I cursed violently in my mind as I regained consciousness.

Everything hurt – my arms, my legs, my chest, my head.

Especially my head.

It felt like an overinflated water balloon, and I had a pounding headache.

Groaning, I cracked my eyes open.

"H-Hello?" My voice sounded dry and rusty, even to me. I couldn't see anything except a vast expanse of darkness, and for a second, I panicked, thinking I'd gone blind.

But no, there was light: it was just too faint for me to see clearly, as if I was trying to stargaze in the middle of a busy city. The light shimmered in the air around me, like thousands of tiny stars. I reached out a hand to touch one and jerked back when it suddenly exploded into a cloud of dust and gas, staring incredulously.

What the hell?!

"Ah, the young hero awakens."

I jumped, turning around to see three old ladies, casually knitting socks that seemed far too large for anyone to wear — except maybe Bigfoot. They stared at me with a keen gaze, as if looking at a particularly interesting animal at a zoo. I frowned back, slightly uneasy, confusion evident in my gaze.

I got the feeling that I was supposed to know something about these ladies, something important — but whatever it was, I just couldn't remember. So, instead, I said: "Uh, do I know you?"

The old ladies smiled simultaneously, which did nothing to make my situation less creepy.

I contemplated running, but there was nowhere to go. It was just the darkness that surrounded me — and those strange exploding balls that I had a very uncomfortable feeling about, which were probably stars.

"She does not remember," one remarked, but another shook her head. "She will, soon. It is our presence that is causing this." The third one nodded. "We are not meant to be interfering," she agreed. "But…" They all looked at me with varying degrees of interest. "It does get ever so boring up here," the final one concluded.

They spoke, as one: "We look forward to weaving your string, young hero."

I didn't know why I fainted after that. The weirdness must've been too much for me to cope with so out of the blue.

All I knew was the moment those words came out of their mouths, my eyes were closing, and I fell.

—-

I woke with a startled gasp, wide eyes flying open.

Where am I?!

Heart thundering loudly, I inspected my surroundings again, feeling my head ache with the strain of figuring out what was going on.

Everything was black, but unlike before, there was no light, faint or otherwise, to calm me anymore.

My breathing picked up as I swung my gaze around, but there was nothing to see. It was like I was in limbo.

What had happened? I strained my memory to remember, but all I could recall before meeting the three old ladies was a rush of dirt and a sensation of being crushed. My ribs let out a pang, as if reminding me of my plight.

A sudden thought seized me right then.

Was I…dead?

"If I'm dead," I muttered to myself, "why does it hurt so much?"

Nothing but silence surrounded me.

Then, a soft voice.

"You are not dead, young hero."

I shrieked, whipping around frantically to see who had spoken. My hands flung up automatically before I spotted the man, and lowered them in confusion, still jittery from the adrenaline rushing through my veins.

He regarded me with curious honey-gold eyes, his huge black wings stretching far behind him, disappearing somewhere into the darkness. His fair skin seemed almost too pale, almost as if he was a walking corpse. His expression changed to something similar to amusement as he heard my words.

"Yes," he murmured as he studied me carefully. "I can see why the Fates chose you."

I didn't have a reply for that, too shocked to demand anything.

His lips quirked into a smile at my silence, apparently understanding why I was so quiet. "Well, follow me, then." Without any further explanation, he turned and began walking away, and I stared after him, incredulous.

Shaking my head, I unfroze and ran to catch up.

"Hang on!"

I fell into step beside him, although I still had to jog to keep up with the man's fast pace. "What do you mean, the Fates chose me?" I demanded.

The feeling that I'd gotten ever since I'd woken up, the feeling that I was supposed to know something, something important, suddenly spiked, and uneasiness crept up on me, making me feel cold, like I'd just doused myself in ice water.

"Who are they? What exactly did they choose me for? Aren't I supposed to be, you know, dead?!" My voice caught slightly on the last word, but somehow, I knew I was right.

I was dead.

Non-existent.

A soul, a spirit, whatever else you want to call it. I was, completely and irreversibly, dead.

Or…supposed to be, anyway.

Which reminded me: my ribs still hurt like hell.

The winged man just hummed nonchalantly, like talking with literal ghosts was something he did every day. "Yes," he agreed. "You are meant to be dead, but you are not. The laws of this Universe differ from yours, you see."

I did not see, but he carried on anyway.

"The Fates being who they are, can alter these however they wish, which is why I am here."

I stopped walking abruptly, a realization suddenly hitting me as I processed the strange man's words.

"This universe?" I whisper-yelled. "What do you mean, this universe?!"

I snapped my head side to side at the darkness frantically, half-expecting some terrible monster was going to jump out and devour me alive.

The winged man laughed, a smooth, rich sound. "You are amusing, young hero," he told me. "If only I could retain my memory of you, I would've given you such exquisite quests…"

I was pretty sure that by 'exquisite', he meant the exact opposite.

But my mind was preoccupied on something else.

"'Retain your memory of me'?" I echoed, frowning. "What does that mean? Are you going to lose your memory?"

The winged man shrugged. "You are a being of Fate," he said. "I cannot interfere on whatever path you have been set on, lest I change it and risk the wrath of your patrons. It is crucial that I do not remember you." He studied me with amusement. "I understand why the Fates asked this of me. You are quite interesting, for a demigod. Your story will be something to remember."

His lips curved into another strange grin as I spluttered, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

"A being of Fate? Path I've been set on? What? I never agreed to any of this!"

I inhaled deeply, shaking my head. No, I needed to ask something else, something more important, something he'd said only a few minutes before.

"You said I'm only supposed to be dead. Am I not? Is that why everything hurts so much?"

The winged man nodded like I'd asked the right question.

"You are currently in the boundary between life and death," he said. "Almost…" He thought for a moment. "Almost like a ghost. All we need to do…" He stopped and turned to grin eerily at me, "…Is find you a body."

I looked down, and immediately balked at seeing the tiny, purple-looking potato thing below me.

Was that a newborn baby?!

"I am not getting into that!" I protested.

"Unfortunately, you don't have a choice." And before I could do anything, the winged man took my hand and yanked, hard.

I screamed, feeling myself plummeting, before everything went suddenly went dark and I knew no more.

—-

Voices.

That was the first thing I heard when I woke up in my tiny, wrinkled, newborn body.

Wonderful, I thought sarcastically. I'm reborn in another universe, and the first thing I hear is someone having an argument.

The voices seemed to be escalating in volume. I strained my ears to listen, but they seemed to be talking rapidly in a language I did not understand: Italian, perhaps?

A quiet snuffle caught my attention, and I forced my body — I tried not to think about how small it was, and how difficult it was to manoeuvre myself — to turn its tiny head, staring at the other purple creature next to me.

Waaaaait a minute, that's not a creature. That's another baby!

Did I have a twin?

I could feel a grin breaking out on my wrinkled face, despite my reservations about the whole 'entering a different Universe against my will' thing. I'd always wanted a twin.

Maybe this new life wouldn't be as bad as I thought.

Of course, my memories from my previous life had to choose that particular moment to cheerfully slam into my head.

My eyes almost fell out of my head with how wide they became as I realized.

This wasn't just some random universe I'd been dropped into. This was a world I'd once been very intimately familiar with.

Percy Jackson, I thought dazedly, the impressions of words from a long-beloved book series spinning in my mind.

I'm in the world of Percy Jackson.