The Eye of the Hurricane
Death was lonely.
The pain of organs failing and his insides laying open should have been the worst pain he had ever experienced in his life, but it wasn't. There was pain, but not enough.
Not enough to erase the overwhelming feeling of numbness threatening to overtake him. He wanted to feel, he realized, because there was nothing worse than the awareness of his body fading.
He had thought of his death before—dreamed of it, even. He was not surprised by his death. He had been expecting it for years, but that didn't stop the small part of him from asking why Thanatos couldn't have waited a bit longer to come.
Percy Jackson had spent his whole life fighting. And now that the fight was done, he was left to wallow away at where that left him. At what he had accomplished.
Had he spent so much time fighting, so much time just struggling to allow for his mere existence, that he had forgotten to live?
He was an idiot.
Maybe they all were.
He had stood defiant at the face of Tartarus. He had pushed Annabeth into the elevator and watched for one last moment how her stormy gray eyes swirled. He had watched them disappear behind the Doors of Death, forever sealing his fate.
Was it even worth it, he wondered, facing millions of monsters? He fought until there was nothing more to do but die, and only then did they leave him.
Tartarus had cursed him to die alone.
His breath rattled pathetically through his body as he bled out and he was vaguely aware of the tears blurring his vision. If he wasn't dying, he would have screamed. He would have sobbed. He would have punched the ground beneath him until he saw the glistening ivory of every knuckle showing.
He wanted to do so much and feel so much up to the point that if he didn't die soon, he was sure he would go insane.
All he had ever thought about was living, of keeping those around him alive as well, but why did it seem so stupid now? His time spent living was so brief, like the eye of a hurricane. What did his existence matter in the midst of every other life? He was but a drop in the ocean.
Life was stupid. Dying is stupid. Everything in between just feels like one big joke now. Maybe Love was just a jest to keep his brain entertained and Hate was there to keep him distracted.
Somewhere in the Universe there was a library so big that it shelved billions of books that would contain everyone's stories. His would be as short as his life, lying somewhere forgotten on the top shelf collecting dust.
He was okay with being forgotten, though. Sometimes he wished he could just erase every memory of his life too.
Percy was tired. Of everything.
The numbness finally won and he allowed his eyes to flicker shut.
At least he had saved Annabeth, he thought.
When he woke, there was sun. Its rays sparked a fire in his body as his eyes fluttered to meet its light. The fire was hot and painful and it seemed to burn every single bit of the numbness he had once felt away. In its place was a pain that seemed to radiate through his entire body.
That was okay, though, Percy could do pain.
Gray eyes appeared above him, making him both awaken from his reverie as well as fall into a trance all at once. They were so beautiful and it had hurt him so much when he had thought he never would have seen them again.
I'm sorry, she said on repeat.
More familiar faces gathered around him, all sharing her same qualms. Tears seemed to be the shared attribute on most faces and they all could not stop looking at him in guilt.
Why? He wanted to ask.
He wasn't dying—or at least he was pretty sure he wasn't anymore—so there really wasn't any need to cry.
They came back for me, he realized, almost wanting to cry at how loved and comforted he felt in this mere moment. He had never felt so alone before, but now he wanted to cry because he knows now that he never was.
Annabeth snuggled against him, making him almost want to sob at how much he needed her against him. He hadn't known how much he had needed her with him until he had thought he wouldn't see her ever again.
It's okay, she whispered, You're alive. That's all that matters.
He was alive. His story had not ended and his time upon the stage was not yet over.
Maybe life was a game. Maybe it was full of fighting and distractions and every single meaningless emotion that there could ever be. But maybe that was okay.
As long as Percy wasn't alone, he really didn't care.
Author's Note: I wrote this inspired by the song "Hurricane," by Tommee Profitt, and Shakespeare's famous "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" line from "Macbeth".
I wanted to kill Percy, but I didn't have it in me. It just didn't feel right. Sad endings destroy me too much, it seems. And while I didn't write this during a hurricane, I did write it during a storm.