Warped: Sea of Monsters (A Percy Jackson Fanfic) (Book 7)

Chapter 8: Demon Pigeons Attack (Again. And There's More of Them.) (Isa's POV)

As the next few days passed, Percy wasn't acting normal. It was a bit scary. He was lashing out a bit more, getting really defensive, especially when people called Tyson his brother. Percy claimed whenever he wasn't around that Tyson was his half-brother. Nobody bought his defenses. I got feelings that Percy felt like he was no longer the cool guy who had retrieved the Lightning Bolt last summer. Just the uncool poor schmuck with a monster for a brother. Ashamed and embarrassed and angry auras overtook him.
I tried to cheer Percy up, but my advances were all rejected in an angry defense. And that hurt my feelings. The one person I loved most was snapping at me, and angrily rejecting my advances to make him feel better. It was scary. And heart-breaking. I almost went into another suicidal spiral. But Noah and Ben got me out of it. Now, it was more of thoughts of hurting myself on purpose that I had to deal with. So I discovered the Butterfly project, and began doing it. It had me draw butterflies on my arm with a marker or pen whenever I thought about hurting myself. Hurting myself on purpose would kill all the butterflies if there were more than one, as well as trying to scrub them off and not let them fade naturally. I had to name each one after a loved one or someone who would want me to get better. The most special ones were the ones other people drew on my arm. Ben drew one, and so did Noah (it was a little sloppy, since he didn't have hands, but I still loved it.)
So far, I had four. . .Ben's, Noah's, and two others that I drew on myself.
Annabeth and him teamed up for the chariot races. It was a logical and competitive decision, as well as to distract him. Athena, Annabeth's mom created the chariot, and Poseidon created horses.
Even though I wasn't getting chores, Ben and I teamed up in the chariot races. I was one with the animals and had the imagination, and Ben had the knack for science and physics needed to build and prepare a chariot. Sure, we probably wouldn't beat Percy and Annabeth, but Ben wanted to have some fun, and I couldn't help but join.

One day, when Annabeth and Percy and Ben and I were sketching out designs for our chariots by the canoe lake. Noah was hanging out by us. As we were simultaneously making designs, I was playing fetch with Noah with the throwbone, and throwing it into the lake for Noah to go get. He was loving it. That was when some jokers from Aphrodite's cabin walked by and asked me if I needed to borrow some eyeliner for my eye. . . "Oh, sorry, eyes."
    As they walked away laughing, Noah had just about had it, after getting out of the water. He decided to steal something off of them. Particularly, eyeliner. He stole the expensive eyeliner off one of them, and the girl tried to get it back from Noah, but he ran off with it. The girl tried to chase him, but it was too late. Noah had jettisoned it into the canoe lake, and then targeted them to get them wet with his shake.
    The girl got very upset and tried to strangle Noah, but then Noah ran back into the water, flipping her into the lake. The group grumbled off.
    I laughed. "Noah! You are such a silly boy! Come here!"
    Noah ran over, and I scratched him in between the ears. Am I a good boy? Did I do good?
    "Yes, you did splendid, Noah. You wanna continue playing fetch?"
    Noah got ready to run for the throwbone. Do I? Throw it!    I threw the throwbone into the lake, and Noah immediately went after it.
    Annabeth grumbled. "Just ignore them, Percy. It isn't your fault you have a monster for a brother."
    "He's not my brother!" Percy snapped. "And he's not a monster, either!"
    I eyed him, and I rubbed my arm where I had drawn the most recent butterflies, covering it with my sleeve.
    Ben looked at me sympathetically. "Do you maybe wanna work somewhere else?"
I shake my head. "Noah's really happy right now. I don't want to ruin his fun."
    Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Hey, don't get mad at me! And technically, he is a monster."
    "Well, you gave him permission to enter camp."
    "Because it was the only way to save your life while Isa was dealing with the other bull! I mean. . .I'm sorry, Percy, I didn't expect Poseidon to claim him. Cyclopes are the most deceitful, treacherous—"
"He is not! What have you got against Cyclopes, anyway?"
Annabeth's ears turned pink. I got the feeling there was something she wasn't saying—something bad.
"Just forget it," she said. "Now, the axle for this chariot—"
"You're treating him like he's this horrible thing," Percy said. "He saved my life."
Annabeth threw down her pencil and stood. "Then maybe you should design a chariot with him."
"Maybe I should."
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
She stormed off. Percy's aura got even bluer. I went to go comfort him, but then he once again snapped. "Why do you keep doing this? I've told you so many times, lay off me!"
"But I just want to—"
"Go!"
I had to hold back tears as I walked off. That afternoon, there was another butterfly on my arm. Number five.

