Percy Jackson and the lightning thief

We become know fugitives [Percy]

I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera.

The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!

The river raced toward me at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from my lungs.
Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision. And then: Flaaa-boooom!

A whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever.

But my impact with the water hadn't hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage — beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags — swirled up all around me.

At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. I had not been barbecued. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good.

Second realization: I wasn't wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry.

I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter. No way, I thought.

I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.

I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.

But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.

I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should 've been dead.

The fact that I wasn't seemed like ... well, a miracle. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: Percy, what do you say?

"Urn ... thanks." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid.
"Thank you ... Poseidon.

No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.
Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance.

Those poor people in the Arch were probably toast. I couldn't protect them. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders.

Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around.
There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

I swam up and picked it up. I capped my sword, stuck the ballpoint pen in my pocket.

Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface.

I came ashore next to a floating McDonald's.

A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve.

A little girl said, "Mama! That boy walked out of the river."

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

"But he's dry!"

"That's nice, dear."

A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

Survivors. I felt a surge of relief. Maybe the park ranger and that family made it out safely. I hoped Annabeth and Grover were okay.
I tried to push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police
line.

"... an adolescent boy," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities ..."
I backed away, trying to keep my head down. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter. Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere.

I'd almost lost hope of finding everyone else when a familiar voice called out, "Percy!"

I turned and got tackled by Harry's hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to meet our parents."

'Question: when we die,' I asked him ' are we gonna go to wizard afterlife or Greek afterlife'

'... why'

Annabeth stood behind him, looking angry , "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"

"I sort of fell."

"Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. I recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua — "

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." Then she saw me. "There he is! That's the boy!"

We all turned quickly and disappeared into the crowd.

"What's going on?" Mattheo demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

I told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna and my high-dive act.

"Cats are definitely better than dogs." said Jade.

We passed another reporter doing a news break, and we almost froze in our tracks when he said, "That's right, Dan. We've identified three of the children. Channel Twelve has learned that three of the six pre-teens who may have caused this explosion fits the description of Jade Riddle, Mattheo Riddle and Annabeth Chase wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And they are believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Jade Riddle, Mattheo Riddle and Annabeth Chase. And her is a photo of their three other common."

"Shit." we all said in unison.

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.