"Send me! Send an army! Send a thousand ships! I don't care, just bring her home. I hate being without her."
[ PERCY JACKSON x FEMALE OC ]
[ PERCY JACKSON SERIES ]
cover by @humaneity !
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0012. | ONE MUST BE WILLING TO DIE TO TRULY LIVE
Memory is easily tampered.
When the mind is not strong enough to hold such information, it can forget some things, memories can be lost and let go without even knowing. The subconscious was a powerful thing, and even more so than disease. It was not health that was affecting Octavia's brain anymore, it was trauma.
Her nervous system was constantly in use. Adrenaline was her highest produced hormone. She was not digesting food, she was not sleeping, she was not even breathing properly because every reaction or expression she gave was under surveillance. There was no rest she could get, no moment to herself. She was never alone. Her big brother was watching.
For days, her heart had been ice and her bowels water. It was an embarrassing thing to admit but it was the only thing her body could not control. Despite all the fear that was making her act in such a protected way, she could calm her breathing, her expression, even her heartbeat, but her fucking bowels were screwing her over. If she hadn't been eating so little, or had she not implied to Luke that she was on her period, it would have become suspicious. Luckily for her, he was so boyish about the idea and kept away, she knew she had bought herself some excuse.
Excuses was all that was helping her amend Luke's memory too. Honesty was her weapon and yet it was being used against her. She had been minding her words so carefully for the past days that she couldn't think on anything else. She had no strategy, no plan, no thought of getting out or getting off Mount Othrys. She was back in her prison and her only thoughts that raced through her mind all day, every day, chanted the same thing.
Stay alive. Do whatever it takes to stay alive.
So far, that meant separating her mind from her body. She would touch Luke's hand and smile and he would believe she loved him, but her heart would cinch and a part of her would hate herself a little more for giving in. For that, her subconscious stored the memory away to never be thought of again. She was protecting herself in the only way she knew how—she was becoming Helen.
She had once hated Helen's constant silence in her dreams of Troy. Now, being in it, Octavia only just understood what she had taken for granted. She could wake and free herself from the torment of imprisonment. Helen lived it all day, every day for a decade. Being only a few days into her own torment, Octavia was doing the only thing her soul knew to protect her—silence herself.
Of course she wasn't mute. She knew that would be too suspicious to Luke, but she never said her thoughts aloud too freshly. Everything she thought and said was filtered now. It was her only way to survive with Luke breathing down her neck.
She had eaten under his eye, drank, breathed, slept, trained—everything. He had taken to some habits, some more alarming than others. A kind one was that he would take a sip and a bite of everything she drank and ate. It was a sad kindness as it was only born out of him having poisoned her, but it was an effort towards trust which he had been so focused toward. A less kind one was the handcuffs which stayed at the bedpost. He said that his army wasn't to be trusted so she slept beside him. He said that she wasn't to be trusted, so her arm welded with a bow was kept secure each night. She would sleep beside him, sometimes with the weight of his arm across her like a vice, and she would exhaust herself staying awake beyond hours just so she wouldn't fall asleep in his arms and be vulnerable.
