Now, some people might think that flashbacks are something super interesting to watch, but from an outside perspective, they're really not, almost boring. Imagine you're talking to a friend in a store and suddenly they realize they forgot their wallet at home and it takes them maybe a second until they can focus on the conversation again. Now take that second of shock and drag it out to a few minutes. That's what flashbacks often looked like, at least in my experience with Annabeth, mostly from the half year before becoming a huntress. Annabeth brothers looked at me for an explanation. "They both have really bad memories that have to do with the name of the sauce, so it's best not to say it in their presence. When someone mentions it, they live through that memory again, like a nightmare. This is called a flashback" "Ok, got it, don't say tarta- don't say it" "I actually know some things about flashbacks. As someone who studies wars, it's bound to come up at some point. War is probably the biggest generator of trauma, at least within the age group that soldiers are typically in. Did you know that research into trauma and the subsequent diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder didn't get started until quite recently, which is a shame. Imagine how much trauma research could have been done on holocaust survivors for example. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should start putting people in work camps to study trauma, just that it would have been a good opportunity for a case study" As he continued talking about what historical events could have contributed to our knowledge about trauma, I excused us from the table and lead Percy and Annabeth away. After a few minutes, their flashbacks ended. Percy finished a bit earlier than Annabeth. It took him a moment to orient himself. "Ok, so when Annabeth's flashback is over, maybe we'll meet someone else." Percy explained. "I hate to see her like that, with one of her biggest strengths, her amazing memory, turning against her." Luckily for Percy (and of course also Annabeth) he only had to endure it for a few more seconds. "Hello Percy" Annabeth (well, probably not actually Annabeth) said in a voice that I didn't recognize. "You're Chris, right?" "Correct. And who are you again?" "I was a bit offended, until I remembered that this Chris person was not Annabeth and that he didn't have the same memories as her. "I'm Thalia. Maybe we should go back to your family now. And don't tell the boys about any demigod stuff." We went back into the kitchen. "Are you someone else now?" Bobby asked. "Yes, I'm Chris. I have some of the really bad memories" "like what?" "Don't try to answer" Percy quickly told Chris. "You see, these memories are really bad, so asking about them is not a good idea. Imagine you've watched a scary movie, so scary that you were scared for a few days. Now, you're back to normal, but then someone asks you exactly what happens in the movie or for example what the monster looked like and then you're scared again" "That would be bad" Matthew confirmed. "Exactly, and it's why we don't ask Annabeth, or Chris, or anyone else, about their bad memories."
With the trauma discussion out of the way, we finally got to continue our meal. Objectively speaking, it definitely tasted better than anything that I had hunted and cooked myself, but having the knowledge that I had made those meals completely myself made up for that. Still, Mrs. Chase's cooking skills were far better than those of her stepdaughter, which is an incredibly low bar to set. The last time Annabeth had tried to make food, she had almost burned it. Of course, this would have been acceptable if it had been something that burns easily, like hot milk, but she had been making a salad. How do you burn salad? Sometimes I feel like life is like a video game where you have to give skill points to different skills. You can do it however you like, as long as the points add up to fifty or less. Annabeth figured out a way to give nine of the skills 100 points each by setting her cooking skills to negative 850. That is probably not possible, but Annabeth would have found a way to do it, maybe by using hacks. A bit later, when Annabeth (she had switched back eventually) wasn't with us (she wasn't like missing or anything, just in the bathroom or something like that) her stepmom approached us.
