His Return

Chapter 2: Monster

Note: The Fall to Tartarus in this book is very heavily influenced by the book House of Hades, tweaked into Percy's perspective.

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Story: His Return
Chapter 2: Monster
Word Count: 3200

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How long had he been falling?

Had it been hours? Minutes? Days?

To Percy, it felt like an eternity.

His heart pounded out of his chest as he fell, the smell of death and rotting corpses filling the already hot, disgusting air of the pit, poisoning his lungs.

The wind tore through his skin like minuscule razors, his eyes remaining shut the entire time as he plummeted to his almost certain demise.

It almost felt unreal. For the 2nd time in one year, he would find himself plummeting to death's domain. This time was different, however. This time there was no one with him. No one hold when it all became too real. No flesh to touch to remind him that he was alive. He was alone.

His throat felt tight. Even in this moment, he couldn't help but wrestle with his emotions, even if it was the least important thing right now.

All his love. All of his years.

All for nothing.

They didn't want him anymore. They didn't need him, so he was cast aside like a broken toy.

He wanted to hate them, but even still he couldn't find it within him.

Wind whistled in Percy's ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if he were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon.

Percy wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to sob. He'd never expected his life to be easy; not since he was a little kid, but this was above his wildest imaginations. Most demigods died young at the hands of terrible monsters. That was the way it had been since ancient times. The Greeks invented tragedy. He knew the greatest heroes didn't get happy endings.

Still, this was nothing less than unjust. Cruel would be a vast understatement.

He tried desperately to think of a plan to save himself. He was a son of Poseidon. One of the big three. Surely, there was something that he could do that might spare his life.

He wasn't a son of Zeus like Jason, so flying wasn't an option. He thought of how helpful it would be to have Frank's abilities to turn into a winged animal. That didn't do him much good as it was impossible.

He was seriously wondering whether he could fashion a parachute out of his clothes-that's how desperate he was-when something about his
surroundings changed. The darkness took on a gray-red tinge. He realized that he could see his arms now, the flesh red with dried blood from his wounds. The whistling in his ears turned into
more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute he'd been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below him, Percy could see the bottom. For a moment he was too stunned to think properly.

Slowly, the memories that he had tried so hard to forget began to resurface. He began to remember just how big the pit was. The entire island of Manhattan could have easily fit inside this cavern-and he couldn't even see its full extent.

Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape was just as daunting as he had recalled, filled with rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To Percy's left, the ground dropped off in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps
leading deeper into the abyss.
The stench of sulfur made it hard to concentrate, but he focused on the ground directly below him and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid-a river.