"The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for."
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
The world was naught but ash and dust and a boy whose entire person is sooty. Coal black hair was besmutted with bleached flakes and cinders and who knew what else. His besmeared puffer is not only askew but it made his face look clean in comparison too. The vintage concert tee underneath was relatively unharmed. Its colors were colors washed out from use; it blended in rather well with the all-consuming darkness. No doubt he would be glad to see it had survived, if it was still possible to feel such things.
She kneeled beside the boy and ran her finger through his hair and wiped as much soot off his face as she could. Their winter breaths intermingled together into a fine cloud of mist. Thin line of blood dribbled from his mouth. Only shock of color in miles. She scooped a fistful of ash and scraped off the blood with one hand and used the other to hold his head in place.
She sat now, atop the ash, cross legged. She maneuvered his arms through his armholes and awkwardly extricated him from his puffer to check for injuries. None. Placed the puffer atop him as a blanket of sorts to protect him from the cold. She couldn't think of anything else to do in the meantime and so she closed her eyes too and waited.
She smelled the lingering sea in the boy that would soon be snuffed out by the mozy and sulfurous stench that seemed to permeate every plane of existence. It smelled like burnt offerings without the sacrifice. She heard nothing, not even the boy's breaths. Even if they were in The City That Never Sleeps, she doubted much would change.
It does, a moment or two later. She heard the imperceptible opening of an eyelid that is about just as faint as his breaths. She opened her own in turn.
The boy blinked the other eye open and peered around. "What…" he croaked. His murky green eyes that seem effulgent in the dark zeroed in on her as he sat up. "Artemis?"
"Percy," she acknowledged. "I am glad to see that you are up."
"What happened? Where are we? What… happened?" he repeated, as he looked from side to side and gazed upon the bleak nothingness and then back to her. He made a motion as if to rise when he rapidly raised the crook of his elbow to his face and violently coughed once, twice, before it devolved into a full blown coughing spasm.
The coughing didn't stop for quite a while. She could feel his heartbeat rising. His breaths came in faster and faster and faster, and his eyes were tempestuous, wild in a way that only the Goddess of the Wilderness could recognize. It's frenzied and feral; madness incarnate.
A shudder wrenched its way up his spine when she laid a hand on his back. Still shaking but not panting. It seemed to break him out of the trance he had fallen into. He moved to rise again.
Artemis clamped a hand down on his shoulder. "Easy," she said. "You may still be hurt internally. I could not protect you completely, nor can I heal you in my current state."
His breaths steadied. Still, his eyes had nary a sense of life in them. "I thought I was back in the Pit." His breath is smoke-hoarse and his voice dropped at the last word.
Even if she's never been down there, the idea of Tartarus seemed rather bright to Artemis in comparison.. But how could she ever tell him so?
"It's starting to come back. I remember… an explosion? Lightning—no, thunder?" He visibly swallowed and took a deep breath. "Tell me, why does it feel like I'm back in her domain? Why am I gripped with woe like the Acheron is trying to consume me again? What did you mean, 'protect me'? Protect me from what? What's going on, Artemis?"
The darkness seemed to falter in the barrage of questions. A steady stream of moonlight pierced through the gray haze. Too bad it doesn't provide any clarity as to where she is to start explaining. "Look around you. Tell me what you see."
"Do I look like someone that can see in the dark?" He looked around regardless. His gaze settled on the thin pinprick of light in the distance. "Is that the Moon? Your Moon, I mean. That's it," he added.
"Indeed. That is all that is left. The Moon, you, and I," she said.
"And what's that supposed to mean? Freaking me out here, Artemis."
She does not know how to tell him. It is hard enough to deal with the unheralded. How can she be expected to explain it, especially when she does not fully understand it herself? "Why were you not at the Solstice?" she chose to say.
"I wasn't in the mood for festivities?"
"That was our saving grace. Olympus was the first to fall. I knew something was amiss when the partial divinity I relinquished to my Hunters returned to me in an instant. Never had I felt so powerful… and yet I still could not save a single Hunter."
Percy startled. "Thalia's dead?"
Her and everyone else. Artemis looks away. They had all the time to mourn but that did not make it any easier. The silence from before returned. Percy understood what her silence meant; his lips were thin and soon contorted into a grimace.
The silence seemed oppressive all of a sudden; the darkness seemed to intensify in the reigning silence and it was rather difficult to bear. She hurriedly broke it: "Yes. She was the only mortal on Olympus who survived the first onslaught."
He stared at her blankly. Opened his mouth to speak but it closed just as quickly. It took him two more tries to finally say, "The only mortal? All of them were on Olympus. Annabeth. Nico and Hazel. Grover, Clarisse, Frank. They can't just all be dead." He gripped her by the shoulders. "Please, tell me that this is just a cruel joke."
Cruel? Oh, how kind that would be in comparison to this reality! "I wish that this was only a joke."
Silent tears were already streaming down his face as he collapsed forward and she moved in to receive him. She can feel the tears fall one after another down her back before they fall against the ash and wetten it. He and his tears are warm in the winter chill.
His tears slowly tapered off and he took slow, deep breaths. She only unwrapped her arms when he moved to sit back upright. The tears have left clean stripes on his face that stand at stark contrast to the rest of his soot-darkened face. He curled his legs to his body and his arms over his legs and hid most of his face behind them.
"What did you mean by 'first onslaught'?"
Artemis sucked in a breath. "That served to weaken the gods. The second was to obliterate them."
"The gods."
"Yes."
He rested his chin in the groove between his knees. "You're crazy."
"On the contrary, I am not." Maybe his comment would have drawn her ire only a few hours ago. Now, though? Not nearly as much. "You mentioned you remembered an explosion?"
"Yeah. And thunder. Maybe I imagined it."