"You know, usually I try to distance myself from this demigod stuff as much as possible, but you've gotten my curiosity. What exactly did you do to that goddess that was so bad Annabeth would not have been able to handle hearing about it?" "The thing is, the memory is also a bit traumatic for me, but I think I should be able to talk about it. I guess I was the main traumatizing agent in that scenario. Basically, we were under attack by Achlys, the goddess of misery and poison. She unsurprisingly wanted to kill us in order to sacrifice us to her mother, Nyx aka the night, or something like that. Or maybe it was because the fine print of the death mist states that you cannot receive it unless you die immediately afterwards. Whatever the reason, she summoned a bunch of poison. Not just a few bottles, more like a large puddle or even a small pond. Usually, I'm a nice person, but I guess at that moment, I sorta just snapped and" He took a deep breath "I started controlling the poison and attempted to drown Achlys. I don't know how far I would have gone if Annabeth had not told me to stop." "If it makes you feel better, I'm almost as shocked as you are" I said to Mrs. Chase. Percy always seemed so nice and I had a hard time imagining him drowning a goddess in her own poison. But on the other hand, I think everyone has the potential to turn into something monstrous if pushed far enough. And if that person happened to be one of the most powerful beings alive, apart from literal gods, it ended up really terrifying. Though in Percy's case, 'pushed far enough' might not even be the right wording. To me it seemed like, and Annabeth had confirmed that, the number one thing that made Percy do such things was when Annabeth was in danger. I really liked their relationship even if romance wasn't really my thing. But on the other hand, there's more to their relationship than just romantic (and sexual in Percy's case. And I guess also in Annabeth's case now) attraction.
There are so many more forms of attraction; platonic, sensual, emotional, alterous… I like to think that romance isn't actually the thing at the core of this relationship, but rather a very deep trust and will to protect each other. And I know to many, this might sound like the same thing as romance, but I don't think it is. But again, I don't have a whole lot of experience with that whole topic. "Thalia, is everything okay?" Percy asked. For demigods (or generally people who are traumatized) thinking about something to long without paying attention to the others can seem like a flashback to them. "Yes, I was just overanalyzing how you are most scary when Annabeth is in danger and then I overanalyzed the nature of your relationship. I have come to the conclusion that the central piece is not actually romantic, but rather based on trust that has been growing ever since someone stole my dad's favorite toy. The fact that you're a romantic couple is just another layer of it." "I've never really thought about it like that, but you could be right. Maybe I'll ask Piper if she can also detect other forms of attraction with her love radar. We already know that she can distinguish between romantic and sexual attraction, so why not? I wouldn't be surprised if she could do that, I also often surprise myself with what I'm capable of, the most recent example being the water travel I used on our way here."
We spent the rest of the day playing different games. Being the child of the strategy goddess, Annabeth won most of them. She also lost a few games, but I blamed it on letting the other people win. Especially during chess I was certain that Annabeth was intentionally losing so the others would feel better.
"So, what other alters do you have?" Bobby asked after one of the games. "Well, there's Chris, you know him already, then there's Annie, me, and another boy whose name I don't know yet. Am I forgetting anyone?" "There's one more, her name's Luisa and we discovered her on our way here." "Well, I don't remember that trip, the last thing I remember is training with Piper and getting a flashback, and then we were almost there." "If I recall correctly, Chris came out during the flashback and Nico brought him to my place. On our way to San Francisco, he switched out for Luisa because she wanted to… I'm not sure what she wanted, but she came out and stayed out until we met Thalia, then Annie came out, and that eventually led back to you." "So four switches in one day. No wonder I had a headache yesterday." "You get headaches from switching?" "Sometimes. I guess the more I switch the worse it gets. So four switches over how long?" "I don't know when the first one happened, but the other three were over the course of about four hours." "Four switches in about four hours wouldn't be very comfortable. Right now, I don't notice too much of it. I've switched twice today right?" "Yes, you and Percy were both triggered simultaneously by something that one of the boys said" "A flashback synced up with that of my girlfriend. That's kind of romantic in a really Zeused up way."
