My story | PJO x male reader

Epilogue

Percy POV:
We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest. I would've been happy, but I always see his face. He could've been here if I was faster. I think we all feel that way. Especially Annabeth.

She sat on the dock overlooking the water.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
I could see her wiping away tears.
"Oh, yeah." She said. "What do you want?"
"They need us at the bonfire." I told her.
"Oh." She got up and followed me to the bonfire.

Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful—gray silk, with embroidered owls—I told her it seemed a shame not to bury in it. She punched me and told me to shut up.

Being the son of Poseidon, I didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make my shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.
It was fun to burn.

Next was Y/N's. Almost every cabin volunteered to make his but Hephaestus' cabin was first. Beckendorf told me that they wanted to make it thoughtful and not just beautiful.

It was wood and had several intricate carvings of animals. The moon shined proudly over the forest and if you looked hard enough you could see green eyes on it. They showed it for maybe five seconds before Annabeth ran out of the area.

They threw the shroud in the fire.
At the pyre, the shroud is burned. The same boy will never return.

It hadn't really hit me until now, he was gone. I couldn't talk to him anymore, I couldn't see him anymore.

I wasn't paying attention to Dionysus' welcome-home speech but I listened when I heard my name, or at least what should have been my name. "Yes, yes Peter got the lightning bolt, and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday..."
Really? A camper dies and that's what he says.

I left and went straight to my cabin. I laid on the bed and just sat there letting my thoughts roll over in my mind. "Why weren't you faster, Percy?" Or, "You let him down." I tried to push those thoughts away, but like a hydra, three more came in its place. This time it was about the prophecy.
You shall lose two that you would call a friend
And you shall fail to save what matters most in the end.
I had failed to save my mom, but only because I'd let her save herself, and I knew it was the right thing. So why was I still uneasy.

I was saved from my thoughts by a knock at the door. I didn't know who to expect. I opened the door to find Luke standing there.
"How are you, Percy?"

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A/N: This is the final chapter. Thank you for reading.

Criticism is always welcome.