Walk With the Shadows [ Percy Jackson OC ]

FORTY-THREE | Alex

ALEX WAS NO STRANGER TO FEAR. He'd worked side by side with literal monsters. He'd watched like a coward from the shadows as Annabeth Chase had struggled to hold up the sky. He'd stared death in the face more times than he could count.

But as the skeleton guards shattered into splinters of ancient bone and fetid ash, fear didn't fill the pit of his stomach like black ice.

Strangled vocal cords, heavy breathing, a tight chest. That's what fear felt like.

This, watching as Ophelia flicked a wrist and crushed the souls of the dead, didn't fill him with fear. It filled him with dread.

Alex watched as Ophelia lowered her hands. The air stilled. The black shadows that had danced around her fingertips disappeared. Only bitter cold lingered, all warmth sapped from the air at her conjuration.

Before he could say another word, Ophelia marched straight under the gates cloaked in glinting barbed wire. Alex's feet wouldn't move.

He'd seen Ophelia pull off some incredible feats. She never put on a show. Even in the Battle of Manhattan, she'd stuck to the shadows and kindled a quiet rage. Her nonchalant destruction of the Spartan shades should've come as no surprise. She always fought without fanfare.

But something here, something amidst the void and fire of the Fields of Punishment, turned quiet rage into something altogether different. Altogether dangerous. Cold, calculating.

It didn't take long for Ophelia to become nothing more than a black silhouette against the red flames. Alex shook himself. Despite the knots twisting in his stomach, he couldn't leave her.

Maybe it wasn't despite the knots in his stomach that he followed. Maybe he couldn't leave her because of the knots.

Alex crossed under the unguarded wrought iron gate. Discordant music and desperate screams floated towards him on the chill breeze. Around him, red light cascaded over black ash spewing forth into the air from cracks in the Underworld. Ophelia walked straight forward.

The scene would've been almost beautiful if not for the wailing winds. Loudest came from the left. Shrieks accompanied wet, inhuman growls. Alex would not turn his face.

Cowardice. That's what Luke would've called it. He couldn't even face the horrors to either side of the black stone path. He focused on Ophelia instead.

Luke had teased him once, at their crumbling fortress upon Mount Othrys. Annabeth had held up the very sky. Her face had wavered but her spirit had never broken. And yet Alex could not look her in the eyes.

Heat seared his face as he came upon a fissure in the earth. Lava seeped out from the depths. His lungs burned as he took in the ash which spewed forth. Clutching his chest, he fell to his knees.

The ground rumbled beneath him as he struggled to catch his breath. Alex couldn't see. Tears filled his eyes as blistering pain spread through his chest. He sputtered. Hands against his torn shirt, he tried to claw at the acid and smoke poisoning his lungs.