"What is Zeused up? What does that mean?" "It's the same as messed up. It's a joke that has to do with the Hercules movie" It appeared that this movie was the main excuse for any accidental mention of gods in front of the twins. "Going back to me answering your original question" Annabeth said. "The last known alter is Luisa. What's she like?" Percy explained. "She really young, even younger than Annie, so about seven and a half years old. She's so flipping adorable, like most littles" "Good to know" Annabeth commented "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?" "In my defense, I wasn't there when Luisa was out." "And I must have forgotten that you have near complete amnesia. Especially since Annie knew exactly what had happened before she came to front." "Oh really? Because that never happens to me" "She even said that Luisa was still close by and they even talked with each other before and after the switch. The switch itself was also quite fast." "So basically everything works better between Annie and Luisa than between anyone else. Maybe that has to do with communication. It would make sense for those two to have good communication, they might have known about each other for years. Maybe they're even good friends. It'd make sense, as the only two seven year olds, at least as far as we know, among many late teens. It's a bit like Piper and Hazel getting closer during the time-" Annabeth stopped for just a fraction of a second, but it was enough for me to recognize the flashback hazard. "The time you weren't there, causing them to be the only two girls with 5, counting Hedge, males around" "Yes, that's what I meant. Thank you. Anyways, as friends I'd assume that they'd have great communication, which would facilitate switching and also knowing what's going on. So going back to the original question one again, I have four alters that I know of: Chris, Annie, Luisa and one whose name I don't know. Oh God (" I could tell she had been very close to saying gods, but had stopped herself just in time ") I'm dissociating again. I guess that's just what happens when you talk about your alters too much." The remaining Chases didn't seem to understand what she had meant, so Percy tried his best to explain it. "Imagine you're in a room with all of your friends and you're talking to one of them. While talking, you mention your other friends' names, but you say them so loudly that they think you were calling them and they all start asking 'why did you call me?' and similar things and they won't stop and it's really loud and distracting. That's somewhat similar to how Annabeth feels right now." Annabeth confirmed this with a nod. The others seemed to somewhat understand what he meant. Meanwhile, Annabeth appeared to dissociate more. She began pulling a chair out under the table before realizing she was already sitting on one. For a few minutes, nothing came from her besides mumbling about someone please switching out. Percy did his best to prevent the twins from waving their hands in front of Annabeth's face. Finally, the dissociation was ended with a child's voice saying "Hi, I'm Luisa. Hello Percy, hi Thalia. Who's the rest?" "I'm Bobby, that one is Matthew." "I know you two. Though I don't remember seeing you in almost ten years, since when you were like two years old. And I haven't aged a day since. Well, technically I have aged about two more weeks since I last saw you, but you know what I mean. I aged far less than you two did." Annabeth really disliked when anyone, including herself, got their facts wrong, and apparently that also applied to at least some of her alters. "She remembers almost nothing beyond a few days after running away from home." Percy explained. "Her memories pretty much stop at the point where she met Thalia and Luke. We don't know why exactly it happened like this, maybe it was something like 'Okay, I'm safe now, the trauma is over, I can now separate those memories away.' And those separated memories eventually became Luisa. It's crazy what the human brain can do to protect itself from trauma." Everyone agreed that it was indeed fascinating. I felt like Mrs. Chase was trying really hard not to criticize her stepdaughter for 'pretending to be a child'. Frederick was still trying to adjust to his daughter suddenly aging down (is that an existing expression? Again up exists, so why not?) Almost ten years. "Well, I guess my daughter is seven now. Based on the amount of time we've spent together, that actually checks out." He gave me a look that said 'What do I do now?' I walked closer to him and told him to imagine that it was the early summer of 2001 and Annabeth had just returned from running away. "First, I'd like to tell you I'm sorry for not believing you about the spiders." "I don't blame you. I'm seven. People my age are like atoms." "How is that?" "Well, we're small and we make up everything. No sane mortal would believe a seven year old who claims she was attacked by spiders that are obviously not there." "But you kept telling me for so many days, and I just ignored you." "Still, it's okay. Also, if I had stayed, I as Luisa might not even exist. And all of my friends in the headspace also wouldn't exist." "Okay, but just know that you are and will always be welcome here at home"
I'd say this is a great point to end today's (or actually Monday's (if you're reading this later, this was posted on a Wednesday)) Chapter. Littles being cute, the chase family not being dysfunctional, and there weren't even any near death experiences. What more can you ask for?