Published: July 8, 2021
Edited: July 17, 2022
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I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, communicated with my brother, et cetera.
The truth? My only thought was: HOLY FUUUUUUUUUCK!
The river raced toward me at the speed of a chariot. Wind ripped the breath from my lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision.
And then: Flaaa-boooom!
A whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever.
But my impact with the water hadn't hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of a eagle lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage- beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags- swirled up all around me.
At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. Percy had not been barbecued, he was floating beside me. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good.
Second realization: I wasn't wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry.
Percy looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.
No way, I thought.
He flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi. I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry. Percy lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. This must have been how I had dried Eva in the bathrooms at camp. But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.
I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should've been dead. The fact that I wasn't seemed like...well, a miracle. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like a mother: Children, what do you say?
"Um...thanks." Percy muttered, his voiceuch clearer than it should have been underwater.
"Thank you...Father." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid. No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch. Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance. Those poor mortals in the Arch were probably toast. I couldn't protect them. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders.
Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around. There, not five feet in front of me, was Percy's sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.
I heard that woman's voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.
"Where are you?" I called aloud.
Then, through the gloom, I saw her—a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.
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