Always The Prey (PART 3)

Chapter 20: Into The Light

Percy Jackson's POV

You might be asking how I got here.

Actually, wait, no. First, you might be asking where "here" is in the first place. I'm standing in front of three really old dudes, who are sitting on nice looking chairs, who are judging me for literally every single thing I did in my life.

Except, well, there wasn't that much judgment. I got a lot of praise. And a quick passageway. Free of tolls too, which I thought was nice.

Now you might probably be asking how I got here.

The battle against Tartarus was fast and vicious. He was ruthless and a wickedly good fighter. I'm not even sure how I was able to hold myself against him. Anyway, I was doing far better than I originally was when I first met the guy. I mean, I still feel embarrassed thinking about how I dropped my sword at the sight of him!

"Are you ready to give up now, young demigod? You don't stand a chance!" he shouted, cackling as he lashed out with his sword. I quickly moved mine to parry against the blow that could quite literally slice my head off.

"No! I'm uh doing uh great!" I shouted back in between gasps of air. Gods, ever since I got out of Tartarus and breathed all that nasty air, my stamina really decreased and I feel myself getting out of breath a lot faster now.

The fight wasn't even going horribly. Even though my level was way under his, I was still doing pretty good. I mean, I haven't died yet, so that's definitely saying something.

But then all went to Hades pretty much after that.

Tartarus got a good nick on my upper, sword arm that threw me off for a second. Then I started to hear voices in my head.

"Remember when you were down in my realm, Perseus?" the voice told me. I clenched my jaw and tried to block it off, pouring all my remaining energy into the fight. But the voice was just getting louder. "Remember your screams, Perseus? Remember the girl's? The blond one, Annabeth. Hmm, two whole years clearly wasn't enough. I thought I broke you but, well. You want to spend more time down there? My monsters are itching to get you back into that cell, Perseus. Don't you remember? The pain?"

I couldn't ignore the words anymore. I could feel the terrors creep up in the back of my mind, a flashback coming. My vision was getting blurry and my knuckles turned white as I gripped so tightly around the sword hilt to not let Tartarus see my hands shaking.

"No, no! You can't, n—!" I started to yell back at him, but I was cut off by a sickening scream.

I whipped my head around to the crowd to find who had just gotten hurt.

Was it Annabeth?

But then I noticed Tartarus had stopped fighting.

My knees buckled and collided with the ground.

I screamed. So loud, hollow, and full of pain.

I stared down at my abdomen. My pale hands let go of Riptide and placed itself on my stomach.

They quickly became tinted red.

A gaping, rapidly bleeding hole erupted in the middle of my stomach; Tartarus' sword was still imbedded within it.

Did I feel pain? I don't even know. It looked like it was supposed to hurt, but I couldn't feel anything.

I didn't feel anything.

Somewhere along the line I was aware that Tartarus had left. The war had finished. But did we win?

Everywhere around me, I heard people, no, my family, screaming. Someone was crying. Someone was yelling for a medic. Everything blurred together.

I saw a girl with blond hair run towards me. I couldn't make out her face. She knelt behind me and lifted up my head to put it on her lap. I couldn't speak, but I wanted to comfort her. Her tears blurred her gray eyes.

Gray.

Annabeth Chase.

My girlfriend.

My Wise Girl.

My soulmate.

My second half.

"I LOVE YOU!" I tried to mouth out, but I started coughing on my own blood. I forced myself to croak out the words. Annabeth started sobbing harder, screaming so loudly, with so much hatred, against the gods. Against fate.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO HIM? HOW?" she screamed. My ears were ringing. My whole body shuddered, drawing her attention back to me. "Oh gods, oh my gods."

"You're going to be okay Percy," she whispered to me, smoothing her hand across my pale face, trying to move my damp, sweaty hair out of my eyes. "You are safe now. I love you! Oh gods, I love you! You can rest now. You can rest."

My eyes fluttered and I tried to get one last good look at the girl that I loved. The girl I hoped to marry. The girl I wanted to spend a future with and now couldn't.

Damn you fates.

And my eyes finally shut.

So there you have it.

That's how I ended up, being judged and sent on a fast track to the Isle of the Blest.