quickly kissed me and headed down one of the ropes with Juliet and Piper. Will and Nico were now firing away blindly into the darkness from their mounted machine guns. Jason, Fisher, and I were now firing away and slashing anything that got to close. Reyna had frozen by my side as she stared at one of the zombies.

"Reyna? What's wrong?" I asked.

"Hylla." She said with tears in her eyes. She dropped her gun and walked towards the zombie.

"Reyna! What are you doing?" She ignored me and kept walking.

"Hylla, it's me. I know that you're in there somewhere. You need to fight it." Hylla looked like she was in a trance but quickly sunk your teeth into Reyna's shoulder. I didn't hesitate to put a bullet in Hylla's head. Fisher rushed over and pulled Reyna towards the end of the cliff.

"Will, Nico, Jason! Go!" I commanded. The three of them hesitantly headed down the ropes. Reyna lay, bleeding out, on Fisher's leg. Fisher looked down at her with tears in his eyes. I jumped on one of the machine guns and never let go of the trigger. Bodies dropped as quickly as they appeared. Fisher just remained motionless, just talking to Reyna as she slowly bled out. As soon as there was a lull in the attack I jumped off the turret and went to Fisher. "Fisher, we have to go." He didn't respond. "We need to go now!" He looked up at me.

"There are too many. They'll catch us." He said.

"We're going to have to take that risk." I said.

"Not if I can slow them down." Fisher took off his shirt revealing what he had been hiding before, a bomb.

"No, not an option."

"Percy, just listen. What did you think I was going to do for the rest of my life? I finally had a possible future with Reyna and she's bleeding out before me. I'm not important anymore."

"Yes, you are."

"Percy, I don't want you mad at me for my final seconds on earth. I love you, bro. Tell my nephew or niece that they had the best Uncle Fisher in the world." I hugged him one last time. "You and Annabeth have a future. Don't let that slip away." The horde of zombies closed in around us. I ran toward the edge of cliff and leaped over in time to see Fisher kiss Reyna and push the button. The explosion sent me flying towards the water. I landed hard on the surface, right next to the boat. Jason pulled me aboard and I threw Nico the keys.

"Where are Fisher and Reyna?" Juliet asked. I clutched my leg, which I'm pretty sure was broken. I looked around at all my friends faces.

"They didn't make it." Everyone dropped their heads and Nico started the boat. The ship headed out into the sea leaving an angry horde of flesh eaters in its wake.

"I'm sorry about your brother." Annabeth said. I let a tear slip away but I tried to cover it up.

"At least he went out with a bang."