Memories

The Son of Poseidon

We had transported through the roof, standing around the kitchen table of Gabe's apartment once again. I was getting far too sick of the smell now, and I smiled inwardly as Annabeth crunched up her face and tried to subtly cover her nose with her hand.

The scene before us was simply a follow on; almost like the next episode of some horrifically questionable soap opera. 'Next time on Percy Jackson and the completely deprived and painful childhood...'  Yeah, I wouldn't watch it either.

Younger me, bullet wound still bleeding profusely, was propped up on a dining chair, indulging himself in deep, shuddering breaths. Gabe was sat on the couch, beer in his hand whilst watching the TV- as if Young Percy weren't potentially just dying behind him.

Bang Bang Bang. The apartment door shook in its frame, Percy's head flipping up in an unsure fearful excitement at seeing his mother.

"Gabe, open the door! I can't find my keys!" My mom was frantically pounding at the door, rattling the handle in desperation. "Gabe, please! Percy, are you there?"

Percy looked over to his stepdad who was just watching the door coolly. The kid tried to pull himself onto his feet, taking only two painful steps toward the door before the entire door was hanging off its hinges. Had my mom just kicked the door down? Dam!

"Sally!" Gabe growled. "That'll be coming out of your allowance.

"I know, I know."

My mother's eyes fixed on younger me. She slowly soaked in the blood that was pooling around him and the unabashed pain that etched across his bloodied face.

"Oh, my baby. What happened? Who did this to you? Tell me the truth."

She started over to Percy, throwing her bag to the floor. She craved holding him and comforting him, I could tell that much.

"I was..." Younger Percy looked at Gabe uncertainly, but swallowed his fear and said, "I was mugged."

"We need to call the police." Sally rushed towards her son, phone in hand, but Gabe stepped in front of her and simply commanded, "No".

He blocked her path to Percy, arms out as if creating a stone wall between the family. Sally begun to push past him, but her wrestled her back fiercely. "I said, no."

"Gabriel, he's my son. What are you doing?"

"It is his punishment. If he dies, he dies."

"Punishment for what? He's a child!"

Sally was actively fighting Gabe now, thrashing in his grasp in an attempt to reach her suffering son. She wanted to protect him, to hold him and love him. But Gabe's grip was a prison; bars of steel trapping her in this abyss of helplessness.

"If he runs away from school, this is what he gets, Sally. It's karma- he needs to know that bad behaviour breeds bad things. I will not allow insubordination and insolence in this family!"

Younger Percy pulled himself up tall, a blood-soaked cloth against his leg and said with pride, "Those are some pretty long words for you, Gabe. I'm proud."

I was proud too. I had always been impertinent; something harnessed and sharpened through Gabe to use later on the gods. But I was proud of how Percy had pulled himself up tall and said something so stupid, purely to get the attention away from my mother. Maybe Annabeth was right, my loyalty is something that had always protected those I loved.

But regardless, there was something bizarre about this scene; something completely unfamiliar and unsettling. I watched on in slight confusion. "I don't remember this."