Memories

When Darkness Comes Calling

Moments had passed and Younger Percy was laying sprawled in the grass with two unnamed friends- I almost felt embarrassed at the inability to place a name to these faces. But there I lay, a youthful grin amongst a sea of hardened memories and grimaces. If only I knew then what I would be getting into.

"Nothing's happening." Nico had plucked his sword from the ground and was idly swinging it around. I had to stumble backwards once or twice to avoid slicing my nose off on the unforgiving arch of the blade. "This isn't like other memories, is it?"

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"There's something different about this place. Something unsettling?"

"More unsettling than the basement?"

"Yes." Nico eyed me. "Not scarier but just... different."

Annabeth sucked in a breath from beside me, as if trying to absorb all the knowledge she could into her lungs. "He's right. Percy look."

She pointed behind us to where the blood-red flowers had adorned the hill. Except now, they ran like a scarlet trail likely to follow an assassin. The flowers had disappeared, replaced with a widening darkened stain that ripped through the grass. I started.

So much blood. The thoughts ran through my skull unleashed, asking, begging, for me to think... to question. Blood on your hands. Blood on your back. Blood on the floor of Tartarus as it trailed from Annabeth's limp form sprawled across the blackened stone. I had become the demigod of bloodthirst; the victim of the god's heartless divinity.

"Percy!" Annabeth's eyes appeared in front of me, frantic. Her eyes flickered between the two of mine, her hands planted on my shoulders as if rooting me to the floor. She had been calling me, I realised, and I had been a world away... a realm away.

"Sorry." I shoved my hands into my pockets. Annabeth didn't need to see my shaking hands.

"This doesn't seem like a memory." Annabeth said, retreating. "It's almost like we're in a painting and somebody else is adding details."

She wasn't wrong, everywhere I glanced something small had changed; the oak tree transformed into a willow, the grass was becoming mud and children were dissipating into nothingness.

"Everything seems smudged," Annabeth continued. "I don't like this one bit."

Piece by piece, everything narrowed until the scene was bleak and bloody. Sally and Percy Jackson were the only two who remained.

"What sort of game is this?" I unsheathed Riptide, swirling around.

The memory had seeped out of existence as if a perverse illness had taken root in my soul and wriggled like veins through each inch of my heart and my head. It had wiped away all life and love from the image before me; my mother and Percy were left as lifeless vessels in a lifeless place.

Again, I said, "Is this some kind of challenge?"

I didn't know who I was yelling at, but my throat strained with the anger. The burning red, as bright as the stain leaking from the hill behind me, lived in my skin; the crimson beast had been fed and was ready to pounce. It burned up my spine like a molten iron rod. I had one task- to delve into my memories and sever them, but if my memories were being taken from me...

"Tartarus." I spat the word as if it were poison on the tongue of a viper.

"What?" Annabeth inched closer to me. Her lashes fluttered closed as she closed her eyes. I wouldn't have said it was the wisest battle stance, but I knew that feeling. At the name, Annabeth needed a moment to school herself; she needed a moment to focus on her breath and her sense of self.