Then I Was Alone (Percy Jackson)

Chapter One

Nico

Sometimes people forget that Percy is human, too. That he has feelings and he needs things. Sometimes, I do, too.

And to be fair, I probably should've treated him a little nicer. He tried so hard to just be there for me and I never let him. Now I might as well flaunt Jason around for being my best friend over him.

Well, summer comes around. And he's back.

With both Romans and Greeks here, he got a lot of shit. I mean, they just tossed him off to the side. Even our friends.

Even Annabeth. I guess they broke up and like... He was just kind of treated like shit.

Because guess what, we weren't in trouble. The gods weren't mad. There wasn't a problem to be dealt with. He had nothing to do. He was virtually useless.

I didn't treat him any differently. I'm not sure if that was good or bad. Both, I think.

He managed half of summer without even looking like he was phased by this. A month and a half.

At the time, I was in the Big House with Chiron. Nothing out of the blue, we talk here and there. He likes to check in, which is nice.

Mr. D snuck his head in.

"Dionysus," Chiron remarked. "Can I help you?"

"There's an emergency in cabin 3."

"Can the council not—"

"A class S emergency, Chiron."

His dues went wide, because there's only one demigod in that cabin. And that's Percy.

I didn't know what a class S was, but he did. Apologizing, Chiron b-lined it out of the Big House. Leaving me, kind of confused.

"Sorry to cut your check in short," Mr. D apologized. He wasn't that bad of a dude when you sat down and talked to him for a few minutes. "But had I waited, you probably would've figured it out. Being Hades' kid and all."

Confused, I turned to face him.

"Is Percy okay?" I asked, because if figure it out without being told, that suggests he's dead. I really haven't talked to him this summer. Or the last few.... Number of years.

"I hope so," Mr. D knew that would help me whatsoever. "You haven't talked to him recently, have you?"

I shook my head.

"We don't really talk outside of the meetings," I confirmed what he already knew. "So no. I know that like him and Annabeth broke up. Jason, Frank, all of them don't really talk to him. I just kind of stay out it. I don't know anything that everyone else doesn't know."

I was about to find out a whole lot. Because it wasn't twenty minutes later Chiron had brought Percy in from the back, carrying him.

When Chiron put him down, I don't think he moved. He just laid there, in some order world. And it... Hurt.

I still like him, sure. I sort of love him, but you get the point. I just was hoping it'd pass because I'm pretty sure it's his last summer.

So I cared.

"Did he..."

"He tried, yeah," Chiron said and that's when I realized what the emergency was. The whole class S thing. "Fought against me a lot."

Kind of worried sick, I felt really weird at dinner. I really wasn't that hungry, either. With the table rule dismissed, everyone sitting with me noticed I was kind of off.