The Grave Walker

I

Thalia was standing strong, looking to fight the oncoming Cyclopses to buy her friends some time to get to the border of the camp.

Noticing the gargantuan humanoids charging towards her, she estimated she only had thirty seconds until they reached her.

Thalia tapped her bracelet, summoning forth her shield Aegis, when a guy her age was suddenly standing next to her, seeming to melt out of the shadows.

"Hi, I'm Percy."

LINEBREAK/FLASHBACK

Percy never knew either of his parents. Of course, this wasn't uncommon to him, as he grew up in an orphanage and everyone around him was abandoned. There were two caretakers of the orphanage, Mrs. Dodds, who would sometimes bring her daughter Kelli to play with Percy, and Mrs. McCormick, who honestly wasn't very bright.

Percy was considered the 'creepy kid's and didn't have many friends as a result. His only actual friend was Kelli, with her being the only person who didn't get scared when they met his heterochromatic eyes. Kelli was nice to Percy, but had a tendency to call him her 'prince' and try to kiss him.

It wasn't until he was 10 that he started to change.

His physical appearance, olive skinned with dark hair, stayed the same as well as his right eye being red while his left one was black. He also had a ring that seemed to be made out of pure shadow wrapped around his left pointer finger.

The ring itself had a couple of strange properties. When he focused on the ring, the inky darkness would spread to cover his hand and up to half way up his forearm. For some reason, the ring also felt warm and hummed in the presence of Mrs. Dodds or her daughter as well as gaining red lettering that he couldn't understand etched into the side of it.

It wasn't until his 11th birthday that he died for the first time.

It was showing the beginning signs of a storm on Percy's birthday, but the forecast said that it wouldn't rain until later that night.

Mrs. McCormick had always made sure that the orphans always got birthday parties on their birthday.

Not many kids had actually interacted with Percy, most giving him an insincere 'happy birthday, Percy'.

Kelli gave him a gift, amid blushing and stuttering, something she has been doing since he got his ring. It was a foot long box wrapped in black and red paper.

"Come on, open it my prince! I picked it out 'specially for you!" Kelli said,

Upon opening the gift, Percy saw that the contents was a broken black xiphos blade.

"It's Stygian iron, a special kind of metal, be careful, prince." Kelli explained, bouncing with excitement.

Percy wrapped his unnaturally strong arms around his friend, causing her face to heat up.

"Thanks, Kelli, I love it."

Then lightning screeched down and struck the embracing friends, and Percy knew he was dead.

LINEBREAK

Percy sat up in his bed at the orphanage, his peculiar eyes flying to the window next to his bed. Outside was a crater where he had been standing, filled with yellow dust and ash.

With a start, he realized that he had died, but he was alive once again.

Upon going outside, Mrs. Dodds grabbed his shoulder and spoke in an urgent tone "We have to go."

Suddenly, Mrs. Dodds burst into a monster with leathery bat wings and flew towards the long island sound.

Lightning then shot through the fury's wing, causing her to shriek and plummet toward the tree tops.