Aeternum Vindicta

Act I, Chapter II

ACT I, CHAPTER II

Life is fleeting.

One moment you are there, the next, you are not.

And yet, we spend our precious little time on this world, in quarrels.

It doesn't seem fair to others, does it?

Percy stared bitterly at the castle - a bastion in the night, the sounds of clashing metal and dying screams ringing out from within.

They were killing anyone out of rage.

A war was brewing in Troy and Dardania where he stood - but he just couldn't bring himself to care.

The sky was alight - burning, the clouds dark and angry, looming with Zeus's divine temper. They were watching. The gods were watching.

Perhaps he should just count himself dead.

Hestia was right. Of course she was right. She was an all seeing goddess, and had he listened to her forthcomings sooner...

Such is the art of deception.

Regardless of whom conquers whom, if only he could accept letting go of Aphrodite's divine intervention, there would be no instances of regret.

'Impossible,' he'd tell himself. To do so would separate anyone from being human. His anger was what made him mortal, and he wouldn't be relinquishing or forgiving so soon.

It was a constant reminder to himself that he was no longer a carefree child - his mind now filled with hasty battle strategies and jumbled conceptions.

With nowhere to go now, he'd have to think like a child of Athena.

And yet no matter how much he tried to think - the sounds of his mother's dying screams rang out in the silent night, perpetuating on and on.

A sin.

A sin only he could hear, and would hear for the rest of his life.

How long could he bear such a burden?

For once, Perseus felt overwhelmed. He wanted to shrink into a ball, to hug his mother tightly and be told that it was all going to be alright.

All of this was just... too much for him.

For a second, he sat there in contemplation. Trying to shake off the loss, trying to forget. At this stage, he'd be doing himself a favor to forget everything.

As for his mother... Perseus wondered about life after death. What happens to one when they die?

The thought of realising that you're dead, and that you're nothing more than a memory, or stage of someone's life, helpless to influence the world... he wasn't sure if he'd like that.

But now, seeing his mother gone... Perseus couldn't bring himself to care.

She had been there one moment, and gone the next. The last thing he had remembered were her last words, and even that was quickly vanishing.

The one person he needed was gone, forever.

The thought made him sick.

Yet another part of him inside forced him to keep going - to survive in the name of his mother. Nobody would remember her if he died.

And as he stumbled around the forest, the sticky sensation of his bleeding blood - from the sharp twigs, mixed with the sticky layer of foreign blood on his toes.

His mother's blood, mixed with her beloved child to create a sadistic, twisted tribute to love and life.

How much would he have to give in order to spend time with her again?