Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter sixty-three. ☄︎. *. ⋆
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WE STOPPED IN A ROOM full of waterfalls. In the middle of the floor was one big hole, a slippery stone walkway circling around its circumference. On all four walls, even the one we'd just come through, water tumbled from huge pipes. All the water spilled into the large hole, and even as Percy shined his flashlight into it, we couldn't see the bottom.
Briares slumped against the wall. He scooped up water in a dozen hands and washed his face. "This pit goes straight to Tartarus," he murmured. "I should jump in and save you trouble."
I rolled my eyes, growing tired of his misery. "Don't say that, Briares. You can come back to camp with us and help prepare to fight. You know the Titans better than anyone; you'd be a big help."
"I have nothing to offer," Briares said. "I have lost everything."
"What about your brothers?" Tyson asked. "The other two must still stand tall as mountains! We can take you to them."
Briares's expression morphed to something even sadder: his grieving face. "They are no more. They faded."
The waterfalls thundered. Tyson stared into the pit and blinked tears out of his eye. I couldn't help the frown that grew on my lips.
"What exactly do you mean, they faded?" Percy asked. "I thought monsters were immortal, like the gods."
"Percy," Grover said weakly, "even immortality has limits. Sometimes... sometimes monsters get forgotten and they lose their will to stay immortal."
Looking at Grover's face, I wondered if he was thinking of Pan. I remembered something Medusa had told us once: how her sisters, the other two gorgons, had passed on and left her alone. Then last year my father had said something about the old god Helios disappearing and leaving him with the duties of the sun god. I'd never thought about it too much, but now, looking at Briares, I realized how terrible it would be to be so old—thousands and thousands of years old— and totally alone.
"I must go," Briares said.
"Kronos's army will invade camp," Tyson said. "We need help."
Briares just shook his head. "I cannot, Cyclops. I do not have a finger gun to win this game." To prove his point, he made one hundred finger guns.
"Maybe that's why monsters fade," I piped in. "Maybe it's not about what the mortals believe. Maybe it's because you give up on yourself."
His pure brown eyes regarded me. His face morphed into an expression I recognized—shame. Then he turned and trudged off down the corridor until he was lost in the shadows. Tyson sobbed.
