𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

89

The impact didn't kill him, but the cold nearly did.

Freezing water shocked the air right out of his lungs. His limbs turned rigid, and he lost his grip on Percy. He began to sink. Strange wailing sounds filled his ears—millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed him down and made him numb.

What's the point of struggling? they told him. You're dead anyway. You'll never leave this place.

He could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry his body away. That would be easier. He could just close his eyes....

Percy gripped his hand and jolted him back to reality. He couldn't see him in the murky water, but suddenly he didn't want to die. Together they kicked upward and broke the surface.

Hadrian gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how sulfurous. The water swirled around them, and he realized Percy was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up.

Though he couldn't make out their surroundings, he knew this was a river. Rivers had shores.

"Land," he croaked. "Go sideways."

Percy looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually water reinvigorated him, but not this water. Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength. The whirlpool began to dissipate. Hadrian hooked one arm around his waist and struggled across the current. The river worked against him: thousands of weeping voices whispering in his ears, getting inside his brain.

Life is despair, they said. Everything is pointless, and then you die.

Great, a nihilistic river of tortured souls. Exactly what he needed.

"Pointless," Percy murmured. His teeth chattered from the cold. He stopped swimming and began to sink.

"Jackson!" Hadrian tried not to sound as panicked as he was. He racked his brain for any useful information. "The river is messing with your mind. It's the Cocytus— It's made of pure misery!"

"Misery," he agreed.

"Come on, pretty boy. Fight it"

He kicked and struggled, trying to keep both of them afloat. Another cosmic joke for Gaea to laugh at: Hadrian dies trying to keep his crush, the son of Poseidon, from drowning.

Not going to happen, you hag, Hadrian thought.

"Tell me- Tell me about your mom" Hadrian looked at him, in the lighting of Tartarus, everything was washed red, Percy's face looked hopeless. "Your mom. Sally Jackson. Blue cookies. Damn it, Percy"

"Mom..." Percy mumbled, "Blue..."

"Yeah pretty boy, tell me about your step dad. Peter? Paul? Something fish? He makes your mom really happy."

"Paul Blofis" Percy snorted. The fog started to clear from his eyes. "He's a teacher"

"I won't let you drown" Hadrian mumbled, half to himself. "I'm going to get you back to your mom, okay?"

Hadrian started making progress against the current. His limbs felt like bags of wet sand, but Percy was helping him now. He could see the dark line of the shore about a stone's throw away.

"Your mom, will she really take me in? Are you sure?"

"Y-yeah," he agreed, a little more confidently.

"Tell me about Annabeth" Hadrian gasped. "What do you like about her?"

"I... I don't"

"The stables... walking with her in Rome"