Andromeda Jackson first half blood daughter of Poseidon and the fabulous Sally Jackson.
Perseus Chase and Annabeth Chase twins of Fredrerick Chase and Athena.
The Lightning Thief : Completed
Sea Of Monsters : Ongoing
The Tit...
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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, et cetera.
Percy and I were free falling.
The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!
The river raced toward me at the speed of a truck. 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.
'Please.' I prayed in my mind to my father . 'Don't hurt him. Don't hurt Percy.'
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 my stepfather 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. I had not been barbecued. 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.
I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.
No way, I thought.
I 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. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.
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 my mother: Andy, what do you say?
"Um ... thanks." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid.
"Thank you ... Father."
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? Was Percy alright! 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.
