²𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐊 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐃𝐘✸ percy jackson

XXVI.

ΉӨЦƧΣ ӨF ΉΛDΣƧ

NINE WHOLE DAYS. NINE.

That's how long the Greek poet Hesiod believed it took to fall from earth to Tartarus.

Lucia had no idea how much time had passed, but it felt like an eternity. If her fall was truly nine days, then she felt every second of them.

As she fell, there were images that kept passing through her head, but they were too vague, too fast for her to decipher in her current situation.

She saw images of a blurred personification of Gaea, she was crying, holding her womb. Except there weren't tears in her eyes but a dark liquid like crude oil.

She saw Camp as they prepared for an attack, saw Will, The Stolls, and Clarisse battle planning with Chiron and the other Head counselors. Aurora and Eunice were in the woods simply talking by Zeus' fist.

She saw Reyna and Octavian arguing.

She saw her father and Aunt Artemis on Delos, the former playing a mournful tune on his lyre.

There was also an image of Annabeth on the Argo II. She looked exhausted and defeated. She played with her Camp beads as she stared at her broken ankle then looked off to the horizon of the Argo, her cheeks stained with dried tears.

She saw three figures, that seemed to be trying to tell her something. But she couldn't bother to hear them when a hissing sound kept filling her ears.

To drown out the images and all the overwhelming noise Lucia kept focusing on Percy's heartbeat.

They'd been holding hands ever since they dropped into the chasm. Now Percy pulled her into him. He held her close, hugging her tight as they tumbled through absolute darkness. She tucked her face into his neck, taking in the salty scent of him that smelled way better than the chasm of death. She pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder. There was no other intention but to remind him that she was there with him.

Wind whistled in Lucia's ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon.

Percy was still covered in cobwebs. Lucia felt bitter every time she thought of what happened. Of how terrible, unfair, things kept happening to them. She had truly thought she had escaped this, She thought that they would be able to handle it without the darkness this time, how naive she was...

She winced, another vision invaded her mind, the memory of her holding onto Ethan's hand, and the way he let go before falling to his death...

She wrapped her arms around Percy and tried not to sob. She'd never expected this life to be easy. She knew it would be a different kind of pain than her abusive and exploitative home life. She knew most demigods died young at the hands of terrible monsters. And she knew heroes never lived happy lives, but sacrificed them for others.

That was the way it had been since ancient times. The Greeks invented tragedy. They knew the greatest heroes didn't get happy endings.

Still, this wasn't fair. She'd gone through so much. She had fought so hard. Just when things seemed to be looking up and she'd been feeling better, when she finally felt safe...they had plunged to their deaths.

Who could devise a fate so twisted for her?

Gaea wasn't like other gods. The Earth Mother was older, more vicious, more bloodthirsty. Lucia could even imagine her laughing as they fell into the depths. But something told her there was more to this, she remembered the words of a voice that didn't sound like the Earth Mother. It sounded shrill but familiar when she heard it, and in the moment she hardly realized how it sounded like multiple voices overlapping each other.