νεκρός || Annabeth Chase x Fem!OC

Vol. 3-5: i know something you dooonnnttt

TEMPEST

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Chiron had insisted we talk about it in the morning, which was kind of like, Hey, everyone's lives are in mortal danger. Sleep tight! Absolutely ridiculous.

Everyone else turned in for the night, but not me. No sleep for the dead, remember? I considered sneaking in to Cabin 6 and asking Annabeth for advice, but that's a lie. I just wanted to see her. The look on her face when we were in the Labyrinth is probably the most haunting thing I've ever seen, and I've been hanging out with ghosts since I was a kid. Just thinking about how terrified she was made me want to check up on her, but I didn't. I couldn't stop thinking about how everyone was looking at us when we got out of Zeus's Fist.

Usually, at night, I go to the woods and prowl around, usually in the form of a snake of something. But knowing that the Labyrinth is right there made me a little hesitant to do that. Instead, I made my way to the canoe lake, a bag of jelly beans in hand for the naiads.

"Hey," I said softly, sitting down on the dock. Usually, nature spirits don't like me, but the naiads are different. I feed them junk food like, every day when I'm at camp.

They're quite cute, feminine spirits with flowy hair and gentle smiles. I'll admit that they're very attractive. But, they aren't really my type. Naiads tend to have smaller, elvish features, kind of like a fairy, and they look kind and soft all hours of the day. I prefer girls like Annabeth; a calculating and cold exterior to hide the sweetness within.

I think that's something a lot of people get confused about. Everyone thinks of Anne as this cold-hearted bitch that doesn't care about anyone and is always willing to kill, but that's not true. She's just like that on the outside. Inside, though? Inside is a whole different story. Inside, she's the girl that cries when dogs die in movies. She's the girl that plays with every stray animal she sees because she feels bad for them. And she cares about me more than anyone else has in the past eighty years, and always tries to make sure I'm okay.

That's why it hurts so much.

I started getting the feeling that my feelings weren't one-sided. I'm not stupid, and I'm not as dense as people think. I catch the way she blushes when I stand close by and how she treats me differently than everyone else she knows. That's why it's so frightening to be around her now. I had never planned on telling her how I felt, and I'm sticking to that plan, but if she did something, what could I do?

Every passing day brought me closer and closer to having to tell her the truth. I was planning to fake my death and disappear, but what if she thwarted that? And, unfortunately, Annabeth is the smartest person I've ever met. She'll probably figure out I didn't die if I faked my death.

I tried to run through how to tell her. I imagined just sitting across from her and telling her the story. Or bringing her to a private place and just blurting it out. Maybe it'd accidentally slip out in front of a bunch of people. But no matter the scenario, I kept seeing her horrified face, and I imagined her screaming at me for lying to her this whole time.

I looked down at the naiads, who tilted their heads curiously at me. I wiped the bottom of my eyes before I could start crying and looked at the horizon, where the first rays of sun were beginning to flood the sky, bleaching the darkness with pale blue and gold. I gave the naiads the last of the jellybeans, already knowing that I wouldn't see them for a long time.