"And would a blast that could destroy Olympus not have to be extraordinarily powerful?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"Humor me."
"Fine. A blast strong enough to theoretically destroy Olympus would have to be pretty damn powerful, yes."
"Powerful enough that you would feel it even if you are not on Olympus?"
His eyes narrowed. "What are you suggesting?"
"What you felt was the explosion, Percy. New York has been reduced to rubbles."
"You are crazy."
"Your doubt in me is tiresome."
He snorted. "Would you believe me if the roles were reversed?"
"I would, considering the proof is all around me."
Sharp intake of breath. He looked around him again but this time it was through different lenses. Intentful instead of perfunctory. He looked and he saw. "Where are we? This can't be New York… right?"
"I believe we are in New Jersey."
"New Jersey. What the hell are we doing in New Jersey?"
"You seem perturbed. Is there something wrong with New Jersey?"
"Nothing that you need to know of."
"As you wish," she said. "In any case, this was as far as I could bring you before my tie to Olympus was severed."
"Does that mean you're no longer a goddess?"
"I am no longer the goddess that I once was."
Percy didn't respond to that. He instead pivoted his body and shimmied so that he was beside her and regarded the darkness in front of him askance. Brows furrowed ever so slightly. "I can feel the Hudson, right over there." He gestured with a nod of his head.
She waited for him to continue. He did not. His eyes slowly grew more and more vacant and the air grew silvery-white as he let out a long exhale.
"Percy?" Hand on his shoulder. She shook him.
He jerked. His eyes flittered to her for a moment before they returned back to the direction of the Hudson. "There's no life in there. I can't feel anything in the river. They're all dead."
"Do you believe me now?"
"Yeah." He rubbed his face with a hand and ran it upwards. "Yeah, I believe you all right."
"I'm sorry, Percy."
"Don't be." He stood up with a forceful grunt. "Can't tell if my legs hurt or if they're just sore. Ran a half marathon with Grover the other day. Suppose he's dead too, right?" he jabbed, glaring at her like it was her fault.
She had seen that happen all too often across the years. Easy to affix the blame on a god. Again, it does not bother her now. "What are you doing?"
"I've got to go back home. See how my family is doing. Care to join me?" He pulled his arms through his puffer.
Accept it, Percy. They're dead. "We should wait. See if the darkness settles when daybreak arrives."
He hesitated. "Fine." He relented and sat down facing the Hudson and New York once again. A few moments later he leaned back and laid down on the ground much similar to the position he was in before he woke up. Only now, he used his hood and hands as a pillow.
She also laid down. Didn't have the luxury of having a hood and so she scooped some ash together into a clump under her head which didn't work out quite so well. Closed her eyes and let the moonshine wash across her face faint as it was. His breathing rough but steady, hers completely inaudible. She can feel the minute vibrations of the ground as his body expanded and shrunk with every breath he took and released.
"Sorry about earlier. Not your fault we're in this mess."
"Mention not. I took no offense."
"I probably would've."
She smiled.
"Wake me when it's daybreak?"
"I was planning on it."
He mumbled something that she could hear but not decipher and drifted off to sleep immediately. "Sweet dreams," she murmured. Hopefully they were. He needed some sort of light in this darkness. Some respite after all the bad news she had just burdened him with.
The wind picked up slowly but surely. It roared in the stillness of the night like a wild beast. Bit and nipped at their uncovered persons. His body shuddered. Her teeth chattered. Vibrations that were not so minute anymore.
An ill wind? Probably not. Who was there to benefit from one now?
Percy curled up and wrapped his jacketed arms around himself and still shivered. At least he slept. She couldn't. Not without the quiet footsteps of wildlife that always accompanied her hunts. Fluttering of birds in the sky. Moon standing tall and swathing her hunter's temporary camps in moonlight. Never would that happen again. Even the moon etiolated in the onset of eternal darkness.
The wind never fell completely into rest but it calmed somewhat. Sometimes Artemis swore she could make out other noises over the wind now. Whispers? Murmurs? Perhaps she was imagining it. You were bound to go mad at least once after a few millennia of living, and now was as good a time as any. She missed the ignorance that the high wind had allowed.
She was glad when Percy stirred. She opened her eyes for the first time in hours. He uncurled and rolled onto his side and stretched his arms out overhead. He yawned and his eyes opened at the same time. Zeroing in on her.
"What…" he croaked. "Artemis?"
"Oh, not this again."
He stared at her with his half-open eyes. Artemis thought he was trying to work out what she meant. He had probably undergone some sort of blank out overnight. His subconscious nixing all the misfortunes she had enlightened him with.
"Your lips are blue."
She touched them. "Really?"
"Your fingertips too." They were. Pale blue. Once the color of the morning sky.
"You need to increase your body temperature. Your body's trying to preserve your core temperature by reducing the blood flow in your extremities. Hold on…" He sat up and took his jacket off and fumbled with the zipper.
"You seem to know a lot about this."
"Happens often when you're swimming in cold water. Seen it happen to others a few times before."
"But not you."
"Son of Poseidon here, hello?"
"Hello."
He chortled and finally managed to free the zipper. The jacket split in sunder. Inner layer was a detachable windbreaker.
"Two-in-one," he announced, eyes gleaming. He passed the outer shell to her. The puffer. More valuable in the cold. "Here."
"Allow me to take the windbreaker."
"I'm not the one who looks like they're going to freeze to death. I didn't even know gods could get cold."
"Neither did I. Thank you." She donned the puffer and he donned the windbreaker.
Percy glanced upwards. "So. I'm guessing daybreak never arrived."
"It did not. Would you like to set out now?"
"Yeah. Sure."
He stood up and offered a hand to her which she accepted. "Off we go?"
"Off we go."