thunderstruck | a.c¹

2.12

CHAPTER TWELVE! 
alternatively titled: keiryn attempts to swim home

PERCY HAD TOTALLY FORGOTTEN TO DISARM KEIRYN, WHICH HE WAS QUICKLY REALISING WAS PROBABLY THE STUPIDEST THING HE'D EVER DONE.

He rushed to the side of the boat and saw Keiryn, paddling madly for the island, the waves carrying him straight toward the jagged rocks.

Percy screamed his name, but if Keiryn heard him, it didn't do any good. He was entranced, swimming toward his death.

Percy looked back at the pilot's wheel and yelled, "Stay!"

Ignoring Annabeth and Aurora's obvious protests, he jumped over the side.

He sliced into the water and willed the currents to bend around him, making a jet stream that shot him forward. Percy came to the surface and spotted Keiryn, but a wave caught him, sweeping him between two razor-sharp fangs of rock.

Percy had no choice. He plunged after him.

He dove under the wrecked hull of a yacht, wove through a collection of floating metal balls on chains that he realised afterward were mines. He had to use all of his power over water to avoid getting smashed against the rocks or tangled in the nets of barbed wire strung just below the surface.

Percy jetted between the two rock fangs and found myself in a half-moon-shaped bay. The water was choked with more rocks and ship wreckage and floating mines. The beach was black volcanic sand.

He looked around desperately for Keiryn.

There he was.

Luckily or unluckily, he was a strong swimmer. He'd made it past the mines and the rocks.

One problem, he was almost to the black beach.

Then the mist cleared and Percy saw them—the Sirens.

Imagine a flock of vultures the size of people—with dirty black plumage, gray talons, and wrinkled pink necks. Now imagine human heads on top of those necks, but the human heads keep changing.

Percy couldn't hear them, but he could see they were singing. As their mouths moved, their faces morphed into people he knew—his mum, Poseidon, Grover, Tyson, Chiron. All the people he most wanted to see. They smiled reassuringly, inviting him forward. But no matter what shape they took, their mouths were greasy and caked with the remnants of old meals. Like vultures, they'd been eating with their faces, and it didn't look like they'd been feasting on Monster Donuts.

Keiryn swam toward them.

Percy knew that he couldn't let him get out of the water. The sea was his only advantage. It had always protected him in one way or another. He propelled himself forward and grabbed Keiryn's ankle.

The moment Percy touched him, a shock went through his body, and he saw the Sirens the way Keiryn must've been seeing them.

Six people sat, sprawled around a living room at Christmas time. A fire was roaring in the hearth, the place was decked out in all of the decorations Percy had seen in christmas catalogues. Two adults were sitting on one of the couches, all cuddled up next to each other. The woman had pale skin and jet black hair with streaks of purple wound through it, she was wearing one of those cheesy holiday aprons, laughing at whatever the man next to her was whispering in her ear. The man looked fairly athletic, with tanned skin and brown eyes like Keiryn, there was grey streaked through his brown hair, which was curly and fell around his face. On the floor sat Annabeth and Aurora, the redhead had her head resting on the blonde's shoulder, eyes skimming over the book she was reading.