Mayday, Mayday!

000. But She Lives

Blood courses into her veins.

 Her eyes snap open, no longer a blinding white. For the first time in three years, Aella-Mae breathes in fresh air.

This Year, September 8th.

 Hazel Levesque's hand trembles as she lifts her cup, followed by an incessant rumbling outside. With a frown, the girl motions at Percy and Frank to stay in their seats, before peering outside the tent.

 The cup falls to the ground, splintering into tiny little pieces.

 "Hazel? You alright?" Frank rushes forwards, caring as ever.

 Percy follows, squinting at the view. The sky is in turns a blinding white and a hazy grey, making it so that he can't quite see anything. But he can hear the mutterings.

 "Is that . . . a body? I see a hand."

 "Are you stupid? Why would there be a body in the middle of the fucking ground?"

 "Gods, is it Gaia again?"

 Percy shudders at the last comment.

 The three of them slowly make their way down the hill, clustered together, as not to lose sight of one another. Then, as suddenly as it came, the fog disappears. In the middle of the ground is fissure, but not an empty one. 

 A girl sits, knees to her chest, in a protective position. Her gaze is not fully there, focused only partly on the ground.

 One of the legionnaires (Madilyn? Percy attempts to remember her name) surges forwards, her expression startled. She crouches down, shaking as she reaches to touch the girl's face. 

 Percy, out of instinct, joins Madilyn in helping the girl up. He takes a hand, hauling her up. Her doll-like features mirror his gaze, eyes narrowed in suspicion, yet her gaze not fully there. For someone who's been lying around in the ground, her hair is surprisingly sleek. The dark red tumbles across her shoulders like some sort of blood-stained waterfall.

 She scares him, really. The girl reminds him of every single creepy doll, whether it be Victorian or one of those Russian ones, he's seen in films.

 Her eyes - not quite grey, not quite black, just a whirling haze of colors - stare at him blankly.

 Percy clears his throat and tries to put up a brave front, "Well, I'm . . . I'm Percy Jackson. Perseus. Jackson. Poseidon. I'm Greek."

 The girl arches one of those aristocratic eyebrows at him. Her mouth curves up into a feline smirk, as she mouths the words, "I know," much more sarcastically than Percy knew was possible.

 He opens his mouth to protest: How do you know me? You can't know me? 

 But before he can get any of those words out of his mouth, Hazel appears by his side, slipping an arm under the girl to try and haul her up, "Legionnaires, it appears we have an new recruit."

 Percy doesn't know what happens next.

 Lightning flashes across the sky, Hazel yelps, and the girl brims with literal electricity. He can hear it in the air - bursts of energy crackling as they speak.

 The girl is unharmed. She stands there, silent, surveying the ground around her.

 Madilyn beams, as if all that lightning shenanigans was a positive thing, "No, no. Hazel, she's not new. Aella-Mae was here before me. We . . . we thought she was dead."

 Aella-Mae.

 For some reason, that name rings a bell Percy doesn't recognize for the rest of the day.

✸

 Aella-Mae wears a look of confusion as she's lead to the empty Jupiter barracks, her hands skimming uncertainly across the marble surface.

 "Where's Jason?" She asks, more to herself than Percy, but he answers anyway.

 Sticking his hands in his pockets, Percy stumbles over his words, "Jason also vanished, a year ago, and he came back and went to fight a dead emperor - no, three dead emperors - and one of them killed him. He . . . we have a memorial. If you want to see."

 "Where are the others?"

 Percy stops. "What do you mean, others? Jason was the only Jupiter kid here."

 Aella-Mae furrows her brow, "I guess I remembered wrong. How long has it been since I vanished?"

 "I don't know, Juno swapped me for Jason a few months back-" As soon as Percy sees her expression, he realizes that came out a lot worse than it should have. "I mean not our lives, or whatever, he was sent to Camp Half-Blood."

 "That sounds racist," Aella-Mae remarks, "What's the point of that? And why are you here?"

 "Half-Blood as in half human, half god. Point . . . it's here but Greek, and I'm here because I need to go to college without blowing up another volcano?"

 She cracks a smile. And yes, it fades a second later, but Percy takes that as a good sign.

 "So, how did you die?"

 Aella-Mae blinks at him, "I'm sorry, what? I'm alive, you know?"

 Percy makes a sheepish expression at her, "I mean, why were you lying in the ground? When did you leave?"

 She scoffs, like it's a stupid question, before jumping onto one of the beds and lying down.

 "Who knows? Maybe some satanic cult decided it was funny to bury me in the ground as a sacrifice."

a/n: kinda hate this prologue (first published feb 12th, js updating a few bits to keep the layout consistent) but im too lazy to edit it LOL