I tried to stay away from Percy for the next couple days. But no matter where I went, he was there. Silena Beauregard, one of the nicer girls of the Aphrodite cabin was teaching Percy to ride a Pegasus. Tyson wanted ride them too, but the horses didn't trust him. Tyson started crying. Next time I saw them, Beckendorf, was teaching Tyson how to metalwork. He was the only other person who didn't have a problem with Tyson. Absolutely no problem at all!
So, I just tried blocking everything out with my earbuds and music. That worked mostly. Except when Percy and I had the same activities. At arts and crafts we were made to sit across from each other. Percy ended up ditching his project for it looking like Sylvester Stallone, whoever that was.
Meanwhile, I was making a masterpiece on a canvas, with a hidden symbol which expressed my feelings. It was a vivid, colorful cartoon-esque painting of paradise on earth-16 I had created. I portrayed all the wolves. In the painting, Noah was splashing around in the waterfall. Everest stood atop a rock looking out. Moon Moon was nearby, howling. Tucker was hanging out with a bunny. Basil was a blur, with super speed, running across. The pups, Droplet and Splat were playing and rolling all over each other in the back. Addison was on the other side, with glasses on her face, looking at a book (Addison can read.) And lastly Wink was chasing a butterfly, with that cheeky wink on his face. The hidden symbol was in the butterfly itself. The Butterfly project. The butterfly had teardrop designs on it. My pain, all in a small little butterfly.
Even after that, I tried making a gift for Percy. Maybe that could cheer him up. I made him a little elephant plush out of crochet. I pushed it towards him across the table at the end of Arts and Crafts. But Percy once again rejected it, pushing it back towards me, as he got up for his next activity. What was I doing wrong? Was I just not good enough? Maybe he would notice if. . .no. I can't. I grabbed a marker.
Another butterfly appeared on my arm. Number six.
I could see the worry growing day by day in Percy's eyes. But no matter what I did to make him feel better he kept pushing me away. And little by little, more and more butterflies appeared on my left arm.
The night before the race, I couldn't sleep.
Noah perked up from his sleep on my bed. I pet his head.
He whimpered. What's wrong?
"I'm getting worse." I said. "Percy's getting worse. Everything is getting worse and worse, Noah. The Camp is in danger. Tantalus is a jerk. Percy's upset and getting just purely angry, Grover might be in danger, and my friends are turned on each other."
Noah got up, and pulled me out of bed. Get up. We going for a walk.
"A walk?" I asked. "This late?"
He grabbed what I liked to call my "goddess" dress from the closet.
"Okay, okay, we'll go for a walk at the beach," I said, getting into the dress, and putting on my flower circlet that Wink gave me in my last mission. I went out completely barefoot, my left arm, completely bare, with all the butterflies in marker in full view. Some were fresh and some were faded. I didn't mind. It wasn't like anyone was gonna see us.
I grabbed the throwbone, my sword, and the crochet hippo and we walked to the beach of Long Island Sound. Flowers sprouted and bloomed at my heels as I walked with Noah. I dipped my feet in the water. It was a cool feeling that I welcomed, as I sat down just on the shore, letting my feet get wet. I threw the throwbone and Noah went after it. The night sky was pretty tonight. The crescent moon hung in the sky, with all the stars burning brightly in the sky. I could point out all the constellations.
I looked at the crochet elephant . It's adorable eyes stared back at me. But I couldn't feel anything except the chaos that was my head. I threw the hippo plush down on the ground. I had the urge to cut myself with my sword, end the chaos with physical pain. I drew another butterfly on my arm. Now it had increased to ten. But I continued stabbing with my pen, pushing down so hard, I had made a cut which bled. The pain, for the first time, it was soothing to the chaos of my head. The butterflies were dead.
Noah whimpered at seeing my blood. You cut yourself. . .you said you weren't. . .that's why you were doing this.
Tears streamed down my face. "I'm sorry, Noah. But my head isn't a good place to be right now."
I scrubbed off all ten (now dead) butterflies off my arm with the water from the sea. I splashed my face with it, welcoming the cold feeling on my face.
Meanwhile, Noah was already drawing a new sloppy butterfly with his teeth and my pen. We had to start over. . .
And we went back to the cabin and I finally fell asleep. Leaving the elephant behind on the beach. . .