Standing Up With Love

Chapter 1

Percy first knew that something was wrong with the house when he stepped into that bedroom on the third floor. Everything had just been...left. Dust was the only reminder that no one was currently living there. The blankets were pulled back on the bed, the closet door was wide open. Clothes of all colors hung.

"Hello?" Percy managed. "If someone's here, I bought this house. You can't be here anymore."

The room seemed to laugh at him, suffocating him. He ran out with a sick sense of death.

Most of the house seemed happy and livable, a good place for his family. A cheap place. But two bedrooms felt like death, felt like the living didn't belong. So he made sure to lock the doors and hide the key from sight.

And as it turned out, Annabeth didn't notice. She didn't notice anything, really. She always sat at the dining room table with her blueprints out in front of her, staring at the pages as if God himself was speaking through them. Their kids couldn't get a word out of her, nor could Percy.

And it hurt, oh god did it hurt. His chest ached and his heart barely beat. He missed his wife. His kids missed their mom. But she still didn't look at them.

There were cries in the night, horrible nightmares that tormented his oldest daughter. She wanted her mom to comfort her. Her mom just wanted to get an hour of rest.

The second night the cries stopped. Percy peeked into the room to find Octavia sitting on her bed, her blankets wrapped around her shoulders as she watched something unseen to Percy but so vivid to her. Something that calmed her down enough to eventually fall asleep.

Even though she was calmed, it freaked Percy out. Someone, something, was there. It was in his house and he couldn't see it, couldn't touch it, couldn't feel it. But it spoke to his daughter and made itself known to her.

And he couldn't do a damn thing about it.