Wanted: The Dark Kingdom (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Chapter 2-The Slave Camp

Wanted-The Dark Kingdom

Chapter 2: The Slave Camp

How could one love something that was only meant to corrupt them? To destroy them. To shatter all that makes them whole and happy. How? That was the question I asked myself on a daily basis. He was dark and merciless. He would take life without hesitance. He would spill blood- and name it 'justice'. How? How could I still believe in someone like that? How could I love someone who took all who I loved and cared for deeply. Was it because he still remained? But wasn't the man I loved lost in the man that I watch corrupt? I don't know. I don't know the answer to my question. And maybe I'm not meant to know. Maybe there isn't an answer in the first place.

Annabeth Chase's Diary age 243

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The heat had grown unbearable, but there was nothing she could do about it. Her thirst grew too, but there was nothing she could do about it. Campers would faint right before her eyes from exhaustion and she would watch as they were beaten, but there was nothing she could do about it. Innocent demigods were dying everyday, but there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing she could do about the destruction of her world. There was nothing to do but wait. To wait for either death, or freedom. And to Hazel Levesque, death and freedom had become the same thing.

Hazel had been standing in the heat for the past six hours, working in the strawberry fields. She would have to keep working until sunset, which was hours away. She wished she could stop. She wished she could drop the basket of strawberries and instead lie down on the grass and enjoy the beauty of the field before her. But to call her surroundings beautiful? She considered that a crime. It was far from beautiful. By her side, hundreds of campers worked while the guards who were sent from hell, with whips already dripping with blood, taunted them. Those who would show any sign of exhaustion or would slow down, would get whipped. Those who fainted from the heat, they would get whipped. Those who would dare to complain or fight back, they were met with a slow gruesome death.

These guards whipped because they were following orders. The orders of a man who Hazel could no longer say his name without fear crowding and caging her heart. A man Hazel once called a friend, but now the name 'murderer' wasn't enough to describe him. Hazel could feel herself choking up on the thought of him, she could feel her exhaustion truly weighing her down now, killing her from the inside. But she didn't dare stop nor slow down, she kept going, plucking one strawberry after the other while ignoring the heat that beat down at her so hard. If she was only allowed a water break. No. She wasn't allowed to, not until sunset when she could finally rest, when she could finally feel human again.

Five years. It seemed like a lifetime ago when Hazel lost her freedom and when she failed those who trusted her to save them. She had taken stupid decisions that were crowded with love and guilt, not with logic. All along Hazel knew, she knew she wasn't doing the right thing. Deep down, in the deepest part of her mind. Yet she kept making excuses to give Percy a second chance and too many times he had proven what she feared. He didn't want to be saved. There was nothing left to save in the first place.

If Hazel could see Percy again, she would kill him, without a moment's hesitation and she would save Annabeth in the process too. Annabeth. Hazel hadn't heard anything about her in the past five years. Even when the camp would send a decent number of slaves every year to serve Percy, when they would return a year later, Hazel would confront them immediately and try to pull any piece of information out of them. But they would all tell her the same. 'She's alive. She looks healthy. But we have never spoken to her, we hardly ever see her. But when we do, she's with him. Wherever he goes, she follows.'

Hazel simply refused to believe that Percy hadn't hurt Annabeth in any way possible, even if there were no apparent bruises or scars, he was a monster. He could have mentally tortured her, drove her to madness.

A camper accidently bumped into Hazel, causing her to stumble backwards a few steps but not fall. She was so lost in her thoughts; she was slowing down. Thankfully, the guards on patrol didn't notice her stumble, so Hazel instantly stepped back into work. "Sorry." The camper next to her whispered.

"It's okay. We're all tired." Hazel whispered back, glancing at the camper. But the smile on her face faded as soon as she saw the demigod. Jason. She had hardly said a word to him after Percy was crowned king. Actually, no one ever said a word to him. Not one camper. Piper pretended he didn't even exist. Sure, Hazel and her friends were all to blame for Percy's victory. But Jason had taken on the most burden from it, the campers viewed him as a coward who was too afraid of killing Percy or getting killed himself. Hazel didn't blame him for being afraid, but he had taken the two camps down with him. Even Leo, Frank and Reyna didn't acknowledge him. The truth was, they hardly acknowledged each other.

To call them 'friends' was wrong. They had all drifted apart, they were like ghosts to each other and everyone around them. The campers wanted nothing to do with them and they wanted nothing to do with each other. Simple as that. The only person who remained in her life, the only person she would speak to was Frank. But even their relationship was one bruised and wounded with the past, wounds that could never close haunted her every time she spoke to him.

The others? Hazel probably only said a word or two to them in the past five years. It was how it was. And how it always will be. Hazel looked away from Jason and went back to work, counting down the hours until she could finally rest. 

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A/N: I know this chapter was really short, but the first few chapters will be similar to this before we truly get into the story itself, not the characters' views about the past five years.